THE
PLANNED
BY the late LORD ACTON LL.D.
REGIUS
PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY
EDITED
BY
A. W. WARD Litt.D.
G. W, PROTHERO Litt.D. STANLEY LEATHES MA.
PREFACE.
AS we advance
towards modern times, our task must needs become more difficult. The mass of
material from which history has to be constructed grows constantly greater; and
the sources have not yet been collated and coordinated so thoroughly as in
earlier periods. The political struggles of the early nineteenth century still
awake living passions and touch burning controversies of today. The scene is
nearer to our eyes; proportion and perspective are in consequence more
difficult to preserve. On the other hand, for this period the authentic records
are for the most part now accessible, though as yet imperfectly worked; for
periods still later they will be closed to us, except in so far as a more
liberal system may lead to the removal of unnecessary restrictions.
The unity of
action and interests which characterises the history of Europe in the
Napoleonic period still survives for some years after the Emperor’s fall. For
seven years the attempt was made to govern European relations, and the affairs
of individual StateSj by common action concerted in European conclave. The
epoch during which this unifying effort was maintained is surveyed in a separate
chapter of this volume; for once, it is actually possible to treat the history
of Europe as a single whole; and international relations group themselves as
the affairs of an inchoate Confederation. But national aspirations soon
shattered this ideal, the individualist policy of Great Britain largely
contributing to the rupture. Thus in the later part of the period international
relations must be studied in connexion with particular questions: more
especially, with that of South America, with the Eastern Question, and with the
problems presented by the various revolutions and by the unstable political
equilibrium of the countries of southern Europe. The grouping of the Powers
varies as each new question arises. Meanwhile the evolution of the modern State
proceeds
and can be
studied best in the United Kingdom, where the most momentous problems were
successfully and peacefully solved, and also, at different stages, in France
and Germany. In Russia alone among the Great Powers reaction seems more evident
than progress; and the dreams of Alexander are found to have produced no
tangible effect. This volume closes on the threshold of other and greater
changes, whose effect on the European polity is not yet exhausted.
We have been
fortunate in securing the cooperation of distinguished foreign scholars for
chapters which deal with the affairs of France, Italy,, Spain, Russia, and
Poland. Economic changes and economic thought have received due attention; and
place has been found for the great literary movements in England, France, and
Germany. In some cases a retrospect has enabled us to do justice to
developments which it was difficult to consider in conjunction with the
tumultuous politics of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.
Russian and
Polish orthography have presented a difficult problem. The compromise between a
phonetic and the native spelling which we have adopted is not and cannot be in
all respects satisfactory; but the correct native spelling of Polish names
would involve the use of an alphabet unknown to most of our readers; and a
purely phonetic spelling would be too great a deviation from customary usage.
In one case we have deliberately retained the familiar German transliteration.
General Diebitsch might not have been recognised as Dybicz.
Our cordial
thanks are due to all those who have cooperated with us in this portion also of
our enterprise for the great pains which they have taken in contributing to its
progress.
A. W. W.
G. W. P.
S. L.
Cambridge,
' April,
1907.
CHAPTER I.
THE CONGRESSES,
1815-22.
By
W. Alison Phillips, M.A., formerly
Senior Scholar of St John’s College,
Oxford.
CHAPTER II.
THE
DOCTRINAIRES.
CHAPTER III.
REACTION AND
REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.
By
]£mile Bourgeois, Professor in the
University of Paris.
CHAPTER IV.
ITALY.
By Cablo Segr,£, Professor in the
University of Rome.
CHAPTER V.
THE PAPACY
AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
By Lady Blennerhassett.
CHAPTER VI.
GREECE AND
THE BALKAN PENINSULA.
By W. Alison Phillips, M.A.
CHAPTER VII.
SPAIN.
(1815-45.)
By Rafael Altamira, Professor of the
History of Law in the University of Oviedo.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SPANISH
DOMINIONS IN AMERICA.
By
F. A. Kirkpatrick, M.A., formerly
Scholar of Trinity College.
CHAPTER IX.
THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF INDEPENDENCE IN SPANISH AMERICA. By F. A. Kirkpatrick, M.A.
CHAPTER X.
BRAZIL AND
PORTUGAL.
By the Rev. Geobge Edmundson, M.A., formerly Fellow
and Tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford.
CHAPTER XI.
THE GERMANIC
FEDERATION.
(1815-40.)
By A. F. Pollaed, M.A., Professor of Constitutional
History in University College, London.
CHAPTER XII.
LITERATURE IN
GERMANY.
By J. G. Robertson, M.A., B.Sc:, Ph.D., Professor
of German Language and Literature in the University of London.
CHAPTER XIII.
RUSSIA.
By S. Askenazy, Ph.D., Professor in the
University of Lemberg.
POLAND AND
THE POLISH REVOLUTION.
By S. Askenazy, Ph.D.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ORLEANS
MONARCHY.
By Emile
Bourgeois.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LOW
COUNTRIES.
By the Rev. George Edmundson, M.A.
CHAPTER XVII.
MEHEMET A LI.
By W. Alison Phillips, M.A.
GREAT
BRITAIN.
(1815-32.)
By H. W. V. Temperley,
M.A., Fellow of Peterhouse.
CATHOLIC
EMANCIPATION.
By H. W. C. Davis,
M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford.
GREAT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND.
(1832-41.)
By G. P. Gooch,
M.A., M.P., Trinity College.
CHAPTER XXI.
CANADA.
By E. A. Benians, M.A., Fellow of St John’s
College.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE
REVOLUTION IN ENGLISH POETRY AND FICTION.
By W. J. Courthope, C.B., D.Litt., LL.D., New
College, Oxford, First Civil Service Commissioner.
CHAPTER
XXIII.
ECONOMIC
CHANGE.
By J. H. Clapham, M.A., King’s College, Professor
of Economics in the University of Leeds.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE BRITISH
ECONOMISTS.
By J. S. Nicholson, D.Sc., Trinity College,
Professor of Political Economy in the University of Edinburgh.
CHAPTER I.
THE
CONGRESSES, 1815-22.
Napoleon, in his exile at St Helena, explained
to the world, through his secretary Las Cases, the great ideal toward which all
his efforts had been directed. He had aimed, he said, at concentrating the
great European peoples, divided hitherto by a multiplicity of artificial
boundaries, into homogeneous nations, out of which he would have formed a
confederation bound together “ by unity of codes, principles, opinions,
feelings, and interests.” At the head of this league, under the aegis of his
Empire, he had dreamed of establishing a central assembly, modelled on the
American Congress or the Amphictyonic assembly of Greece, to watch over the
common weal of “the great European family.” The dream had been dissipated by
his ruin; but he prophesied that it would yet be realised, sooner or later, “
by the force of circumstances.” “ The impulse has been given, and I do not
think that, after my fall and the disappearance of my system, there will be any
other great equilibrium possible in Europe than the concentration and confederation
of the great peoples. The first sovereign who, in the midst of the first great
struggle, shall embrace in good faith the cause of the peoples, will find
himself at the head of fill Europe, and will be able to accomplish whatever he
wishes.”
Whether, but
for the chastening effect of his downfall, Napoleon would ever have proclaimed
this ideal, or whether, had he done so, circumstances, which he acknowledged
to have been even his master, would have enabled him to realise it, is a
speculation more fascinating than profitable. The significant thing is that so
keen an observer of the temper of the times should have given it to the world,
on the morrow of the Congress of Vienna, as the apology for his career.
The treaties
which were the outcome of the Congress were, in fact, a bitter disappointment
to those who had looked for an authoritative recognition of those new-born
forces of nationality to which, in the stress of the War of Liberation, the
monarchs had appealed. They were scarcely less of a disappointment to those who
had hoped from this unique constituent assembly of sovereign princes an
international constitution which would have obviated for ever the need of the
barbarous
appeal to
arms. “ Men had promised themselves,” wrote Friedrich von Gentz, immediately
after he had witnessed the signing of the Final Act, “ an all-embracing reform
of the political system of Europe, guarantees for peace; in one word, the
return of the Golden Age. The Congress has resulted in nothing but
restorations, which had already been effected by arms; agreements between the
Great Powers, of little value for the future balance and preservation of the
peace of Europe; quite arbitrary alterations in the possessions of the less
important States; but in no act of a higher nature, no great measure for public
order or for the universal good, which might compensate humanity for its long
sufferings, or reassure it as to the future....The Protocol of the Congress
bears the stamp rather of a temporary agreement than of work destined to last
for centuries. But, to be just. The Treaty, such as it is, has the undeniable
merit of having prepared the world for a more complete political structure. If
ever the Powers should meet again to establish a political system by which wars
of conquest would be rendered impossible and the rights of all guaranteed, the
Congress of Vienna, as a preparatory assembly, will not have been without use.
A number of vexatious details have been settled, and the ground has been made
ready for building up a better social structure.” It is with the attempt to complete
the work left unfinished at Vienna, and to build up this “better social
structure,” that the history of Europe from 1815 to 1822 is mainly concerned.
The idea of a
central constitution for Europe, though new life had been given to it by the
common sufferings of the revolutionary epoch, was of course no new one. The
Holy Roman Empire, so long as it carried on even a shadowy existence, had
remained as the venerable symbol of this idea; and, at the close of the
Congress of Vienna, Cardinal Consalvi, in the name of the Holy See, had entered
a solemn protest against the failure of the Christian Powers to maintain the “
centre of political unity.” But the Empire had been too long closely associated
with the interests of the German nation and the House of Habsburg to be
treated, even by theorists, as the key-stone of an international confederation
; and in all the “ projects of perpetual peace ” which had been published to
the world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Empire had been
either ignored or assigned, at best, but a subordinate place. Of these schemes
the Projet de Traitk pour rendre la paioc perpetuelle, published in 1713 by the
Abbe' de Saint-Pierre, deserves more particular notice as having formed the
basis of all subsequent pin™ of the same kind. It aimed at making the Treaty of
Utrecht the basis of an international system resembling that established
afterwards among the German States by the Act of Confederation framed by the Congress
of Vienna. A European League or “Christian Republic” was to be established, of
which the members were to renounce the right of mnlrtng war against one another
and to submit their disputes to the arbitration
of a central
assembly of the Allies, whose decision was to be enforced, if necessary, by a
common armament. This idea was taken up and elaborated, from time to time, by
thinkers of the most divergent schools.
Yet, but for
the Revolution, all their projects might have remained mere speculations of theorists.
It was the common peril of the revolutionary propaganda, however underrated
and misunderstood, that first revealed to statesmen a political Europe,
recognising common rights and common duties. The Concert of Europe was bom in
the circular letter of Count Kaunitz, dated July 17, 1791, in which, in the
name of the Emperor Leopold, he impressed upon the Imperial ambassadors the
duty of all the Powers to make common cause for the purpose of preserving “
public peace, the tranquillity of States, the inviolability of possessions, and
the faith of treaties,” and pointed out, as Voltaire had done in his Siecle de
Louis XIV, that the nations of Europe—united by ties of religion, institutions,
and culture—formed but “ a single family.” Thirteen years later, when the moral
had been enforced by the bitter results of the continuance of the traditional
dissensions, the Emperor Alexander I of Russia took up the theme. In a despatch
dated September 11, 1804, and addressed to NovossilzofF, the Russian special
envoy in England, he suggested for the consideration of Pitt a plan resembling
in general outline that of the Abbe de Saint-Pierre. In the event of the
triumph of the Coalition over Napoleon, the outcome of the war was to be, not
merely “the liberation of France,” but the universal triumph of “the rights of
humanity.” To this end it would be necessary, “after having attached the
nations to their Governments by making these incapable of acting save in the
greatest interests of their subjects, to fix the relations of the States among
each other on more precise rules, such as it is to their interest to respect.”
A general treaty was to form the basis of the relations of the States forming “
the European Confederation.” “ Why could one not submit to it,” the Emperor asked,
“ the positive rights of nations, assure the privilege of neutrality, insert
the obligation of never beginning war until all the resources which the
mediation of a third party could offer have been exhausted, until the
grievances have by this means been brought to light, and an effort to remove
them has been made? On principles such as these one could proceed to a general
pacification, and give birth to a league of which the stipulations would form,
so to speak, a new code of the law of nations, while those who should try to
infringe it would risk bringing upon themselves the forces of the new union.”
This proposal
had, of course, been stillborn. Ten years were to pass before the liberation of
France prepared the way for new experiments in the confederation of humanity;
and meanwhile the Tsar himself, dazzled by the genius of Napoleon, had hartered
away at Tilsit his ideals of a united Europe for the vision of a world in which
there should be room only for the Emperors of the East and the West. His
4 Chateaubriand. De Maistre. Bentham.
breach with
Napoleon, the horrors of the Moscow campaign, and the comradeship of the wars
of Liberation had reawakened the old ideal. And, to all appearance, the times
were singularly propitious for its realisation. The close of the revolutionary
era had left Europe exhausted and disillusioned. “The doctrine of extreme
equality,” which had issued in the despotism of one masterful will, might
still—to quote Talleyrand— “have as apostles and partisans a few dreamers,
building theories for an imaginary world”; the surface of society, here and
there, might be agitated by the nationalist storm called up during the War of
Liberation; but, in general, princes and peoples alike aspired only to some
moderate system which should be a guarantee of peace and of orderly progress.
The question which occupied the minds of theorists, as of men of affairs, was
in what this system should consist. However opinion might differ as to the
social changes wrought by the Revolution, there was little difference as to the
principles on which they had been based. To Chateaubriand and de Maistre, the
apostles of the new Ultra- montanism, they were “ satanic,” as false and as
fatal as those which had inspired the original revolt against authority and laid
upon the world the curse of God. To Jeremy Bentham, the prophet of the new
Liberalism, the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” was merely a “ hodge-podge
of confusion and absurdity,” and its outcome, in so far as this had been
disastrous, but the result of false premisses and defective logic.
These
strangely contrasted appreciations may be taken as generally typical of the two
schools of political thought which came into prominence at this period and
were destined to play so conspicuous a part in the controversies of the
nineteenth century. One aim was common to both; for alike they sought in a
quaking world for some firm foothold of authority. The one found this in
religion, and in the divine right of the established order; the other in
inductive science, and the duty of men to build up, on the secure basis of
observed facts, a social system which should conduce to “the greatest happiness
of the greatest number.”
For the
moment it seemed as though the new “Utilitarianism” would vanquish the spirit
of reaction in the councils of the world. Bentham, who had lectured mankind for
half-a-century in vain, in his old age suddenly found himself a power.
Liberalising monarchs in Europe and the young republics of the New World sought
his advice. His works, in the French versions of Dumont, circulated by
thousands, and his principles left their impress on a dozen experimental constitutions.
Yet the cold syllogisms of the recluse who proclaimed a gospel of enlightened
selfishness did not appeal to a generation accustomed to be swayed by violent
and conflicting emotions. The scientific spirit, which in a subsequent age was
to work so great a miracle of transformation in the material and intellectual
world, was as yet in its faint beginnings. Stronger by far as yet was that
romantic spirit which
represented
the revolt of the human imagination against the iconoclasm of the Revolution,
and which sought its inspiration in the idealised past.
Romanticism
was the outcome rather of emotion than of thought. It appealed, indeed, to
history, but to history so ill understood as to be itself romance. It sought to
materialise in art, in literature, in religion, its ideal vision of a world
long dead. It inspired the Gothic revival in architecture, the “ Christian ”
school in painting, the Romantic school in literature, and in religion the
Catholic revival. In politics its influence, less clearly defined, since it was
the outcome of confused and nebulous ideals, was from the first charged with
fateful, contradictions. It conjured up the beautiful mirage of the Middle
Ages, which transfigured the selfish cry for the retention or revival of
feudal and ecclesiastical privilege; it breathed new life into the doctrine of
the divine right of kings; but it also, in its reaction from the colourless
cosmopolitanism of the Revolution, gave an imaginative stimulus to the
new-born passion of nationality which was to prove, during the century, the
revolutionary force most fatal to the established order of the world. The
nationalist agitation indeed, though alarming to the authorities, was
practically confined as yet to Germany, and in Germany to a section of the
literary and professional classes. The world at large was content to accept the
principle underlying the Treaties of Vienna, to the framers of which
sovereignty was still territorial, the nation no more than the aggregate of
souls owing allegiance to a single government. The doctrine of “Legitimacy,”
which the cynical statecraft of Talleyrand had devised as the best lever to
raise the Bourbons once more to the throne, identified the rights of
sovereignty and of private property by basing both on prescription. This
doctrine was consecrated by the principle, loudly proclaimed by the apostles of
the religious revival, of the eternal union between “ the altar and the
throne.”
The religious
reaction, which is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the period
immediately following the Revolution, and one of the most momentous in its
results, was mainly the outcome of a natural revulsion. To the devout
imagination it was natural to see in the woes that had fallen upon Europe the
divinely decreed consequences of the unbridled reign of reason. The fashionable
philosophy of the eighteenth century had brought dogmatic Christianity into
disrepute, and the old antagonisms, which had once sufficed to deluge Europe in
blood, had all but vanished. But the sceptical spirit which, in both Catholic
and Protestant pulpits, had tended to substitute ethical philosophy for
dogmatic religion, rested on too slight a foundation to resist the force of
deeply stirred religious emotion. Scientific criticism and the study of
comparative religions which, later in the century, were to prove more serious
foes to Christian orthodoxy, were as yet unknown; and it was easy for Chateaubriand,
in his Genie du Christianisme, published in
6
1801 on the
eve of the Concordat, to turn the laugh against the age when “the documents of
human wisdom were arranged in alphabetical order in the Encyclopedic, that
Babel of the sciences and reason,” and to show that the worship of Jehovah was
at least as respectable as that of Jove, and that the Virgin had occupied as
great a place as Venus in the history of art.
More
important than the eloquent, but shallow, volumes of Chateaubriand, was the
celebrated work of Count Joseph de Maistre, Du Pape, which is dated 1817,
though not published until 1819. It was written during a critical time in the
history of the Church. The Papacy, after weathering the.storms of the
Reformation, had seemed on the verge of succumbing to the solvent forces of the
new enlightenment. The frontier line between Catholicism and the world outside,
sharply defined at Trent, had become blurred and indistinct; and the belief was
widely expressed that on the death of Pius VII the Holy See would share the
fate of the Holy Empire. In France, though Napoleon’s Concordat had made an end
of the constitutional Church, Gallicanism was still a militant force. In
Germany, in spite of the abolition of the ecclesiastical States, the ideals of
“ Febronius ” were still in the ascendant, aiming at a great national German
Church, which should absorb at least the Lutherans, and owe at best but a
shadowy allegiance to Rome; and the Prince Primate, Karl von Dalberg, bad sent
to the Congress of Vienna, to represent the interests of the German Church,
Bishop von Wessenberg, who, as Vicar-General of Constance, had, on his own
authority, reformed the services in his diocese in an avowed effort to meet the
Protestants halfway. The Catholic princes of the Confederation were willing to
follow any system which would most readily make the Church the instrument of
their secular ambitions. The reply of Pope Pius VII to these movements was the
issue on August 7, 1814, soon after his return to Rome, of the bull Sollicitudo
omnium ecclesiarum, reconstituting the Order of Jesus. The Du Pape of de
Maistre revealed the full significance of this act, an act which proclaimed the
irreconcilable attitude to be taken up by the Papacy toward the Liberal
movements of the century, which was defined in Pius IX’s Syllabus of 1864, and
culminated in 1870 in the dogma of papal infallibility. With a sincere and
forcible style, with much display of erudition, and with admirable logic, the
author of The Pope proffered once more for the acceptance of the world the
medieval ideals of Gregory VII and Innocent III. The Revolution, he argued, was
but the logical outcome of the principles of the Reformation. The rejection by
half Christendom of the God-appointed central authority had loosened the ties
of all authority; and the true cure for the present ills was the recognition of
the Pope as in all causes, both temporal and spiritual, the supreme and
inspired head of all Christian nations. In place of a committee of the Powers,
de Maistre would have established the Holy See as the central court of appeal,
and this, not only in
1815]
1
international
questions, but in all serious disputes between sovereigns and subjects. The
book created a deep impression. To Gentz, no shallow critic of men and things,
it displayed “a political insight such as no Montesquieu ever had, with the
eloquence of Burke, and an inspiration bordering at times on the loftiest
poetry”; it was at once accepted as the text-book of the Ultramontane party.
On the morrow
of the Revolution the cross currents of thought produced by it had not, of
course, as yet united into any streams of public opinion capable of shaping the
destinies of the world; nor, had there been such a defined force of opinion,
could it have influenced directly the course of affairs. Europe had been
liberated; but the sword was yet supreme, though it had been put into
commission, and, for the one man of genius who had wielded it, had been
substituted a committee of comparative mediocrities. “ What is Europe ?”
Alexander of Russia had exclaimed, after Tilsit, to the ambassador of France,
“what is Europe, if it is not you and I ? ” After Waterloo Europe consisted, in
effect, of the four Great Powers constituting the Grand Alliance. Of these
Powers three, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, were autocracies; the fourth, Great
Britain, was represented by statesmen who, though hampered by their
responsibility to Parliament, were less so than if Parliament had been truly
representative of popular opinion. Under these conditions the character and the
point of view of the few men in whose hands power was concentrated were for the
moment of more importance than the great movements of thought which only became
politically effective at a later period, and of which the tendencies were still
either unsuspected or misunderstood.
Of all the
members of the Alliance by far the most conspicuous, and, for the time, the
most important, was the Emperor Alexander I of Russia. It is true that Great
Britain, her long struggle with Napoleon crowned by the victory of Waterloo,
still dominated the councils of Europe; but the transparent honesty of Lord
Castlereagh’s diplomacy at Vienna and afterwards had tended to discount the
effects of her power. All the world knew that she wanted peace, the
establishment of “a just equilibrium” in Europe, the abolition of the
slave-trade; and that for these ends she was willing to make enormous
sacrifices, and, whether on the Continent or in the colonies, to identify
British with European interests. Austria too, though disinterestedness could
hardly be predicated of her policy, was prepared for the moment to subordinate
her peculiar ambitions. Exhausted and all but bankrupt, the Habsburg monarchy
needed peace and time to recuperate; and to this end, during the negotiations
leading up to the Treaty of Chaumont, Mettemich had, as his faithful henchman
Gentz bitterly complained, substituted “Europe” for “Austria” in his policy,
had broken the dynastic ties which had bound the Habsburg monarchy to France,
and risked the
8
[1812-5
revival of
the Franco-Russian alliance which during the next few years was to be the
nightmare of the chanceries. As for Prussia, she was still less than Austria in
a position to take any leading part in the councils of the Alliance. Her
soldiers might exact from France barbarous vengeance for barbarous wrongs; King
Frederick William III, pious and narrow-minded, was bound to the Tsar by ties
of gratitude as well as of personal affection, and, apart from all these
considerations, was to be occupied for years to come in the task of trying to
absorb into the life of the Prussian monarchy the heterogeneous populations
assigned to it by the Treaty of Vienna. Thus Alexander found himself in the
position of which he had long dreamed—the central figure of the Confederation
of Europe, and arbiter of the world, by the grace of God, and the sanction of
the unbroken might of Russia, thrust forward now, in consequence of the
acquisition of Poland, into the heart of Europe.
Under these
conditions the menace of Russia to the liberties of Europe seemed to men of
affairs nearly as alarming as had been that of France. Apprehension was
increased by the enigmatic character of the Emperor. Behind the handsome mask
of his face, with the smiling lips and the eyes that never smiled, was hidden a
nature moulded and transformed by the most contradictory influences. His
childhood had been spent at the voluptuous Court of the Empress Catharine, his
adolescence under the sombre tutelage of his father Paul, who had inspired him
with his own love of military detail, his theoretical love of mankind, and his
contempt for men. The Jacobin Frederic Cesar de La Harpe had been his tutor,
and from him he had imbibed the doctrines of Rousseau; while his military
governor, Marshal Soltikoff, had drilled him in the traditions of Russian
autocracy. Lastly, to all this had been added, after he had mounted the throne
over the body of his murdered father, a mystic melancholy liable at any moment
to issue in extravagance of thought or action. With him the moment had come
during the horrors of the campaign of 1812. At the burning of Moscow, he
declared afterwards to Bishop Eylert, his own soul had been illuminated.
During the campaign that followed he had sought to calm the unrest of his
conscience by corresponding with the leaders of the evangelical revival on the
Continent, and had searched for omens and supernatural guidance in texts and
passages of Scripture. Finally, in the autumn of 1813 he had met at Basel the
Baroness von Kriidener, a lady who had turned from a life of pleasure to the
congenial task of converting princes, and who had the singular good fortune to
make a spiritual conquest of the most powerful of them all. From this time a
mystic pietism became the avowed motive of his public as of his private action.
Madame von Kriidener and her colleague, the evangelist Em- paytaz, were during
the allied occupation of Paris the confidants of the Tsar’s most secret thoughts,
and the Imperial prayer-meetings the oracle on whose revelations hung the fate
of the world.
With
the memory of Tilsit still fresh in their minds, it is not surprising that men
of the world like Metternich believed the Russian autocrat to be disguising “
under the language of evangelical abnegation ” vast and perilous schemes of
ambition. The suspicion was increased by other and seemingly inconsistent
tendencies of the Emperor, which yet seemed all to point to a like disquieting
conclusion. Alexander had declared open war on the Revolution; but La - Harpe
was again at his elbow, and the catchwords of the gospel of humanity were still
on his lips. The very proclamations, in which he had denounced Napoleon as the
genius of evil, had denounced him in the name of “liberty” and “enlightenment.”
A monstrous intrigue was suspected between the autocrat of all the Russias and
the Jacobinism of all Europe, its aim the substitution of an all-powerful
Russia for an all-powerful France. At the Congress of Vienna Alexander’s
conduct had accentuated and given point to the distrust of an Imperial
conscience which had suffered him to keep his hold on Poland in violation of
his treaty obligations; and, though the Hundred Days had intervened since the
secret alliance of January 3, 1815, between Austria, Great Britain, and France,
the distrust of which it was the symbol remained. .
The links
that bound the Powers together, of which the first had been riveted at Teplitz,
had been slow in forging; and more than once they had threatened to give way
under the sledge-hammer blows of Napoleon’s masterly defensive campaign. It was
not until the breakdown of the conferences at Chatillon had proved the
impossibility of coming to terms with the French Emperor, that the tactful
diplomacy of Castlereagh succeeded in welding them together at Chaumont, in the
treaty which gave to the Grand Alliance the form it was to retain until finally
shattered by the revolutions of 1848. The Treaty of Paris of May 30,1814, and
that of Vienna of March 25, 1815, were essentially but renewals of that of
Chaumont. All were directed primarily to the preservation of Europe from any
further peril of French aggression. The triumph of the Coalition had proved the
quality of the Concert of Europe; but, its object achieved, there was danger
that it would resolve itself into its elements. When the Abbe de Saint-Pierre
communicated his project to Fleury, the Cardinal told him that he had forgotten
one essential article, namely, to send missionaries to touch the hearts of
princes and convert them to his views. In 1815 the omission seemed to be
supplied; for the councils of Europe were presided over by an Imperial
evangelist whose mission, loudly proclaimed, was to substitute in all public
relations the principles of the gospel of Christ for the evil traditions of
Machiavellian statecraft. On September 26, 1815, the Emperor Alexander
announced to the world, at a great review held on the plain of Vertus, the
scheme of the Holy Alliance, already signed by himself and his brother
sovereigns of Austria and Prussia. Henceforth princes were to regard each other
as brothers and their peoples as their
CII. 1.
children; and
all their acts were to be founded on the sacred principles of the Gospel of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The Holy
Alliance, by one of the strange ironies of history, came to be regarded as the
symbol of all that was oppressive and reactionary. Yet there was nothing in its
provisions, nor in the intentions of its creator, to warrant the sinister
meanings read into it by a suspicious world. To Alexander himself it was
calculated “to give a lofty satisfaction to Divine Providence” as an attempt
to lift politics on to a higher plane; and so little was it a hypocritical
conspiracy against liberty, that in one of his “Jacobin” moods he urged on his
reluctant brother autocrats that Liberal constitutions were the logical outcome
of its doctrines. The manifesto was, in fact, of immediate practical importance
only in so far as it tended to complicate the diplomatic relations of the
Allies during the years that followed—owing to the Russian claim, persistently
repeated, that it committed the Powers to Alexander’s ideal of a “universal
union,” which they in fact repudiated. Of all the princes who signed the Holy
Alliance probably only Alexander himself did so with conviction. To Mettemich
it was “ a loud sounding nothing,” to Castlereagh “a piece of sublime mysticism
and nonsense.” The British Government, divided between fear of offending the
Allies and exposing itself to the shafts of the Opposition, found a loophole of
escape in the constitutional objection to the Prince Regent signing any
document without the counter-signature of a Minister. The powerful endorsement
of the ruler of Great Britain was thus lacking to this new family compact of
the European sovereigns; and the Allies had to be content with a personal
letter from the Regent, expressing his hearty approval of their sublime
principles. With this, and two other notable exceptions, the document was
signed by all the sovereigns, great and small, of Europe. The other exceptions
were the Pope and the Sultan. Pius VII, busy with his preparations for a new
crusade against Liberalism, would be no party to a compact devised by a heretic
and a Liberal. The Sultan, for reasons sufficiently obvious, was never invited
to sign; but, in view of the fact that the integrity of the Ottoman Empire had
found no place in the guarantees of the Vienna treaties, the omission of his
name was held to be ominous of Alexander’s intention to exclude Turkey from the
sphere of the Concert, in order to retain its destinies in his own hands.
At the date
of the promulgation of the Holy Alliance the fate of France had not yet been
definitely settled; and, in the councils of the Allies, while all were agreed
that she must for ever be rendered incapable of again oversetting the balance
of Europe, opinion was sharply divided as to the means for attaining this end.
But counsels of moderation prevailed; and in the settlement with France the
principle was reaffirmed which had guided the policy of the Allies before the
Hundred Days. France, defined by her “legitimate” frontiers, was to be
1815]
The Treaties of November, 1815.
11
received back
on equal terms into the comity of nations so soon as her internal stability
should have been consolidated under her legitimate monarch and the
constitutional system granted by him. The problem was how this “ consolidation
” was to be ensured. It was more difficult after than before the Hundred Days
to dissociate the spirit of France from that of Napoleon; and deep-rooted
distrust of the French people underlay all the counsels and combinations of the
Powers for years to come. The first of the two treaties signed at Paris on
November 20,
1815, settled the frontiers and the financial
obligations of France, and fixed the conditions for the occupation of French
territory by the Allied army. Moreover, for the purpose of watching over the
restored monarchy, a committee of the Ministers of the Allied Powers was to be
established at Paris, receiving daily reports from the King’s Cabinet on the
condition of the country, and free on any question of internal as well as of
external policy to tender advice which would be backed by the irresistible
sanction of the army of occupation. The second treaty, from which France was
excluded, is known as the Treaty of Alliance of November 20, 1815, and was
avowedly a renewal of the Treaty of Chaumont and of the Vienna Treaty of March
25, 1815; both of which had been directed specifically against France. By
Article 6 of this Treaty it was agreed that “ in order to consolidate the
intimate tie which unites the four sovereigns for the happiness of the world,
the High Contracting Powers have agreed to renew at fixed intervals, either
under their own auspices, or by their respective ministers, meetings
consecrated to great common objects and to the examination of such measures as
at each one of these epochs shall be judged most salutary for the peace and
prosperity of the nations and for the maintenance of the peace of Europe.”
TTiis
article, which formed the basis of all the subsequent attempts to establish a
“Confederation of Europe,” was the outcome of negotiations which have a
permanent interest, as revealing not only the essential differences of principle
between the Powers* which rendered the great international experiment abortive,
but also the fundamental problems involved in the attempt to realise an
international ideal, which will remain insoluble so long as the nationalist
spirit, the most characteristic development of the nineteenth century,
survives. The original draft of the Treaty had been drawn up under the
direction of the Emperor Alexander, and embodied his views. Its preamble stated
baldly that “ the object of the Powers ” was “ to establish royalty in France
on a constitutional foundation and to preserve the happy union of the Powers
for this result of common interest”; and the remaining articles proclaimed in
every line the right of united Europe to watch over and regulate the internal affairs
of France. Castlereagh at once saw the peril to national independence involved
in this. He shared to the full the general belief in the reality of the danger
of a renewed outburst of revolutionary
cu. I.
France and
the view that “nothing could keep her down but the strong hand of European
power”; but he objected to “too strong and undisguised an interference of the
Allied sovereigns in the internal concerns of France,” to their posing as
“umpires in the constitutional struggles” of the country, and in short to any
attitude not dictated by “ the immediate security of their own dominions.” In
the counterproject which he submitted, and which was accepted as the basis of
the Treaty, he “ endeavoured to keep the internal affairs of France in the
background, and to make the colour of the contingent interference (of the
Alliance) as European as possible.” The determining attitude of Great Britain
towards the “sublime conception” of the Imperial visionary was thus from the
first defined. The Concert of Europe had achieved great things, and might do so
yet again, should a common peril once more call for common action. But the
nature of such common peril, and the character of the common action, must be
determined, not on any general principle which would lead to a minute
regulation by the Great Powers of the affairs of the nations, but as each case
arose on its own merits. Castlereagh himself, indeed, did not as yet realise
the full import of his attitude. He looked upon the Alliance as a convenient
arrangement which, by bringing the sovereigns and their Cabinets into touch,
enabled business to be transacted far more rapidly, and with much less risk of
friction, than through the ordinary diplomatic channels. It was not till 1818,
at Aix-la-Chapelle, that he began to suspect the incompatibility of the “
European System ” with the liberties dear to Englishmen. At Troppau and Laibach
the suspicion was confirmed ; but it was only in 1822, bn the eve of the
Congress of Verona, that the long process of his disillusionment culminated in
the determination to make that open breach with the system of which, by his
untimely death, the credit fell to George Canning.
Whatever the
ambitions or ideals of its individual members, the object of the Quadruple
Alliance as a whole was the preservation of peace on the basis of existing
treaty obligations. France being, not unnaturally, regarded as the main focus
of unrest, was the primary object of its watchful solicitude; but the sixth
article of the Treaty of November 20, 1815, covered equally the case of any
danger arising in other quarters. There was, indeed, material enough for alarm,
and this was by no means mainly supplied by the agitation of the revolutionary
“ sects.” The Powers were as averse from violent reaction as from violent
revolution; but, unhappily, in their desire to find a basis of principle for
their action, they had exalted the doctrine of “ legitimacy” to a height which
made it difficult for them to control the reactionary follies of the sovereigns
whom they had restored to power. They were under no illusion as to their
character or their probable consequence. They watched with disgust and alarm
the proceedings of Ferdinand VII in Spain. It was a little matter that he had
violated
1815]
Reaction.—The problem of France.
13
his oath to
maintain the Constitution of 1812; for the Constitution was unworkable, and was
not desired by the Spanish people. But Metternich cursed the wicked infatuation
which reestablished the Inquisition, and set up what Gentz described as “ a
system of reaction and persecution only to be compared with the reign of terror
in France under Robespierre.” It was not to the interests of monarchy that a
king should “ debase himself to become no more than the leading police agent
and gaoler of his country.” Nor was it expedient that rulers by divine right
should make themselves ridiculous as well as odious to their subjects. It was
not with the approval of the Powers that the Papal Government abolished street
lighting in Rome as a revolutionary innovation ; that Victor Emanuel, restored
to his capital of Turin, caused the botanical gardens planted by the French to
be grubbed up, and forbade his subjects to use Napoleon’s great road over the
Mont Cenis; or that the Elector of Hesse appended once more to the
fresh-powdered heads of his exiguous army the pigtails of the old regime. All
these things were recognised in the councils of the Alliance as symbolic of a
state of things pregnant with future dangers. For the present, however, the
attention of the four Powers was absorbed by the problem of France.
This problem
was defined by Decazes in a single sentence: “to royalise France and to
nationalise the monarchy.” The successful establishment of the Bourbon dynasty
in the national life of France was the guarantee required by the Allied Powers
before they would consent to leave the country to itself. The difficulties of
the process were obvious to all. The Bourbons had been strangers to France for
a quarter of a century, during which a generation of Frenchmen had grown up who
had been taught to regard them as enemies; they had returned “ in the baggage
train ” of a hostile army; and their authority was supported by foreign
bayonets and controlled by foreign counsels. The violence of the “ Court ”
party, headed by the Count of Artois, the heir to the throne, accentuated this
situation. The nation which, after so many changes, cared little what form its
government might assume, saw the social and material gains of the Revolution,
which alone it valued, placed in jeopardy; and when, in September, 1815,
Talleyrand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Fouche, the Minister of Police,
who had been left in office partly as a guarantee against unreasoning reaction,
were sacrificed to the clamour of the “ultra-Royalist” Chambers, and replaced
by the Due de Richelieu and the young police prefect Decazes, the task of
“nationalising the monarchy” seemed well-nigh hopeless. “ With his new
servants,” wrote Castlereagh to Lord Liverpool, “ there seems to be but one
opinion, that if the Allied troops were withdrawn, his Majesty would not be on
his throne a week.” Yet Richelieu realised from the first that the monarchy
could never be firmly established until the foreign army had ceased to occupy
French soil, and directed all his efforts to this end. The essential condition
was that a Government
should be
established so moderate and so stable as to serve as a guarantee to the Powers
for the payment of the huge annual instalment of the indemnity. The attitude of
the European Concert to France was determined by the measure of success which
attended the efforts of the French Government to satisfy their conditions. The
dissolution of the Chambre introuvable, which had defied both the Crown and the
Powers, though regarded as a “bold experiment,” had the approval of the Allies.
The passing of the budget by the Chambers elected in November,
1816, under the altered suffrage, was rewarded
by a reduction of the army of occupation by 30,000 men. Richelieu now bent all
his efforts to obtaining the withdrawal of the rest. The burden of supporting
the Allied troops weighed heavily upon the French people; their presence was a
perpetual irritation, which latterly had grown to such a pitch that Wellington
reported that, in the event of the occupation being prolonged, he must
concentrate his army between the Scheldt and the Meuse, as the forces, extended
in a thin line across the breadth of France, were no longer safe in case of a
popular uprising. But it was realised that such a concentration would inevitably
lead to the crisis he feared, and the troops might be destroyed piecemeal
before they could combine. Under these circumstances, the Allies agreed without
difficulty on the principle that the occupation of France should not extend
beyond the third year, and that the question of evacuation should be the first
task of the Conference of the Powers which it was arranged to hold in the
autumn of 1818 at Aix-la-Chapelle.
The Congress,
or to be more strictly correct, the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, of which the
proceedings were to mark the highest point reached in the attempt of the Allied
Powers to govern Europe in concert, met on October 1, 1818. The sovereigns of
Russia, Austria, and Prussia were present in person; Great Britain was
represented by Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington, the Austrian
Government by Prince Mettemich, the Russian by Capodistrias and Nesselrode, the
Prussian by Prince Hardenberg and Count Bemstorff. The Due de Richelieu, by
grace of the Allies, was allowed to be present on behalf of France. The
question of the evacuation of France was immediately raised, and on this point
a happy unanimity prevailed. The question of the guarantee for the payment of
the remainder of the indemnity had been the last barrier to an agreement, and
this had been removed as the result of negotiations carried on, on behalf of
the Allies, by the Duke of Wellington with the great financial houses of Hope
of Amsterdam and Baring. This made it easy to arrive at a decision to which, by
common consent* every counsel of expediency pointed. At the very first meeting
of the Conference the principle of evacuation was agreed to; on October 9 the
treaty was signed stipulating that by November 30 the soil of France should be
free of foreign troops. On the question of the further consequences to follow
from this decision there was
1818]
The Conference of
Aioc-la-Chapette. 15
a more
fateful disagreement. Richelieu claimed that the same reasoning which had led
the Powers to withdraw their forces from France would warrant their admitting
France on equal terms to the Grand Alliance. This was, however, far from
representing the mind of the Allies. The policy of evacuation had been inspired
by no trust in the improved temper of the French people. The Eastern Powers viewed
with exaggerated alarm the supposed weakness of the Government in dealing with
the Liberal revival in France, to which successive elections had borne witness.
Alexander I, whose “Jacobinism” was already on the wane, declared that
nine-tenths of the people of France were corrupted by bad principles or violent
party sentiments, and that the rest were incapable of working a constitution;
and he refused to hear of admitting France to an alliance which must be upheld
for its original purpose—that of safeguarding Europe against the French
revolutionary spirit. Mettemich, also, objected that the admission of France
would mean “an amalgam of the conservative principle with that of innovation,
of the remedy with the very evil it was intended to cure, of stability with
movement, of security with risk.” Castlereagh, on the other hand, though he
shared the pessimistic views of his colleagues on the future of monarchy in
France, was less concerned with principles than with practical politics. He
pointed out that, were France isolated, she would inevitably become the nucleus
of a separate alliance, and the whole gain of the European Concert would be
placed in jeopardy. At the same time he realised the paradox involved in the
inclusion of France in an alliance which, as Great Britain had always insisted,
was directed primarily against herself.
These debates
opened up the whole broader question of the future form of the European
Concert. On this the mind of the Emperor Alexander was quite clear. His first
care, on arriving at Aix, had been to define his own attitude towards the
Alliance. In interviews with Castlereagh, with Wellington, and with Mettemich,
he had indignantly repudiated the calumnious reports which for months past had
circulated in the chanceries, that he was meditating a breach with the Allies
and a separate understanding with the Bourbon States. Any such act, he
reiterated, he should regard as a crime, and its perpetrator as a felon. As for
his army, about which so much had been said, he maintained it, not for Russia,
but for Europe. On the general question the views of the Tsar were presented in
a long memorandum, drawn up by Pozzo di Borgo, which in effect revived and
elaborated the scheme outlined in 1804 in the despatch to Novossilzoff already
quoted. The Quadruple Alliance, he argued, was but the “centre” of the “
universal union,” and, though “ unalterable in principle,” would, “ by
extending its sphere according to circumstances,” become “ the alliance of all
the States.” “The system of Europe” which was “the work of Providence, not of
any Cabinet,” was “ a general association having
for
foundation the compact of Vienna and the Treaty of Paris, for conservative
principle the fraternal union of the Allied Powers, for aim the guarantee of
all recognised rights.” There was no need for new treaties, or new oaths, which
would but be weakened by repetition. The Quadruple Alliance, consecrated by the
Treaty of November 20, 1815, contained the principle of which the natural
consequence was the general Alliance based on the Treaties of Vienna and of
Paris. He proposed, therefore, that the Quadruple Alliance should be preserved
as against France; and that a general Alliance should be made effective for the
purpose of guaranteeing the territorial status quo and legitimate sovereignty.
The establishment of this general Alliance was to be effected by a Declaration,
to be issued at the close of the Congress and signed by all the signatory
Powers of the Treaty of Vienna. The Governments, thus relieved from the fear of
revolution, could offer to their subjects equal constitutions; and the
liberties of the peoples, wisely regulated, would arise from the state of
affairs once recognised and publicly avowed.
The Russian
proposal was received in the Cabinets with very mixed feelings. Mettemich
allowed his fear of Russia for a moment to be obscured by his haunting fear of
revolution, and, in spite of the mild Liberal aspirations which in the last
paragraph of the memorandum showed the hand of Capodistrias, hailed the Tsar’s
scheme as embodying the potentiality of a mighty conservative force. In a
memorandum of October 7 he elaborated his meaning. The essence of the Treaty of
Chaumont was eternal, as based on a principle of morality essentially
unchangeable. This “anti-revolutionary principle” had been directed specially
against France, and this special application should remain. But there existed
another agreement, that of the Holy Alliance, on which should be based a
general Declaration to which France might be a party. The principle of a
universal guarantee was even more eagerly advocated by the Prussian Government,
which, while agreeing to the evacuation of France, was in an agony of
apprehension as to the results of this “ risky experiment” to its own exposed
frontiers. The British Government, on the other hand, viewed with dismay these
persistent efforts to revive an idea against which it had always protested.
Feeling in England was running high against participation in a system which not
only threatened the liberties of others, but might, in the language of the
orators of the Opposition, in time present the spectacle of Cossacks encamped
in Hyde Park to overawe the House of Commons. Moreover, as Castlereagh pointed
out to the Tsar, the British Government had to deal “ with a new Parliament and
a new people, intensely bent on peace and economy.” To initiate a fresh policy
of “eventual exertion” would be to hazard the sanction already obtained from
Parliament for their continental engagements. In the general instructions for
Lord Castlereagh’s guidance, preserved in a Cabinet memorandum of September 4s,
it had been clearly
laid down
that the treaty between the Powers must rest “upon the sanction received in the
address of both Houses of May, 1816 ”; that its provisions “hardly admitted of
being reinforced”; and that any ittempt to renew them “ would lead to serious
differences of opinion.” As to the question of admitting Louis XVIII to the
Alliance, the main objection to this had been removed by the evacuation of
France.
Under these
circumstances, the task of Castlereagh was a somewhat delicate one. The
abstractions and sweeping generalities of the Russian memorandum were in direct
conflict with his own common-sense opinion and with the instructions of his
Government. Yet, in view of the apparent urgency of the need for maintaining
the Alliance, it was necessary to humour the Tsar by approving his principles,
while weaning him from their consequences. In the course of several interviews
with Alexander, Castlereagh had convinced himself of the sincerity of the
views, on which the Emperor dilated “ with a religious rhapsody.” He realised
that in order to hold the Emperor’s mind “ within the principles that could be
maintained in Parliament,” it would be necessary to try “ to present something
that would at once keep within our line, and at the same time present the
subject somewhat in the tone of his own ideas.” The outcome was a memorandum,
in reply to that of Russia, of which the opening sentences are a masterpiece of
solemn irony. “The benign principles of the Alliance of the 26th of September,
1815,” it ran, “ may be considered as constituting the European system in
matter of political conscience. It would, however, be derogatory to this solemn
act of the sovereigns to mix its discussion with the ordinary diplomatic
obligations which bind State to State, and which are to be looked for alone in
the treaties which have been concluded in the accustomed form.”
In this
sentence the whole policy of the British Government, which ultimately determined
the fate of the Concert, is contained. The soul of the Holy Alliance might be
suffered to hover over the councils of Europe; but in those councils the
treaties, and the treaties alone, were to be the determining factors. Nor were
any special treaties to be held particularly sacred. Some bound the States
collectively; others were peculiar to individual States. Those of Vienna and
Paris even, which formed the “ Great Charter” of the European territorial
system, “ contained no engagements beyond the immediate objects which were
made matter of regulation in the treaties themselves”; and, though the Powers
possessed the right, there was no obligation on them, collectively or
individually, to resent their breach; since the territories regulated by them
were the subject of “no special guarantee, to the exclusion of others which
rest for their title on earlier treaties of equal authority.” As for the
universal Alliance for securing the peace and happiness of the world, this was
a problem of “ speculation and hope ”; but it had never been, and .probably
never would be, put into practice. The
British
Government protested absolutely against the principle of intervention in the
internal affairs of other States; and, until some system could be devised for
enforcing on all kings and nations an internal system of peace and justice, the
consequence was inadmissible; “ for nothing could be more injurious to the idea
of government generally than the idea that their force was collectively to be
prostituted to the support of established power, without any consideration of
the extent to which it was abused.” The beneficial effect of the mediation of
the Powers was admitted; and this would be increased by adding France, which
would give the Alliance more moral weight without making it too numerous “ for
efficient concert.” To the proposed periodical meetings Great Britain would
not agree, for they would symbolise to the world the very system which she
repudiated; but she would willingly take part in any meetings called to deal
with particular emergencies.
In face of
this uncompromising attitude, the temporary support which the Tsar’s idealistic
scheme had obtained from the other Allies collapsed. The cooperation of Great
Britain was too valuable an asset to be hazarded for an experiment of which the
success was at best doubtful. The result was a compromise, embodied in two
instruments signed on November 15, 1818. The first, in the form of a secret
protocol, renewed the Quadruple Alliance for the purpose of watching over France
and shielding her from revolutionary dangers, and was communicated in
confidence to Richelieu. The second, a “ declaration,” to which France was
invited to adhere, stated the intention of the five Powers to maintain the
intimate union, strengthened by the ties of Christian brotherhood, contracted
by the sovereigns; pronounced the object of this union to be the preservation
of peace on the basis of respect for treaties; and stated, in conclusion, that
no “ partial reunions” should take place concerning the affairs of other States
without their invitation, and, if desired, their presence.
Thus ended,
in a colourless compromise, the most serious effort ever made “to provide the
transparent soul of the Holy Alliance with a body.” A last effort was indeed made,
on the initiative of Prussia, after the main question had been settled, to
establish an “intermediate system” for guaranteeing the territorial status quo.
It was suggested that the Allied troops withdrawn from France should remain
concentrated at Brussels, under the command of Wellington, as a sort of
European police force to watch over the established order. The plan had the
support of Alexander and of Mettemich; but it broke upon the uncompromising
opposition of Great Britain. Wellington himself pointed out the disastrous
effect that any such action would have upon French public opinion; and the
British Government vigorously resented the reopening of the question of
universal guarantee after it had been settled once for all. The matter was then
allowed to drop.
But though,
at Aix, the vision of the universal union had melted
into air, the
Congress marked the highest point reached in the dictatorship of the Concert
of the Powers. The efforts made to extend its sphere of influence beyond the
Atlantic in the matter of the Spanish colonies were defeated by the stubborn
attitude of Spain and the opposition of Great Britain. But from all Europe
appeals came up to this High Court of the Allied sovereigns. Denmark appealed
to it; and Charles XIV of Sweden (Bemadotte), in spite of his protests, was
forced by the Concert to fulfil the stipulations of the Treaty of Kiel. The
German sovereigns appealed, on a host of questions left undetermined in the
hurried discussions of the close of the Vienna Congress; notably on that of the
Baden succession, discussed below, and disputes outstanding between Austria
and Bavaria. The more complicated of these questions, though debated at Aix,
were ultimately reserved for the decision of a ministerial conference to be
held the following year at Frankfort for the final adjustment of matters left
open at Vienna. The petition of the Elector of Hesse, however, to be allowed to
exchange his now meaningless title for that of King, was refused, on the ground
that it was inexpedient to cheapen the royal style; and the complaint of the
mediatised Princes was responded to by an admonition of the Allied Powers to
their sovereigns to treat them with greater consideration.
Of more
general importance were the discussions on the two great questions of the
Slave-trade and the Barbary pirates. On neither of these was any decision
reached. The Slave-trade had been condemned in principle by the Congress of
Vienna; and, as the outcome of endless pourparlers, nearly all the European
States had given at least a formal assent to the British demand for its
suppression. In practice, however, Great Britain alone showed any activity in
carrying out the work; and the trade continued to flourish under the protection
of national flags. The British Government now proposed a reciprocal right of
search, to be carried out by war-vessels specially designated by the Powers for
this purpose. But, in view of the overwhelming superiority of England at sea,
this was taken as tantamount to a license to British cruisers to interrupt the
commerce of all nations; and the Powers rejected it. A counter-proposal of the
Emperor Alexander to establish an international board of control on the west
coast of Africa, with an international fleet commissioned to suppress the
trade, met with no better success. The same fate befell the Tsar’s suggestion
for the establishment of an international squadron in the Mediterranean
directed against the Barbary pirates. The question was one which affected Great
Britain less than the rest of Europe; for the pirates had a wholesome respect
for vessels sailing tinder the Union Jack. Austria, which had been -forced to
the humiliation of placing its seaborne commerce under the protection of the
Turkish ensign; Prussia, which had witnessed depredations inflicted by African
sea-rovers on the Hanseatic trade within the North Sea; the Italian States,
whose coasts were expose^ to
their
descents; Russia, under whose flag the armed trading vessels of the Greeks
waged with them perennial war, would have welcomed a scheme which promised to
end an intolerable evil. But the sea-power of Russia was a dangerous, because
unknown, quantity; the activities of the Tsar’s agents in Spain and Italy had
excited suspicion of his ultimate aims; and Great Britain refused to be a party
to a plan which would have involved the establishment of Russian war-ships in
the Mediterranean. The breakdown of the negotiations on these two important
questions revealed the fundamental weakness of the Concert, and indicates the
causes of its ultimate collapse. After weeks of discussion,, conducted in the
most friendly spirit, it had been found possible to agree on an abstract
formula which served to cLssgr;se awhile from the world the
essential divergence of views within the Cabinets; a few questions of minor
importance had been satisfactorily settled; but, whenever the interests of the
several Powers were deeply engaged, it had been proved that no Government would
or could subordinate the particular interest of its own country to the general
interest of Europe.
The events of
the year that followed the close of the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle tended to
increase the mutual suspicion and the divergence of views within the Alliance.
Affairs in France were developing in a way which led the more timorous Powers
to doubt the wisdom of their generosity towards her at the Congress. Alarmist
reports of plots and revolutionary movements, supplied by agents whose pay
depended upon their zeal, poured in upon Metternich from all sides. Decazes, in
Mettemich’s view, was by his weak concessions to Liberalism bringing the
monarchy to the verge of destruction. More alarming still were the “ military
preparations ” being hurried on by Marshal Gouvion de Saint- Cyr, coupled as
these were with the “seditious language" ascribed to the Marshal and to
the Minister of Finance, Baron Louis. In February, 1819, Metternich openly
expressed his belief to the British Minister at Vienna that a revolution was no
longer to be avoided. Nor was he “disposed to take a more cheerful view of the
state of things in Prussia.” King Frederick William, by postponing over-long
the convocation of the provincial Estates, had “played into the hands of the
Jacobins”; army, bureaucracy, and people were honeycombed with disaffection;
and Prussia had become the centre of revolutionary infection for all Germany.
The condition of Italy seemed even more alarming. Early in 1819 Metternich
accompanied the Emperor Francis on his first visit to his new Italian
dominions; and willing agents supplied him in full measure with materials for
confirming the bad impression he had gained from the sullen demeanour of the
Italians towards their Imperial master. None knew better than he the secret of
the evils of Austrian rule in Italy: the atrophy of the local organs of
government, due to the necessity for sending every question, however minute,
for settlement to Vienna. Lacking the courage to press for the alteration of
this system, he chose to regard the discontent
1819]
21
of the
Italians as the artificial work of foreign agents, and to picture the mass of
the people as anxious to attain unity under the shelter of the Austrian eagle.
The cause of
the extreme nervousness of the Austrian statesman at this time was not,
however, so much fear of revolution, much as he dreaded it, as fear of Russia.
To Russia Mettemich ascribed the crisis in France, since Pozzo di Borgo alone
was responsible for encouraging the madness of the King’s Government. In
Madrid, General Tatischeff continued his intrigues; their object being to
embroil Great Britain with Spain in the matter of the Spanish colonies, and to
bring in the Russian Emperor as the deus ex machina. In Germany liberalising
Princes looked to St Petersburg for inspiration and support. Finally, in Italy
the indiscretions of Russian travellers, and even of Russian Ministers, were
producing a state of things intolerable to the Austrian Government. Everywhere
they openly proclaimed the sympathy of Russia with Liberal aspirations.
Capodistrias himself “horrified” the Neapolitan Ministers by his language; and,
most monstrous of all, Cesar de La Harpe had presided openly at Bologna over a
meeting of Carbonari.
Mettemich
made no secret of his distrust of the Tsar’s motives and aims; and so early as
February he had declared to Castlereagh, through Sir Robert Gordon, that he
disapproved of disguising “ the proved conviction of Russia’s falsehood and
intrigue”; since the danger of “a reaction formidable to Europe” could only be
averted by the Powers “ displaying a full knowledge of the Emperor’s character
and setting his faults at defiance.” Russians, he argued, are easier led on the
right path by blows than by flattery; and, happily, the Russian Emperor had “
one preserving quality ”—want of courage. This brave language was not, however,
translated into action. Instead, it was decided that the Emperor Francis should
himself write to his brother of Russia “ with an air of the most confiding
friendship,” and remonstrate with him on the ruinous activities of his servants,
continued in spite of Austria’s protests and, seemingly, in spite of the
admonitory circular issued as their result in February by the Tsar. The murder
on March 23, 1819, of the well-known dramatist, Kotzebue, who was in Russian
pay, was a terrible object-lesson in the consequences of the revolutionary
heresy, and came opportunely to reinforce Mettemich’s argument; but it served
also to deepen the enigma of the Emperor Alexander’s attitude. “ The different
language of the different Russian agents is the puzzle,” wrote Gordon to Lord
Castlereagh on April 22; “ in Germany Kotzebue is murdered, and Stourdza nearly
so, for espousing the cause of unrestrained monarchy and obscurantism; while in
Italy M. de La Harpe travels up and down holding a language of the purest
democracy.”
The fact was
that Alexander’s mind was wavering between his Liberal Mona and his dread of
the possible results of their practical application.
Mettemich,
ever prompt to recognise and use the psychological moment, saw his opportunity,
and returned to Germany, determined to take full advantage of Karl Sand’s
crime, to quell the unrest in the German States, and to win over the Russian
Emperor to that policy of “stability” on which he held the security of Austria
to depend. The outstanding territorial questions left unsettled at Vienna had
been finally adjusted by the general Treaty of Frankfort, signed on behalf of
the Four Powers on July 20,1819. A few of the articles concerned matters
outside Germany: the cession of the border fortresses of Marienbourg and
Philippeville to the Netherlands, the limits of Savoy, the reversion of the
Italian duchies. But the bulk of the Treaty was concerned with the settlement
of the burning questions within the Confederation; between Austria and Bavaria,
and Bavaria and Baden. The limits of the German sovereignties being thus
finally fixed, the time was ripe for Mettemich to carry out his policy of
making the Confederation the great conservative barrier, whether against
revolution or Russia. In the opinion of many contemporary statesmen this
double end was secured by the “Carlsbad Decrees,” confirmed by the Diet on
September 20, 1819, and the Vienna Final Act of May 15, 1820. The conferences
of Carlsbad and Vienna, which issued in these famous acts, were attended only
by German Ministers, and belong essentially to the domestic history of Germany.
But, as Mettemich pointed out in his presidential address at Vienna, the German
Confederation was an integral part of the States system of Europe as
established at Vienna; and not only its rights as a federal body, but the
rights of the individual sovereigns who composed it, depended on the guarantee
of the treaties. Europe then had a special right of interference in the affairs
of the Confederation; and it was a matter of importance for Austria that her
German policy should be endorsed by the Powers.
But, again,
there was a wide divergence of views within the concert. The terms of the
Carlsbad Decrees (described in a later chapter) had made a most sinister
impression; they were regarded as the first step taken by the “Holy Alliance”
towards the systematic suppression throughout Europe of all liberty of thought
and speech. Castlereagh saw the danger, and protested against the Decrees as an
unjustifiable interference with the liberty of sovereign and independent
States; while to Count Lieven, the Russian ambassador in London, he pointed out
that it was not to the interest of the Governments to contract an alliance
against the peoples. Of greater moment for the fate of Metternich’s policy was
the attitude of the Emperor Alexander. It was not to the interest of Russia to
see established on her flank a strong and united Germany under the hegemony of
Austria; and, in spite of his dread of revolution, Alexander’s role of protector
of the oppressed admirably suited his German policy. The lesser States, like
Wurttemberg, fearing to be ground out of existence between the upper and the
nether millstone of
1820]
Change in Alexander's attitude.
23
Austria and
Prussia, fled to him, not in vain, as a refuge in time of trouble. He
ostentatiously refused, indeed, to intervene in the internal affairs of
Germany; but he chose this moment to issue to the world a fresh manifesto of
his principles, in every line of which the influence of that “coryphaeus of
Liberalism,” Capodistrias, was clearly traceable. The document is remarkable as
illustrating the gradual change which was coming over the Tsar’s mind. He still
believed in liberty, but in liberty “limited by the principles of order.” He still
believed in free institutions, though not in such as are forced from
feebleness, nor in contracts extorted by popular leaders from their sovereigns,
nor in constitutions granted to tide over a crisis. England was still his
model, English history, in his opinion, “ the code of every statesman ”; and he
was at one with Great Britain in refusing to do anything to support a league of
which the sole object was “the absurd pretensions of absolute power.”
Another
political crime soon came to Metternich’s assistance. On February 13, 1820, the
young Duke of Berry, the popular heir-presumptive to the throne of France, was
murdered in the Paris Opera House. Upon the Emperor Alexander the effect of
this tragedy was profound. He compared the crime of Louvel with that of Sand,
and in doing so, as Mettemich exultingly remarked, “could not better have
eulogised the Carlsbad Decrees.” The influence of Capodistrias was shaken; and
the language of the Russian Cabinet turned suddenly from that of Liberal
exaltation to the frightened advocacy of reactionary measures of precaution.
The triumphant progress of the military revolt, which at the beginning of the
year had broken out in Spain, accentuated the alarms produced by the condition
of France.
Alexander was
in a mood for vigorous measures. He suggested that a Conference should be
summoned at Paris to discuss the general situation. He declared himself ready
to send an army in the name of Europe to crush the revolution in Spain. He even
proposed that the committee of Ministers of the Allied Powers should be
reestablished at Paris to watch over the affairs of France. To the latter
suggestion both Castlereagh and Mettemich were vigorously opposed. Not only
would it be a breach of the engagement taken with France at Aix; but it would
excite the very ferments it was intended to allay. As to the Conference,
Castlereagh reiterated the objection of the British Government to a meeting
summoned with no well-defined object. The Alliance had been effective because
its aims had been clear to all the world; let it beware of acting “on a very
questionable principle of precautionary diplomacy, of covering itself with the
mystery of a Conference, and above all of hazarding its great moral ascendancy
by carrying its councils into all the labyrinths and quicksands of the internal
politics of France.” Mettemich was equally opposed to a Conference, but for
different reasons. Austria was but little touched
24
[1820
by the
troubles beyond the Pyrenees; but European intervention, in the actual mood of
the Tsar, would have meant the traversing of her dominions by a great Russian
army—a far more immediate peril. Yet to refuse the Conference was for him not
so easy a matter as for Castlereagh. He endeavoured to cover his defection from
the sublime principles of the Alliance in a cloud of high-sounding phrases. The
moral basis of the Alliance was unalterable and eternal. This being so, it was
still effective for the cure of the ills of Europe, which were “moral.” But the
troubles of Spain were “material”; and for the Alliance to intervene would be
but to augment them. Moreover, the meeting would have to be one of the five,
not of the four Powers; and would the British Cabinet, and could the French
Cabinet, combine with the three Courts which were more free in their actions
and more independent in their choice of forms ? After all, the four Powers,
independently {non retmis), could do all that was needfid by a firm attitude
and a common language.
The
despatches to the Austrian ambassadors in which Mettemich developed these views
at enormous length were penned in June. In July, 1820, a military revolt broke
out in Naples, and King Ferdinand was forced to accept the Spanish Constitution
of 1812. An event which so immediately threatened the stability of the Austrian
system in Italy produced a significant change in Metternich’s language. In one
way the nearer crisis was not wholly unwelcome to him; for it gave him the
opportunity of diverting attention from a question little interesting and very delicate,
to one in which, if he played his part skilfully, Austria and not Russia would
have the deciding voice. The affairs of Spain could await the settlement of
those of Naples, since “ General Quiroga would be beaten in the person of
General Pepe.” The right of Austria to interfere in the Neapolitan revolution
was based on a clearer title than that of any, or all, of the Powers to
intervene in the affairs of Spain. By the terms of the secret article of the
Treaty of June 12,1815, between Austria and Naples, the Neapolitan Government
was bound not to introduce any constitutional changes other than those allowed
in the Austrian dominions in Italy; and even the British Government admitted
the principle that Austria had a right, under this treaty, to intervene if she
had good reason to suppose that the events in Naples were a danger to herself.
France and Prussia were equally amenable; but the attitude of Russia was a more
doubtful quantity. The Neapolitan Liberals had proclaimed that they had “the
moral support” of the Emperor Alexander; and, though Mettemich affected not to
doubt the personal goodwill of the Tsar, the conduct of his agents had, from
the Austrian point of view, done only too much to justify the claim. It became
then all important for him to destroy, once for all, the belief of the Italian
Liberals that they should reckon on the powerful patronage of Russia. His main
fear was as to the ulterior object which lay
behind this
unnatural coquetting of Russia with the revolutionary spirit.
In a letter,
dated August 8, he explained his views to Prince Esterhazy, for communication
to the British Government. For years past, he said, the policy of the “
pitiable creatures ” who composed the Russian Cabinet had been directed against
what they were pleased to term “ the influence of Austria,” thus confusing “
the conservative principle ” with “diplomatic intrigue.” The Emperor Alexander,
it is true, had changed his opinions; and perhaps the outbreak of a series of
military revolts would lead him to abandon his policy of “abstract analysis”
and substitute acts for words. An ostentatious agreement between the sovereigns
of Austria and Russia would, at the moment, best have served Mettemich’s ends.
Alexander chanced to be at Warsaw; and it was proposed that the two Emperors
should meet. But Alexander showed little disposition to be a party to a
separate understanding. He refused to forget the troubles of Spain in those of
Italy; and the violent symptoms of revolutionary unrest in Europe awoke in him
with redoubled ardour the dream of a European Union of Guarantee which had
been dissipated at Aix. As for the Quadruple and Quintuple Alliances,
Capodistrias, in conversation with Baron Lebzeltem, denied their continued
existence, since they had been superseded by the Declaration of Aix, and
declared that Russia would recognise nothing but “a general association.”
Nothing, in short, would satisfy the Tsar but a Conference after the model of
that of 1818. On behalf of France, the Due de Richelieu wrote urging the same course,
on the ground that the troubles in Spain and Italy were precisely the
contingencies contemplated in the agreements made at Aix. The unexpressed
motive of the French Government was the desire to see France ranged once more
in effective concert with the other great Powers.
Mettemich, on
the other hand, still made strenuous efforts to avoid a Conference at which he
feared the dangerous Spanish Question would inevitably be raised, and attempted
to devise a plan which should unite all the five Powers in support of his
Italian policy without the necessity for their meeting in council. In a formal
“Proposition,” dated August 28, and addressed to the Courts, he outlined the
policy which Austria proposed to pursue. In the matter of Naples, as all the
Powers had admitted, Austria had a peculiar right to take action by reason both
of her geographical position and of her treaty with the Neapolitan Government.
She proposed therefore to concentrate in Italy a force sufficient to quell “
the factions,” to invite the Allies to unite themselves “ morally ” with her,
and at the same time to make “ frank overtures ” to the Courts of Italy and
Germany on the state of affairs and on the general attitude of Austria towards
them. As for the Conference suggested by France and Russia, to Austria as to
Prussia and Great Britain, this seemed “ not entirely exempt from objections.”
A formal
Conference,
such as that of Aix, would but waste precious time, and its moral effect would
be imperilled by the fact that Great Britain “ had not a free hand.” Austria,
therefore, suggested common action on more simple lines. Let the Allied Courts
refuse to recognise the revolutionary Government of Naples, declare all its
acts void, and support through their Ministers the measures for its coercion
which Austria might adopt. The reply of Castlereagh to these propositions,
dated September 16, was unequivocal. Great Britain would be no party to the
suggested Concert, which amounted to a hostile league against Naples, and would
make England a principal in the resulting war; whereas she would neither
interfere forcibly in the internal concerns of Naples herself, nor encourage
others to do so. She was prepared to stand aside and let Austria act, if
Austria believed her safety to be menaced. The Conference of Ministers at
Vienna would be useful, to receive the report of Austria and to see that
nothing was done “incompatible with the present system of Europe.”
This idea of
the Conference as a sort of committee of control, to guard against any possible
violation by Austria of the territorial treaties, was hardly likely to appeal
to Metternich; and, in view of the attitude of the British Government, he
conceived that the best course open to him would be to fall back upon the
solemn Congress of the Allies suggested by France and Russia. After all, if
England could be persuaded to send a representative, all might be well. On the
immediate question at issue, Castlereagh had expressed his desire to leave the
Austrian Government, so far as possible, unembarrassed in its decision, and was
prepared to consider the question of a Conference so soon as Austria had
clearly defined what she wanted. With the Neapolitan Liberals neither he, nor
the British representatives in Italy, were the least in sympathy. In their view,
the revolution in Naples was but a “ wanton and unprovoked ” imitation of that
in Spain, for which there was no excuse in the conduct of the Government, and
which was therefore infinitely more dangerous, as “calculated to destroy all
confidence between Governments and their armed forces.” Thus Metternich
believed that, were the Conference once assembled, the Powers, in spite of
their secret differences, would present to the world a united front, and show
that in her Italian policy Austria had at least their “moral support.”
Unfortunately
for the prospective harmony of the Conference, the memorandum in which
Metternich formulated his views as to the attitude it should adopt contained
statements of principle utterly at variance with those on which British policy
was based, and scarcely less distasteful to France. The interests of Austria in
the affair of Naples, he argued, were identical with those of Europe at large;
for all the Powers were equally concerned in the preservation of the treaties,
and therefore equally threatened by revolutionary movements, and equally
interested in
concerting measures for their suppression. The business of the Conference which
it was proposed to hold at Troppau would, therefore, be to define by a general
proposition the principles on which the Allies would intervene in Naples, and
to proceed at once to their application. He proceeded to explain his own idea
of what these principles should be. Revolution, he argued, might be either
legitimate, when initiated from above, or illegitimate, when exacted from
below. In the former case the intervention of foreign Powers could not be
allowed. In the latter, the signatory Powers should contract never to recognise
changes so effected, and should undertake to abolish such as had taken place in
their own States. The reply of Castlereagh to this remarkable pronouncement was
quite unequivocal and, incidentally, furnishes the key to British policy from
Troppau to Verona. The British Government, he said, was prepared to fulfil all
treaty obligations; but, if it were desired “ to extend the Alliance so as to
include all objects present and future, foreseen and unforeseen, it would
change its character to such an extent and carry us so far, that we should see
in it an additional motive for adhering to our course at the risk of seeing the
Alliance move away from us, without our having quitted it.”
This plain
statement of the British point of view was made on the eve of the Conference,
which met at Troppau on October 20,1820; and the constitution of this august
assembly emphasised the division within the Concert of which it was the first
conspicuous expression. The Emperors Alexander and Francis were present in
person; King Frederick William of Prussia was represented by the Crown Prince.
The Cabinets of the Eastern Powers were represented by the Ministers
responsible for their general policy: Austria by Mettemich, Russia by
Capodistrias, Prussia by Hardenberg. Great Britain, on the other hand,
consistently with her determination to take no share in the active Concert of
the Powers, sent no minister plenipotentiary, but was represented by Lord
Stewart, the ambassador at Vienna. France too, though her policy was less
clearly defined, had given no plenary powers to her representatives. The
inferior status of the Ministers of the two constitutional Powers, therefore,
tended from the first to exclude them from the inner councils of the
sovereigns, whose intimacy the friendly and simple intercourse in the quiet
little Silesian town was so well calculated to cement. Mettemich, in fact,
whose leaning towards England had been due mainly to his fear of the designs of
Russia, , soon discovered that it was no longer necessary for him to depend
upon a Power so “hampered in its forms,” that it could offer nothing but “
positive dangers, or but slight active assistance.” For the Emperor Alexander
had arrived at Troppau a changed man, and Capodistrias seemed to have shared
his conversion. To commit the Russian Emperor publicly to the Austrian
“conservative system” became now Mettemich’s supreme aim; and he succeeded
beyond his hopes. In a confidential talk over a cup of tea
he received
the Tsar’s confession and vows of amendment. “To-day,” said the repentant
autocrat, “ I deplore all that I said and did between the years 1815 and 1818.
I regret the time lost; we must study to retrieve it. You have correctly judged
the condition of things. Tell me what you want and what you want of me, and I
will do it.”
Under these
circumstances Mettemich thought himself in a position to ignore the views of
Great ■ Britain and France. In a series of conferences to which the
representatives of the two Western Powers were not admitted, on the excuse that
they were empowered to “report” not to “ decide,” was drawn up the famous
preliminary protocol signed on November 19 by the three Powers. “ States which
have undergone a change of government due to revolution,” it ran, “the results
of which threaten other States, ipso facto cease to be members of the European
Alliance, and remain excluded from it until their situation gives guarantees
for legal order and stability. If, owing to such alterations, immediate danger
threatens other States, the Powers bind themselves, by peaceful means, or if
need be by arms, to bring back the guilty State into the bosom of the Great
Alliance.”
The moral
effect of the Troppau Protocol was, none the less, likely to be greatly
weakened by the conspicuous disapproval of two of the five great Powers; and
Mettemich still hoped to remedy this defect. He pointed out that the Protocol
only asserted a principle to which any constitutional State might assent, since
it applied exclusively to internal affairs having an external effect, and did
but guarantee legitimate power, as the Alliance guaranteed territorial
possession, against farce. He hoped for the “ moral support” even of those
Powers who could not sign, since his object was but to prove to the world “
that the Emperor of Russia is not in favour of revolutions, and to bind him to
the protection of States.” To these advances France, anxious to remain on good
terms with the Allies, replied by giving a general adhesion to the Protocol,
but with several reservations which she placed on record. Castlereagh, on the
other hand, was obdurate. In the long despatch of December 16, in which he
instructed Lord Stewart to refuse his assent to the Protocol, he presented a
masterly criticism of its provisions. He denied the claim that these, grew
logically out of Article 5 of the Treaty of November 20,1815, which applied
only to France, and bound the contracting Powers to no mote than to deliberate
together with a view to guarding against a common danger; certainly not to an
immediate armed intervention whenever and ■ wherever revolution might
show itself. He pointed out that the Protocol would defeat its own ends by
seeming to separate the sovereigns from their peoples and to base the security
of thrones upon foreign aid. Moreover, if, as he supposed, its provisions were
to be made reciprocal, “would the great Powers of Europe be prepared to admit
the principle that their territories were to be thrown open to each other’s
approach upon cases of assumed necessity
182l]
29
or
expediency, of which, not the party receiving aid, but the party administering
it, was to be the judge ? ” The British Government at least protested against
any attempt to consider such a principle as, under any conceivable
circumstances, applicable to the British dominions; and it followed that it
protested equally against any systematic application of it to the internal
concerns of other States. Great Britain, in short, could be no party to a
system which seemed “to lead to the creation of a species of general government
in Europe, with a superintending Directory, destructive of all correct notions
of internal sovereign authority,” and could not “ charge itself, as a member of
the Alliance, with the moral responsibility of administering a general European
police of this description.”
Meanwhile the
Conference at Troppau had adjourned without coming to any decision on the
Italian Question beyond that of continuing the conferences at Laibach in January,
and inviting the King of Naples to attend them. With this plan the British
Government was in agreement ; and Castlereagh duly noted that the invitation
to the King, “ as implying negotiation,” had tended to calm the ferment in
Naples. England, while willing to send a squadron to watch over the safety of
the Neapolitan royal family, and “arrest disorder,” would maintain a strict
neutrality. From Vienna, meanwhile, Stewart reported that Castlereagh’s
despatch had created consternation in diplomatic circles, and that the
reactionary Powers were showing signs of repenting their precipitancy in the
matter of the Troppau Protocol. This attitude was, in fact, disingenuous, and
was dictated by the fear that Great Britain might at the last moment refuse to send
a representative to Laibach, and thus advertise the disunion of the Allies to
all the world. It succeeded; but the outcome was hardly less unsatisfactory to
the reactionary Powers than if it had failed.
From the
point of view of Europe at large the most important outcome of the Conference
of Laibach was the further widening of the rift within the Alliance, which at
Verona was to develop into a permanent and open breach. The British Government
was as little anxious as any other member of the Alliance to take any overt
measure the result of which would be to weaken the Concert which it believed to
be essential to the safety of Europe. But the attitude of the other Powers left
it no choice. To Mettemich and those who thought with him it seemed all important
that the armed intervention of Austria should be backed by the apparent moral
support of all the allied Powers; and to secure this every effort was made to
force or to entrap the representative of Great Britain into agreeing to a
formula which, in the eyes of the world, would have committed England to the
principles of the other Allies.
In the midst
of angry discussions, in the course of which it was even suggested that he
should not be admitted to the conferences, Lord Stewart stood firm; and, when
Capodistrias began to read to the assembled
Italian
plenipotentiaries what was in effect a recapitulation of the principles of the
Troppau Protocol, he interrupted with the remark that, if the Russian Minister
thought it wise to proceed now to “a new development of their former
sentiments,” he would have to “insert upon the face of the proceedings” the
exactly opposite views of the British Government. The attempt to revive the
Troppau Protocol, indeed, which Alexander now declared to be essential to the
safety of Europe, necessitated a formal protest; and, to the dismay of the
reactionary Cabinets, Stewart insisted on adding a declaration to the Journals,
making it clear that Great Britain was not at one with the Allied sovereigns in
this matter. The bitterness created by this attitude, wrote Lord Stewart, was
very evident; and the breach within the Alliance was scarcely less so. To the
Declaration issued at the close of the Conference Great Britain had little
objection to make; but in their circular despatches and instructions to their
Ministers the three Powers had used a language which, as “a development of the
Protocol,” they knew could not but be highly displeasing to both France and
Great Britain. In the Russian circular, Count Nesselrode declared that in assuming
their attitude towards the troubles in Naples the Powers were acting in “the
cause of Europe, of law, and of the treaties”; which implied that Great
Britain, by holding aloof, had betrayed Europe and been false to her treaty
obligations. Moreover, the Tsar’s idea of a Universal Union, so often
repudiated, reappeared undisguised and inashamed. “ As an intimate union,” he
wrote, “ has been established by solemn acts between all the European Powers,
the Emperor offers to the Allies the aid of his arms, in case new overturns
should threaten new dangers.” It was in this spirit that 100,000 Russians had
received the order to march when the news came of the revolt in Piedmont. “ In
short,” wrote Stewart from Vienna on March 20, “there can be little doubt from
the complexion of these instruments that a Triple Understanding has been
created which binds the parties to carry forward their own views in spite of
any difference of opinion which may exist between them and the two great
constitutional Governments.” It is clear that, but for the acute developments
during the next few months of two questions which once more profoundly modified
the relations of the Powers, the avowed split in the Alliance, which, after
1830, was to place the two Western Powers in more or less general opposition to
the three autocratic monarchies, might have been anticipated by several years.
Of these
questions by far the most immediately critical was that which, about this time,
first became known as the Eastern Question. It emerged, with dramatic
suddenness, during the Conference of Laibach, with the news, which reached the
Emperor Alexander on March 19, of Ypsilanti’s invasion of Moldavia, followed a
month later by that of the national uprising of the Greeks in the Morea. Its
developments, diplomatic and otherj will be dealt with elsewhere. Here it will
suffice to say
1821]
31
that it
tended to draw closer together the two Powers, Austria and Great Britain, most
interested in the preservation of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire; and
that, for the moment, it braced up the loosening bonds of the Grand Alliance,
as the most obvious instrument for preventing the isolated action of Russia.
The second question, destined to have momentous consequences, was raised by the
attitude of the ultra-Royalist Government of France toward the continued unrest
in Spain; the immediate consequence of which was to draw the two constitutional
Powers apart, bring France for a while into line with the policy of the
autocratic Powers, and lead ultimately to the proclamation of England’s breach
with the Continent of Europe.
The unrest in
Spain had never ceased to grow since the revolution in 1820; and in France,
where the ultra-Royalists were now in power under the able leadership of Villele,
a clamour arose for intervention, to suppress a revolutionary licence which
threatened to infect France herself, and to avenge the insults offered to a
monarch of the House of Bourbon. In August, 1821, an epidemic of yellow fever
in Spain gave the French Government an excuse for establishing on the border a
corps of observation, on pretext of forming a sanitary cordon, and this was
gradually increased, till it numbered a hundred thousand men; nor was it
(rithdrawn when the peril of physical infection was past. The hotter heads of
the Government, in fact, were not averse from the attempt to add lustre to the
restored monarchy by a successful revival of the old policy of the Bourbon
monarchy towards Spain. But Villele himself saw the necessity for caution. For
Great Britain the Treaty of Utrecht was by no means a dead letter; and the
British Government, after pouring out the blood and treasure of the nation in
driving Napoleon out of the Peninsula, was not prepared to allow its peaceful
occupation by his successor. It held, moreover, a powerful weapon in reserve.
The independence of the Spanish Colonies in America was already established de
facto; and though British Ministers did not yet think the time ripe, they were
prepared to recognise them as existing de jure rather than run the risk of any
attempt of a European alliance to reconquer them, or of any of them passing
under the flag of France. In face of this attitude of Great Britain, therefore,
France shrank from isolated action, and before attempting to interfere in Spain
decided to obtain, if possible, the sanction of the European Concert.
Before the
dissolution of the Congress at Laibach, in the spring of 1821, it had been
decided that it should meet again at Verona in the autumn of the following year.
Mettemich still had hopes of winning over Great Britain to his views. From his
standpoint the condition of Europe was becoming every year more alarming; and
the Tory Government, he well knew, had little sympathy with popular
agitations, or with the attitude of the Liberals in the south-German Chambers,
which in Baden had produced a legislative deadlock, and in Bavaria had driven'
the King to
petition the Powers for aid against the Constitution he had himself granted.
Castlereagh, indeed, was as averse as ever from committing Great Britain. to
the policy of the continental Powers; but in the Eastern Question, now every
day increasing in seriousness, he and Metternich stood on common ground which
suggested the expediency of a closer understanding between them. In October,
1821, accordingly, during the visit of King George IV to Hanover, the two
statesmen met in conference. A meeting apparently of so sinister an import for
the future of liberty seemed to some, at the moment, of doubtful expediency;
and Castlereagh thought it necessary to justify his action. “ Had the question
been of an ordinary character,” he wrote to Gordon, “and involving the form of
government under which any portion of Europe was to subsist (as that of Naples
lately did), I should have felt as you have done about an interview with Prince
Metternich, that it might lead to more noise and jealousy than was worth
encountering.., but the question of Turkey is of a totally different character,
and one which in England we regard, not as a theoretical, but as a practical
consideration of the greatest moment.”
Alexander’s
idea of a “ universal union ” of guarantee proved now a convenient diplomatic
weapon in the hands of those who desired to prevent his intervention in Turkey.
In a confidential memorandum, dated Hanover, October 22, Metternich defined the
Austrian policy as the maintenance of peace on the basis of existing treaties.
He would press the Porte to yield on those points at issue on which Russia’s
treaty rights were clear; but he refused to consider the question of war.
“There exists,” he wrote, “an explicit engagement on the part of Russia that
the Emperor will on no ground separate himself from the conservative principles
of the Alliance. It is to this declaration that the Emperor of Austria has
attached the moral guarantee which he has been invited by his august ally to
accord to him.” On October 28, Castlereagh, writing to Sir Charles Bagot at St
Petersburg, pursued the same line of argument. He refused to answer the Tsar’s
question as to what Great Britain would do in the event of war and the
overthrow of the Ottoman Power. Whatever his personal sympathy with the cause
of the Greeks might be, the preservation of the peace of Europe was of
paramount importance; and he could not reconcile it with his sense of duty “ to
embark on a scheme for new modelling the position of the Greek population at
the hazard of all the destructive confusion and disunion which such an attempt
would lead to, not only within Turkey, but in Europe. The nature of the Turkish
power was fully understood* when the existing state of Europe, including that
of Turkey, was placed under the provident care and anxious protection of the
general Alliance.” This bold claim to extend the objects of the Alliance so as
to cover not only the Acts of Vienna, which all had signed, but all other
existing territorial treaties, might have left the Tsar unconvinced, had
1822]
33
his personal
inclinations coincided with those of his people. As it was, Mettemich’s
diplomacy, hacked by Castlereagh, triumphed; the Russian Emperor sacrificed the
prestige of Russia in the East to his dream of a federated Europe, and
consented to send his representative to take counsel with the Allies at the
preliminary conferences at Vienna in September, 1822. He himself would be
present at those at Verona a month later. Castlereagh, now Marquis of
Londonderry, was on the eve of setting out for the conferences when, on August
12, his tragic death plaeed the guidance of the foreign policy of England in
other hands.
Though the
masterful personality and more brilliant imagination of George Canning were
sure, sooner or later, to give a new tone to the language of the British
Cabinet in foreign affairs, his acceptance of the office opened to him, at
last, by Castlereagh’s death, made no breach in the continuity of the policy of
the Government. In view of the urgency of the crisis in the East, the presence
of a British plenipotentiary at Verona was considered essential. The Duke of Wellington
was now selected as the British representative; and his instructions were those
whieh Lord Londonderry, with the approval of the King and the Cabinet, had
drawn up for his own guidance.
The main
subjects to be diseussed were three: the Turkish Question, that of Spain and
the Spanish Colonies, and the affairs of Italy. As to the last of these, Great
Britain not having charged herself with any superintendence of a system in
which she had merely acquiesced, the duty of the British Minister would only be
to keep himself informed and to see that nothing was done “ inconsistent with
the European system and the treaties.” As to the Greek Question, the
instructions foreshadowed the later action of Canning. The successes of the
Greeks and “ the progress made by them toward the formation of a Government,
together with the total paralysis of the Ottoman naval power in the Levant,”
pointed to the fact that, sooner or later, Great Britain would be foreed to
recognise the belligerent rights of a & facto Government in the Morea. As
to any proposal for joint intervention, care must be taken not to commit Great
Britain beyond the limits of good offiees. Any engagement in the nature of a
guarantee was altogether inadmissible.
On the
Spanish Question, which was destined at the Congress to overshadow all others,
the language of the instructions was quite inequivocal; there was to be “ a
rigid abstinence from any interference in the internal affairs of that
country.” As to the Spanish Colonies, these would be reeognised by other
States, sooner or later, should the mother-eountry not reestablish her
authority within a given time; and it would be to the interest of Spain herself
to “find the means of restoring an intercourse, when she cannot sueceed in
restoring a dominion.” Meanwhile, the British plenipotentiary was to draw
attention to the commerce between England and the revolted Colonies,
which it was
impossible to interrupt. Great Britain had already recognised the de facto
existence of the Spanish American Republics; there was no immediate necessity
for recognising their existence de jure*, “ so as to create a certain
impediment to the assertion of the rights of the former occupant”; but it was a
question how long it would be possible to postpone such recognition as would be
implied by the appointment of diplomatic agents. Great Britain would be glad to
“ obtain a concert” in this matter, but not such as to hamper her independence
of action. Thus were the principles defined of that policy which culminated,
two years later, in the recognition by Canning of the South American Republics.
The aloofness
of Great Britain from the other Powers was from the first made evident. The
Duke of Wellington, as Minister Plenipotentiary, was instructed not to go to
Verona until the affairs of Italy had been settled there. His place, meanwhile,
was to be taken by Lord Londonderry (Lord Stewart), Castlereagh’s half-brother
and successor in the title, who was to act in the same capacity as at Troppau
and Laibach. Meanwhile, in a series of despatches to Wellington, Canning
confirmed and elaborated the instructions of which he was the bearer. In the
Turkish Question, as between Greeks and Turks, Great Britain could be no party
to any intervention in the internal affairs of any nation; as between Turks and
Russians, she would insist on the observance of the treaties. In the matter of
Spain, her objection to intervention had been confirmed by subsequent events,
notably by the ill-concealed ambitions of the House of Braganza, which hoped
to profit by a French invasion. As to the American Colonies, England could be
no party to any declaration affirming the rights of Spain over them, so as to
fetter the discretion of the British Government. Indeed, in his opinion, before
the meeting of Parliament, “ the course of events, the interests of commerce,
and the state of navigation in the American seas,” would oblige the Cabinet “to
come to some understanding, more or less distinct^ with some of those
self-elected Governments.”
Wellington,
for his part, perceived while yet at Vienna that the Conferences at Verona
would “turn almost entirely upon the affairs of Spain.” Now that the influence
of Capodistrias had been removed by his dismissal, Mettemich, who had become,
according to Wellington, the Russian Emperor’s “principal adviser,” found
little difficulty in impressing his views upon the Tsar; and the attitude of
the Powers towards the Eastern Question had been settled, in the preliminary
conferences at Vienna, in a sense agreeable to Austria. When, on October 20,
the Conferences at Verona were opened, the first and only question raised was
that of Spain, and, with the broader questions of principle involved in it, it
occupied practically the whole period of the Congress.
The
discussion was opened by three questions formally propounded by Montmorency in
the name of the French Government: (1) Would the Allies withdraw their
Ministers from Madrid in the event of
France being
forced to do so? (2) In case of war, under what form and by what acts would the
Powers give France their moral support, so as to give to her action all the
force of the Alliance, and inspire a salutary fear in the revolutionaries of
all countries ? (3) What material aid would the Powers give, if asked by France
to intervene, under restrictions which she would declare and they would
recognise? The situation created by the French memorandum is luminously
described by Wellington in a letter to Canning dated October 29. The fundamental
difficulty lay in the false position in which France had placed herself by her
action in Spain since 1820; the embarrassment of the Emperor Alexander with his
army, which he desired to keep occupied; and the fact that the German Powers
felt it necessary to humour him in order to prevent his attacking Turkey. The reply
of Alexander to the French enquiries had been as prompt as disconcerting.
Already at Vienna he had made it clear to Wellington that he was in favour of
European intervention, and had expressed his surprise on learning that Villele
intended to keep the question “ wholly French.” He now proposed to march
150,000 Russians through Germany to Piedmont, where they would be in an
excellent position for attacking Jacobinism either in Spain or in France. This
was a solution which appealed to Mettemich and Montmorency as little as to
Wellington. The French Minister “ told the Tsar in positive terms ” that any
movement of troops would be injurious to France; and the Austrian and British
Ministers combined to persuade him of the perils which would attend any such demonstration.
The unanimity of the other Powers, however, stopped with their opposition to
the heroic measures of the Russian Emperor, and in spite of the efforts of the
Allies to refrain from holding any language in which Great Britain could not go
along with them, four days of “ confidential communications ” were sufficient
to reveal a fundamental divergence of view between Great Britain and the
continental Powers.
Wellington,
who from the wealth of his personal experience pointed out to the French Minister
the peculiar danger of an invasion of Spain, proposed that France should
declare her intention of maintaining peace, and should invite the good offices
of one of the Allies to explain this to the Spanish Government. The proposal
broke down, because Great Britain, recognised as the only possible mediator,
was too much interested in the questions at issue to be acceptable to France.
Failing this, Mettemich suggested that all the Powers should speak, so as to
prove to Spain that France had their support; and Montmorency proposed that
their common language should be based upon the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. But
Wellington had already made it clear that Great Britain would be no party to
any common declaration or treaty whatsoever. Mettemich, therefore, suggested
that the Allies should “hold a common language, but in separate notes, though
uniform in
their principles and their objects.” This solution was adopted by the
continental Powers; and Wellington, true to his instructions not to
countenance any intervention in Spanish affairs, took no part in the
conferences that followed. On October SO the Powers handed in their formal
replies to the French memorandum. Russia, Austria, and Prussia would act as
France should in respect to their Ministers in Spain, and would give to France
every countenance and assistance she might require, “ the cause for such
assistance, and the period, and the mode of giving it, being reserved to be
specified in a treaty.” Wellington, on the other hand, on behalf of Great
Britain, replied that, “having no knowledge of the cause of dispute, and not
being able to form a judgment upon a hypothetical case, he could give no answer
to any of the questions.”
Attempts were
made so to adjust the form of the intervention of the Powers as to avoid an
open breach with Great Britain. But the interests of Great Britain were, in
fact, too immediately involved to make any compromise with the principle of
non-intervention on the occasion possible; and when, on April 7, 1823, a French
army of
95,000 men, under the Duke of Angouleme, crossed
the Bidassoa, the experiment of a “ Confederation of Europe,” ruled by a
council of the great Powers, was at an end.
This outcome
revealed to all the world the essential weakness of the foundations on which
the claim of the Alliance to govern Europe rested. The dictatorship of the
Allies was, in fact, as much a usurpation as the Napoleonic Empire which they
had overthrown; and it could survive only so long as their own interests did
not come into violent conflict. This had been the argument of the Emperor
Alexander in his persistent efforts to base his “ universal union ” on the
broader foundation of the Holy Alliance; and his opinion had been backed by the
attitude of the minor States. The King of Sweden had protested at Aix-la-
Chapelle against the dictatorship of the great Powers; and after Verona, the
King of Wiirttemberg, in a circular note signed by Prince Wintzingerode and
dated January 2, 1823, had renewed the protest against the attitude of the
Powers which had “ inherited the influence arrogated by Napoleon in Europe,”
and had claimed for all sovereign States a voice in international councils. The
open defection of Great Britain shook to its foundations the international
structure on which, according to Mettemich, the safety of Europe still rested.
It was not that the attitude of the British Government was based on any new
principle, or that its language differed essentially from that which it had
always held. It was rather that, in the mouth of Canning, the old phrases had
become infused with a new spirit. Castlereagh had lamented the loosening of the
international ties which, as he rightly believed, had done so much to secure
the stability of the new order in Europe. To Canning they were but a drag on
the free initiative of
1823]
37
Great
Britain; and he made no secret of his satisfaction at their breach. In a letter
of January 3,1823, to Sir Charles Bagot at St Petersburg, he wrote exultantly
of “ the issue of Verona, which has split the one and indivisible Alliance into
three parts as distinct as the constitutions of England, France, and Muscovy.”
The three autocratic Courts might threaten, the Spanish Government, should it
prove refractory, with the resentment of collective Europe; but the policy of
the French, as of the British, Cabinet was now directed, not by European, but
by national considerations. “ So things are getting back to a wholesome state
again. Every nation for itself, and God for us all. The time for Areopagus, and
the like of that, is gone by.” In vain Mettemich tried to restore the broken
harmony of the Concert. To Sir Henry Wellesley, the British ambassador at
Vienna, he complained of the tone of speeches in Parliament, of the licence
allowed to popular agitation in favour of revolutionary movements, and declared
that Great Britain was in danger of losing her influence in the Alliance. In a
letter to Wellesley of September 16, 1823, Canning replied in language too
clear to be misunderstood. The policy of the British Government continued to
be what it had consistently been throughout. There was no intention of breaking
with the Alliance, so far as this confined itself to carrying out the
intentions with which it had been originally formed, and which were defined by
treaty. “ England is under no obligation to interfere, or to assist in
interfering, in the internal concerns of independent nations. The specific
engagement to interfere in France is an exception so studiously particularised
as to prove the rule. The rule I take to be, that our engagements have
reference wholly to the state of territorial possession settled at the Peace;
to the state of affairs between nation and nation; not (with the single
exception above stated) to the affairs of any nation within itself. I thought
the public declaration of my predecessor had set this question entirely at
rest.” As for the position of England in the Alliance—“ What is the influence
we have had in the counsels of the Alliance, and which Prince Mettemich exhorts
us to be so careful not to throw away ? We protested at Laibach; we remonstrated
at Verona. Our protest was treated as waste-paper; our remonstrances mingled
with the air. Our influence, if it is to be maintained abroad, must be secure
in the sources of strength at home; and the sources of that strength are in the
sympathy between the people and the Government; in the union of the public
sentiment with the public counsels; in the reciprocal confidence and
cooperation of the House of Commons and the Crown.”
It is not
surprising that language, so well justified from the British point of view, but
from the continental point of view so “insular,” should have led Mettemich to
speak of Canning as “the malevolent meteor hurled by an angry Providence upon
Europe.” Even had Mettemich been by temperament inclined to “ trust the
people,”
38 From Verona to the Revolution of July.
[1823-30
there existed
in the heterogeneous empire for the government of which he was responsible,
little possibility of any “ union of the public sentiment with the public
counsels”; and, whatever the limitations of his outlook and the errors of his
policy, he was in a better position than Canning to realise the perils to
European peace involved in the stirring up of the dormant forces of
nationality. It is clear, indeed, that Canning himself at this time did not
realise the full import of his language, nor contemplate the ultimate outcome
of the attitude he assumed. He loudly championed the principle of nationality;
but for him, as for Mettemich, the boundaries of nations were the territorial
divisions established at Vienna; and in deprecating the interference of the
Alliance in the Ottoman Empire he could even speak of the right of “ the
Turkish nation ” to manage its own affairs. “ Our business,” he wrote in the
letter already quoted, “is to preserve the peace of the world, and therefore
the independence of the several nations that compose it. In resisting the
Revolution in all its stages we resisted the spirit of change, to be sure, but
we resisted also the spirit of foreign domination.” Yet it was upon “foreign
domination” that the order of the greater part of Europe rested; and the same
was true of the British Empire itself; while, during the century to come, the
clash of national ideals and ambitions was to be the most fruitful cause of
change and of war.
The two
burning questions on which, during the interval between Verona and the July
Revolution, the Powers split into opposing camps— the Spanish Colonies and the
integrity of the Ottoman Empire—were outside the scope of the Alliance
altogether; and the attempt to bring them into the sphere of its influence
broke down on the opposition of the Powers whose interests were involved. The
case of the Spanish Colonies was the most momentous in its results, though in a
sense very remote from the issues which loomed largest in contemporary fears.
To believers in the divine right of monarchy the establishment of a series of
Republics in the New World portended the ruin of all order in Europe; to
doctrinaire Liberals, like Bentham, it meant the triumph of enlightenment
through the example given to the world of communities firmly based on the
purest principles of reason. The philosopher seriously meditated transferring
himself in his old age to Mexico, to share in the glorious work; the Due de
Richelieu had proposed, in order to prevent a worse thing, to set up a Bourbon
prince as “ King of Buenos Aires.” After the easy triumph of the French arms in
Spain, the Spanish Government, supported by France, suggested that the fate of
the Spanish Colonies should be submitted to a Congress of the Powers. The
proposal broke down on the opposition of Great Britain, determined, in
Canning’s phrase, that if France had Spain it should be “Spain without the
Indies.” In announcing to Parliament the recognition by the British Government
of the South American Republics (1825), Canning
exclaimed, “
We have called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old.”
To an age enlightened by very nearly a century’s experience of the working of
Liberal institutions in the semi-barbarous South American States both the hopes
and the fears excited by their establishment seem almost grotesque; and the
event now recognised as most pregnant with momentous issues for the future was
the sudden intervention of the United States of America. The reply of the great
Republic of the West to the claim of the European Powers to regulate the
affairs of all the world was the famous message of President Monroe to
Congress, on December 2, 1823, which developed into the “ Monroe doctrine” of
“America for the Americans.”
While the
attitude of the United States effectually prevented the attempt to extend the
dictatorship of the Alliance beyond the bounds of Europe, events in Europe
itself were rapidly tending to complete the process of disruption which the
protests of Great Britain had begun. The developments of the Eastern Question
had already split the Powers into opposing camps, before the Revolutions of
1830 made the first breach in the “treaties.” The independence of Greece was
placed under the guarantee, not of the general Alliance, but of Russia, Great
Britain, and France; and, though the independence of Belgium and the establishment
of the Orleans dynasty in France were “brought within the treaties” by the
Concert of all the great Powers, the result of the Revolution was in effect to
split the Alliance in two. The seal was set on this division by the secret
articles of the Convention of Berlin of October 15, 1833, between Russia,
Austria, and Prussia, by which the principles of the Troppau Protocol were
solemnly reaffirmed. Thenceforward the “ Holy Alliance ” was not even the
semblance of a Universal Union, but frankly a league of the three monarchies of
eastern Europe for the defence of autocracy against revolution. The last
effective assertion of its principles was the intervention of the Emperor
Nicholas I, in 1849, to crush the revolt in Hungary. The “ Concert of Europe ”
still subsisted as an effective factor in international relations; but it was
based upon the principle consistently asserted throughout by the British
Government: the binding obligation of treaties, and the right of the Powers
concerned to be called into counsel on any case arising which threatened their
interests. It was reserved for another Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, to
revive, at the close of the nineteenth century, an ideal similar to that of the
original Holy Alliance, in the attempt to establish an international system
which should enable the world to rid itself of the ruinous burden imposed upon
it by the armed rivalry of the nations.
THE
DOCTRINAIRES.
In March, 1815, France had submitted for the second
time to the rule of Napoleon, although united Europe declared him an outlaw and
prepared the final effort for his overthrow.
Menacing as
were the dangers of France abroad, they did not prevent men who considered
themselves called upon to act for their country from fixing their anxious
attention on internal political problems. They claimed from the despot, who had
ruled France absolutely for fourteen years, the grant of constitutional
liberty. These men were Lafayette, Benjamin Constant, Sismondi, and a few
others. They represented the very doctrines which Napoleon had constantly
rejected. The Ideologues, as he used disdainfully to call them, represented,
according to him, the chimeras of abstract politics inherited from the
eighteenth century. He did not distinguish between the disciples of Montesquieu
and the followers of Rousseau, but held them alike responsible for the anarchy,
the terror, and finally for the dissolution of social order. “ These twelve or
fifteen metaphysicians,” he said, “ ought to be thrown into the water.” In
accordance with these sentiments, he silenced the last representatives of free
speech in the consular assemblies.
Shortly
before Marengo, a few years before Necker’s death, the First Consul had an
interview with him at Geneva. The former Minister of Louis XVI, who had
witnessed the fall of the monarchy, propounded to Napoleon his favourite views.
He insisted on the identity between morals and politics, and advised a
republican and constitutional form of government. The impression he produced
was one of mingled contempt and irritation. Necker’s daughter, Madame de Stael,
and the other members of his little group, had henceforth to suffer for the
fatal mistake of daring to utilise, and at the same time to impose limitations
on, the supreme power of Napoleon. During his reign these representatives of
the principles of 1789 suffered exile and persecution. They were challenged by
the powerful genius who felt himself strong enough to provide France, not only
with the military glory and the institutions, but also with the ideas, which
she required. Victory, while it lasted, stifled
opposition.
But, after 1812 and the disasters which the astute mind of Talleyrand had seen
so early as 1805 to be inevitable, official France claimed once more the right
to criticise the ruler whom fortune had abandoned. Even then the effects of the
system which Napoleon had based on the weakness of human nature, on its love of
power, on its selfish aims, and on the worship of success, prevailed with those
who condemned, not his errors, but his misfortune. And the hope of securing
their position in the future induced the members of the Legislative Bodies of
the Empire finally to submit without conditions to the Monarchy by the Grace of
God, and to accept the Constitution as the free gift of the King. The
Idiologues of Republican days alone hesitated.
Their ablest
publicist, Benjamin Constant, a Swiss by origin, represented the
individualistic theory in politics. Liberty was to him a personal right, even
more than a social necessity. At the beginning of his career, under the
Directory, his sympathies were for the Republic. Like Sieyes, he advocated the
limitation of sovereignty by the artificial combination of separate powers
within the State, directed alike against despotism and popular terrorism. In
1814 he had supported a scheme of constitutional monarchy for France, with Bemadotte
at the helm, and Madame de Stael had favoured it.
The final
sanction by Europe of the legitimist solution induced the men of this group, as
it had induced Lafayette, an advanced Liberal, and Carnot, a Republican, to
accept the monarchy of Louis XVIII. Benjamin Constant now called the Bourbons
of the elder branch “la famille incontestee.'" The allegiance of these
politicians was not, however, based upon the legitimist creed, but on the pact
concluded between the dynasty and the nation by the promulgation of the
Charter. This pact excluded the return of the cmcien regime. The monarchy
thereby accepted the centralised administrative organisation created by the
Empire and the social organisation begotten by the Revolution and based on the
principle of equality before the law. It further assumed that the hereditary
right, which the nation had once more sanctioned, could alone reconcile old and
new France and secure the peace of Europe. The first Restoration rested on the
assumption that men of all parties would be summoned round the throne, a
visible testimony to the unity of a free and pacified nation. Under these
conditions men who did not believe in the Divine Right of Kings were induced,
both by prudence and necessity, to accept the monarchy.
Such an attitude
was regarded with suspicion by the monarch and was hateful to the
ultra-Royalists. They were supported by the King’s brother, Monsieur, and were
chiefly recruited from the ranks of the Emigres. It was soon manifest that
their influence was likely to prevail. In 1814 this became apparent more by the
intentions which were revealed than by the measures which were actually passed.
But one of
CH, JI.
these
measures, the reestablishment of the Censorship of the Press, first convinced
Benjamin Constant that the Restoration would not last. When Carnot, one of the
regicides, submitted a memorandum to the King, in which he made the Emigration
responsible for the death of Louis XVI, he was met by an outburst of Royalist
passion, which showed that men of his political past could not expect
toleration. One of the King’s Ministers, Ferrand, justified a proposal for
indemnities to the emigres by asserting that they alone had kept “ the straight
line,” while the Royalists who had remained in France were tainted with revolutionary
ideas. Napoleon asserted that he owed his triumphant return from Elba to this
utterance of Ferrand. Napoleon was able to grant what the Restoration refused.
He had never punished men, either for having held convictions which he himself
did not share or for evil deeds which belonged to the past. On condition that
henceforth they submitted to his will, he had welcomed Royalists and
Republicans, Terrorists, Thermidorians, aristocrats, or democrats, good and bad
alike. In 1815, after having been carried by a liberal and democratic current
from Cannes to the ]<!lysee, he acted on the same principle. The days of his
absolute rule were gone. He convinced patriots of the type of Lafayette and
Carnot of the necessity of repelling foreign invasion; he won over Benjamin
Constant, who drafted the Acte Additionnel in a more liberal sense than the
Charter.
But Napoleon
did not succeed in gaining the support of the Constitutional Monarchists. The
episode of the Hundred Days only confirmed them in the resolution to rescue the
King from his reactionary surroundings and to convince him of the necessity of
shaping the monarchy of the future not only according to the letter, but the
spirit, of the Constitution. The foremost of the Royalists who recommended this
course, Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard, was well known to the King. Bora in 1768,
the son of peasant proprietors, he had begun his career as a lawyer in Paris
and had approved of the beginnings of the Revolution. The excesses which
followed he condemned, and he foresaw their consequences. He escaped from the
Terror and was elected, in 1797, together with Camille Jordan, the young and
highly-gifted deputy for Lyons, as member of the Council of the Five Hundred.
In this assembly both these men pleaded, with remarkable eloquence, for liberty
of worship and the impartial administration of justice. Their efforts were in
vain; and from that time Royer-Collard went back to the historic tradition of
France, as expressed in the monarchical system. He became in the true sense of
the word a Legitimist, on the assumption that the hereditary Monarchy
represented a principle, not a party, and that it would be prepared to lead the
new destinies of France. A trusted adviser of Louis XVIII, the Abbe de Montes-
quiou, secured Royer-Collard as the correspondent who kept the King informed
about events in France. This correspondence came to an end in 1800, after
Marengo, when the Royalist cause had become
I814-21] Royer-Collard. Ronald. De Maislre.
43
hopeless. In
his valedictory letter to the King he congratulated him on having refused to
sacrifice his hereditary rights for pecuniary advantages and warned him once
more against the follies and the intrigues of the Emigration. Royer-Collard
then applied himself to philosophy. He taught, under the influence of Thomas
Reid, a metaphysical doctrine directed chiefly against the prevailing
materialism, in defence of free will and the claims of human reason. He was
appointed a professor at the Sorbonne, where young men like Guizot and Charles
de Remusat became his pupils, and witnesses to the influence of his teaching in
favour of liberty. It rested on religious convictions. While Guizot, a sincere
Protestaut, defended Christianity according to his creed, Royer-Collard
remained faithful to the Jansenist traditions in which he had been educated.
Their severe morality was congenial to his conscientious but haughty and
unbending mind. He owed it to his Jansenist teachers, he said, that he had
never sought his own interest in public life.
When the Abbe
de Montesquiou became a Minister under the first Restoration, he gave Guizot a
post, and, remembering the services Royer-Collard had rendered to his cause,
entrusted him with the supervision of the Press. Both he and Guizot consented
to limit its liberty so long as the Government was not firmly established. At
the same time they resisted the policy of the Ultras. When Chateaubriand
published his Reflexions politiques, which, although directed against men like
Carnot, advocated the recognition of the new order and a peaceful understanding
between the contending parties, Royer-Collard declared this policy to be the
true foundation of the monarchical system. He failed in his endeavours to
decentralise the existing organisation of public instruction, because his object,
the creation of seventeen universities, met with the resolute opposition of the
Vicomte de Bonald, an advocate of royal absolutism and of the supreme power of
the Church in matters of education. Bonald was supported by the Abbe de
Lamennais, a man not less rigid than Bonald himself and equal in mental and
literary powers to Count Joseph de Maistre. These partisans of the extreme
views in Church politics came 'to the front soon after the publication in Paris
of de Maistre’s Principe generateur des Constitutions politiques (1814). It
contained the essence of doctrines which were made famous by the author’s later
works. They proclaimed with conspicuous talent the divine origin of
sovereignty, and the solidarity of mankind as a living and continuous organism,
resting on tradition, guided by the infallible authority of Catholic faith, of
which the Pope is the interpreter. De Maistre, like Bonald, looked forward to a
regeneration of religion, which, notwithstanding the efforts of his genius to
meet the needs of his time, was but another expression for the theocracy of the
Middle Ages. The ideas of de Maistre developed into a coherent system only
after his death, 1821, when the treatise Du Pape, which he published first in
an incomplete form, was followed by a fuller version, by the work on
44 Religious intolerance.—Louis XVIII at Ghent,
[isu-5
Ultglise
Gallicane, and the Soirees de Saint-Pttersbourg; the intellectual father of
modern Ultramontanism never knew the extent of his triumphs.
Lamennais
introduced the doctrines of de Maistre into practical politics. He was the
first Catholic leader who proclaimed, in the days of the Empire, that the
destructive philosophy of the eighteenth century was doomed, and that the right
of public instruction belonged exclusively to the clergy. In. the ranks of the
rising generation, both lay and clerical, he won supporters whom the Imperial
police failed to discourage and who organised the religious associations which,
under the restored Monarchy, acquired the doubtful political fame attached to
the intrigues and the secret working of the “ Congregation.” Louis XVIII tried
in vain to avoid the danger which was threatening to complicate political by
religious fanaticism. So early as 1814, priests refused absolution to the owners
of national property. Regulations as to the observance of the Sabbath and
Church processions, still more the outbreak of popular hatred against
Protestants in the south of France, foretold a religious reaction, which was
arrested by the catastrophe of March, 1815. But it was well known in Paris that
Louis XVIII, after his flight to Ghent, was surrounded by men who declared that
his Liberal concessions were responsible for the downfall of the Monarchy.
Royer-Collard
and his friends had experienced the intolerance of the Ultras, whose religious
views they rejected even more decidedly than their political passions. They
considered it their imperative duty to speak to the King; and they sent Guizot
to Ghent. The object of his mission was to demand guarantees for a loyal
acceptance of the Charter, the dismissal of Blacas, the reactionary royal
favourite, and the recall of Talleyrand, who had succeeded at the Congress of
Vienna in saving the prestige of his fallen sovereign. At Ghent Guizot had the
support of surviving Constitutionalists of 1789, of Beugnot, who had drafted
the Charter, of the staunch Royalist Laine, of Baron Louis, the indispensable
Minister of Finance in both Restorations, but was unable to overcome the
opposing influences. Chateaubriand, who acted as Minister of the Interior,
proved hostile to Guizot personally, but advocated the liberty of the Press.
Monsieur and his followers remained of opinion that everything which was not
mentioned in the Charter should remain as in the days of the aneien regime. The
King was reserved, but gracious.
After
Waterloo the Duke of Wellington, speaking in the name of England as the chief
Power which effected the second Restoration, succeeded where the Constitutional
Monarchists had failed. Talleyrand was recalled. In his proclamation from
Cambrai the King was induced to confess that the Government of 1814 had
committed errors which would be avoided in the future. He promised liberty of
the Press, free elections, the abolition of the system of confiscations adopted
by Napoleon, a hereditary peerage, and a homogeneous Ministry. At the same time
Wellington’s distrust of the chances of the new Government prompted
him to insist
on Fouche being placed at the head of the Ministry, of Police. The King
reluctantly consented to this humiliating necessity; but he nominated as
prefect of the Paris police a young official of the name of Decazes, whose zeal
for the Royalist cause had deserved the sovereign’s approval and who henceforth
replaced Blacas in his affection.
The task which
lay before French statesmen at the second Restoration was one of extreme
difficulty. The Tsar Alexander, owing to the attitude of Talleyrand at the
Congress of Vienna, had become hostile to France. He excluded Talleyrand, who
was Minister of Foreign Affairs, from the negotiations with the Powers, which
were in armed occupation of three- fourths of the soil of France and had become
exacting in their demands. At home, the events of the Hundred Days had
increased to relentless hatred and fanaticism the violence of the parties into
which the country remained divided. The Royalists believed in a conspiracy
against the Crown which called for vengeance. The foremost Liberals rejected
the monarchy of Louis XVIII so late as the end of June; and after the proclamation
of Cambrai Fouche saw his opportunity. He perfidiously encouraged Lafayette,
Voyer d’Argenson, Pontecoulant, and Benjamin Constant, to carry proposals to
Hagenau, the headquarters of the Allied sovereigns, who declined to receive
them. The envoys had to submit to Lord Stewart’s rudeness when they insisted on
the right of France to choose her sovereign, and declared that neither Louis
XVIII nor Napoleon H satisfied the wishes of the people. After their return to
Paris, tba Chambers, whose illusions they had fostered, were closed, at
Fouche’s order, by a Prussian officer. The rejection of legitimacy by these
Liberals remained unforgotten, nor was it ever wholly abandoned by them and by
other leaders of the future Left in the Royalist assemblies. Their opposition
became more and more anti-dynastic, and they undoubtedly compromised themselves
by conspiring against the throne.
On the other
hand, the legitimate sovereign who ascended for the second time the throne of
France, returned, not as the successor of Louis XIV, but as the heir of the
Revolution. “ The Government of the King,” Ranke truly says, “ had no other
powers than those which the Revolution had bestowed”; and de Maistre did not
hesitate to affirm that the rightful descendant of so many Kings had become the
successor of Bonaparte. The supreme military command, the right to declare war,
to conclude treaties, and to issue the ordinances and decrees for the sanction
of laws voted by the Chambers, were prerogatives which had belonged to the
Consular power. The Concordat remained in force; the declaration of Catholicism
as the State religion remained a dead letter. The Charte octroyee left three
political problems unsolved. The King had the power to choose his ministers;
but the question was left undecided whether he was bound to select them from
the ranks of the majority—whether his government was to be merely
constitutional
or
parliamentary; while it was settled that the Chambers were to meet every year,
that the deputies were to be unpaid, and that a payment of 300 francs in direct
taxation was to be the qualification of the electors, the mode of election was
not fixed; finally, there was no Press law. These three questions predominated
in the parliamentary debates of the second Restoration. France remained
divided, not into two parties, but into two nations. The pa' isans of the
ancien regime declared war to the knife on the children of the Revolution. The
generation of the past was determined to recover what it had lost; the new
generation, affirmed its right to keep what it had won.
Between these
contending elements stood the King. It soon became apparent that he was
resolved to govern. But at the beginning of his reign, in 1815, he had no
military force. It was only after the troops on the Loire had been disbanded
(July 16, 1815) that it became possible to form one. In the meantime the White
Terror broke out in the south. It was directed against Bonapartists,
Revolutionists, and Protestants, and led to rapine and murder. Hundreds of men
fell victims, among them General Ramel at Toulouse, Marshal Brune at Avignon;
and the authorities were unable to protect the terrified people or to punish
the criminals. While the Duke of Angouleme, not without the help of Austrian
troops, put down disturbances Which had been stimulated by clerical influence,
and while the Allied troops kept order in the south and east, the general
election was held (August 22), The King, in 1814, had retained the Imperial
Chamber. Now, pending a new electoral law, he issued the provisional Ordinance
of July 13, by which the Imperial system was continued for the election of the
new Chamber; but the limit of age for electors was reduced, and the number of
deputies increased to 402. The Prefects received instructions to use their
influence at the elections in favour of moderation; the King appointed the
presidents of electoral colleges without reference to party; the censorship
introduced in 1814 for minor publications was abolished. The Government
remained impartial; but the Royalist policy of retaliation triumphed so
completely that the terrorised Bonapartists and Republicans only obtained a few
representatives; and the Chamber was named by the King the Chambre introuvable,
because it surpassed the most sanguine expectations of the Royalists themselves.
Fouche,
frightened at the extent of the Royalist victory, laid two memoranda before the
Council, pointing out that civil war would be the outcome of reaction. They
were made public with his connivance, and Talleyrand made use of this breach of
trust to get rid of a colleague who now could only do harm. He was himself
determined to resign, but he counted on a return to office, a calculation never
realised while the Restoration lasted. In the darkest hour of the Monarchy he
had committed himself to the conviction that France was both Royalist and
Constitutional. The first verdict of the country under the restored
dynasty put
back the hand on the timepiece of history twenty-five years and indicated a
reactionary France. This made a Talleyrand Ministry impossible. Foreign
complications offered the pretext for his retirement. In response to the
exacting terms of the Allies, Talleyrand declared proudly that Louis XVIII was
the ally of the Powers, not their enemy: no right of conquest existed against
the legitimate sovereign. Had not the Allies declared that the maintenance of
the Treaty of Paris was the sole object of the recent war ? But on September 20
bis Ministry was forced to resign.
The Tsar held
out hopes of better conditions should the Due de Richelieu become Prime
Minister. When Richelieu hesitated, Alexander showed him the map drawn by
Knesebeck, with the line depriving France of the circle of fortresses
constructed by Vauban. Pozzo di Borgo, in agreement with the Tsar, then wrote
the protest of the French Government against Russia’s allies; and Richelieu
reluctantly accepted office. He had lived out of the country for twenty-four
years, had rendered brilliant service to the Tsar as Governor of Odessa, and
had steeled his resolution in the struggle with Napoleon. He was a man of lofty
character and admirable disinterestedness. In his youth he had been influenced
by the physiocratic school, but of modem France he knew little. He stood
outside the circle of Monsieur, nor did he share the violent prejudices of his
class, although he had fought in the eanks of the Emigration. Not so his
colleagues, the incompetent Vaublanc, Minister of the Interior, the Duke of
Feltre, and Du Bouchage, whose appointments were concessions to the Ultras.
Richelieu’s supporters were Barbe-Marbois, Keeper of the Seals, Corvetto,
Minister of Finance, and Decazes, to whom Louis XVIII gave the Ministry of
Police.
The Chamber
met in October. It was chiefly composed of landowners, officials, and
middlc-class Conservatives. Its leaders were La Bourdonnaye, a former chouan
and a fanatic; Bonald, whose doctrine of a hierarchical constitution of society
rested on the assumption of the alliance between Church and State; the more
sober-minded Corbiere, a lawyer, who tried, like Villele, to harmonise the
demands of the Ultras with the necessities of practical politics. Neither the
secret agent of Monsieur, Vitrolles, always employed and never trusted or
rewarded, nor Chateaubriand, at once the most eloquent champion of Royalist
passions and the advocate of constitutional right, played a conspicuous part in
the House. Vitrolles intrigued; Chateaubriand influenced the Government and
public opinion by ruling the Press with masterly power. The mainstay of the
Ultras was Monsieur, who, in the words of Richelieu, although heir to the
throne, never ceased to be a party chief. The Constitutional Royalists were
represented by Laine, appointed President of the Chamber by the King, Royer-
Collard, Councillor of State and head of the Education department,
Sainte-Aulaire, Camille Jordan, and Count Hercule de Serre, who soon
came to the
very front rank. He had fought under Conde; subsequently he became President of
the High Court of Justice at Hamburg during the Empire, and now held a similar
post at Colmar. Guizot, principal secretary in the Ministry of Justice, was
excluded by his age from the Chamber. Pasquier, both as deputy and Minister,
Barante, as a high official, represented the Imperial administrators, who
accepted the Restoration. From the House of Peers, whose dignity had become
hereditary in spite of the Royalists, twenty members were excluded for their
action during the Hundred Days. The King replaced them by Napoleonic marshals
and members of the revolutionary assemblies, as well as by Royalists.
The royal
speech insisted on adherence to the Charter; the address of the deputies
reminded the King of the necessity to punish. The presentation of three
exceptional measures met this demand. The first gave the Government full powers
to arrest and detain, without bringing them before the Courts, all offenders
against the King, the royal House, and the safety of the State. The second
punished with extreme severity those who menaced the King or public security.
The third created tribunals—the Cours prevotales—which, presided over by
soldiers, could deal summarily with political offenders. Although the powers of
these Courts were not made retrospective, the King’s prerogative of mercy was
practically abolished.
In the debate
on these measures, Royer-Collard and de Serre came to the front. They
recognised the necessity of exceptional laws, but urged milder punishments and
more exact definitions of offences. They opposed a law, passed by the Chamber
and rejected by the Peers, for the temporary suspension of the security of
judicial tenure, by the abolition of which the Ultras calculated that places
would be filled by their adherents. From that moment, Royer-Collard, Pasquier,
and their friends took counsel together on the tactics to be adopted against
the party stigmatised by Richelieu as the White Jacobins.
On November
20 Richelieu signed the second Peace of Paris “ with a sorrow amounting to
despair.” He had to submit to the surveillance of France by the Powers, to be
carried out by their ambassadors. While the responsibility for the settlement
with Europe rested on Richelieu, he was compelled to introduce the amnesty law.
In his proclamation from Cambrai the King had excluded from amnesty the
traitors of the Hundred Days only. The ordinance of July 24 sent nineteen
persons before Courts-martial, which began their work with the death-sentence
on Labe'doyere. The fate of thirty-eight others was to be decided by the
Chamber. Richelieu, supported by Royer-Collard, Pasquier, and de Serre, now
proposed that these thirty-eight persons should be banished, but that all those
not mentioned on Fouche’s lists should be pardoned. The Ultras asserted the
right of the Chamber in legislative matters to override the King’s prerogative
of mercy. The execution of Marshal
Ney, the
escape of Lavalette, for which Decazes and Barbe-Marbois were held responsible,
increased the thirst for vengeance. The language of La Bourdonnaye recalled
1793. He, Chateaubriand, Villele, and Corbiere, called for “ categories ”
which, contrary to the will of the King, threatened 1200 persons with exile
and confiscation.
In the course
of this debate Richelieu spoke memorable words: “I do not understand your
passions, your relentless hatreds. I pass every day by the house which belonged
to my ancestors. I see their property in other hands and I behold in museums
the treasures which belonged to them. It is a sad sight; but it does not rouse
in me feelings either of despair or revenge. You appear to me sometimes to be
out of your minds, all of you who have remained in France.” Neither he, nor
Royer-Collard and de Serre, who spoke in a similar sense and in favour of the
royal prerogative of mercy, succeeded in preventing the exclusion of the
regicides from the amnesty. The Cabinet was divided. Three Ministers acted with
Monsieur. The instructions of Decazes to interpret the laws of exception in a
merciful sense were evaded. In the army, the navy, and the administration, the
opponents of Royalism were dismissed.
On December
18, 1815, Vaublanc introduced an impossible electoral law. Its object was to
place the whole electoral machinery in the hands of the Executive. It was not
unfairly described as a proposal under which Ministers and Prefects chose the
electors, and the electors the deputies. The provision of the Charter under
which a fifth part of the Chamber had to be elected annually was retained; but
the limit of age for candidates was reduced from 40 to 25 years. These last two
proposals caused the Ultras to reject the measure. It was then that Villele, deputy
of Toulouse, ventured on a daring counter-proposal. He framed the only project
of an electoral law which, during the Restoration, aimed at extending the right
of suffrage to the people. This project advocated the reduction of the
qualification for the franchise from 300 to 50 francs in direct taxation,
thereby increasing the constituency from 100,000 to 2 millions, while insisting
on a payment of 1000 francs in taxation as a qualification for the deputies,
and maintaining the system of indirect election. Villele appealed to the royal
ordinance of 1815, which suggested modifications of the Charter; he proposed
that general elections should be quinquennial and that deputies should be 40
years of age. By this proposal the Ultras intended to increase parliamentary
power at the expense of the Crown and in opposition to a Government which they
considered hostile to their interests. They claimed a Ministry chosen from the
ranks of their majority, and to uphold this majority they counted upon the
combined votes of the landed gentry and nobility and upon their influence with
the rural population. Their real aim was to weaken the power of the Liberal
middle classes and to secure the domination of their party. The Constitutional
Royalists supported the Government. During the Ministry of Talleyrand,
Royer-Collard, being
consulted,
had recommended direct elections and a qualification of 300 francs paid in
direct taxation. Now he declared in a memorable speech that in France the King
ruled and not the Parliament, and that the cooperation of the Chamber was only
required for legislation and supplies. On the day when the Chamber could mfke
or unmake Ministers, a Republic would be established. The Chamber in his view
was a part of the King’s Government. De Serre characterised Villele’s project
as an attack on the royal initiative, and insisted on the necessity of
maintaining unimpaired the power of the Crown in a nation without an
aristocracy and with shifting majorities. Democracy, he said, had ruined the
country and was unwelcome to France.
Both
Villele’s and Vaublanc’s proposals were lost in the Peers; and Corvetto then
introduced the budget. To meet the enormous deficit, he proposed the sale of
forests which had formerly been for the most part ecclesiastical and communal
property and which now belonged to the State. The Right rejected the proposal
and the claims of creditors of the Hundred Days, although the King had allowed
them. They suggested payment by exchequer bonds of 100 francs, quoted at 60,
which amounted to a declaration of partial bankruptcy.
The
Government having recommended an increased payment to the clergy, the Right
demanded for the Church a fixed revenue of 42 millions, the charge of the civil
registers, and restitution of its confiscated property. De Serre characterised
these proposals as monstrous and unconstitutional, and dissociated the clergy
from claims which could not be raised without questioning the rights of
property in every European State. Royer-Collard reminded the House that the
King was pledged. The majority would not be convinced. Corvetto had to withdraw
his proposal and to defer definite arrangements with regard to the debt. The
session was closed in April, 1816. Shortly afterwards Vaublanc was replaced by
Laine. This was a concession to the minority, whose leaders Richelieu
henceforth consulted, and to the Powers, in whose name Wellington besought
Louis XVIII to support the Ministry. The Allies feared that pcace, the dynasty,
and the solvency of France were at stake. The Tsai’, Nesselrode, and Hardenberg
advocated the dissolution of the Chamber. Richelieu felt this interference so
humiliating that he declared he would rather be overthrown by Frenchmen than
saved by foreigners.
Just then
disturbances broke out at Lyons and Grenoble. Their importance was exaggerated
by General Donnadieu and the local authorities; and they were repressed with
needless severity. While the Ultras planned changes in the Charter and a
Ministry of their own, the firm establishment of a moderate policy was the condition
insisted on by the Powers, before reducing the army of occupation. Russia
called attention to the infraction of the Charter by the votes on the budget
and the amnesty law. Gradually, through reports from all parts of the country,
through memoranda from Pasquier, Guizot, Decazes, the King
1816-7]
51
was brought
to admit that “the monarchy must be nationalised, the nation royalised.”
Richelieu and Laine gave way; and on September 5,1816, an ordinance appeared,
dissolving the Chamber. It maintained provisionally the existing electoral
system; but it reduced the Chamber to 258 members. Decazes, who was the real
author of this coup d'etat, had made Barante and subsequently Royer-Collard his
confidants. The latter embraced him, exclaiming that he deserved a statue. The
majority of the nation rejoiced. The Ultras were taken entirely by surprise.
Chateaubriand, in La Monarchic selon la Charte, prophesied a Jacobin assembly
and called on the Royalists to support the King against his deceivers. Decazes
suppressed the pamphlet and worked on the electors through the censorship of
the Press, recommending the choice of Moderates, “ no matter whether these
accepted the Charter because of the King, or the King because of the Charter.”
Guizot vindicated for the King the right of dissolution, and clearly indicated
that he and his friends only awaited security from reaction to complete the
edifice of political liberty.
The elections
for the new Chamber in October, 1816, gave the Ministers a majority of between
forty and fifty. The independent Left won twelve seats. When Pasquier became
Chancellor in January, 1817, he was replaced as President of the Chamber by de
Serre. The Government confided the preparation of the electoral law to
Royer-Collard, who recurred to his plan of 1815—a qualification of 300 francs
for voters, the qualifications for deputies to be payment of 1000 francs in
taxation and 40 years of age, direct suffrage by scrutin de liste in the chief
town of each Department, royal nomination of the presidents of electoral
bodies, and annual election of one-fifth of the Chamber in Departments chosen
by ballot. These were essentially the provisions of Article XL of the Charter,
which, however, had left open the question of indirect elections, and,
consequently, the formation of a wider electorate. Under the new system there
were hardly 100,000 electors; the centre of gravity was placed in the middle
class in order to exclude the lower, “the instrument,” according to Barante,
“of intrigue and passion.”
The
Republican Left was as yet too small a group to defend the interests of
democracy. This was done by the Royalists, who again called for an extended
franchise, and complained of the condemnation of the country to political
slavery. Their Liberalism provoked the sarcasm of Benjamin Constant, who,
pardoned by the King for his conduct during the Hundred Days, supported the
Government, advising it to rely on the assistance of all persons free from
crime, and thereby to resist the party which, under the pretext of liberty,
aimed at the recovery of privilege.
Richelieu did
not disguise his personal preference for the scheme of Villele; and Laine,
Minister of the Interior, although responsible for the new scheme, doubted
whether 28,000,000 of people would be adequately
52
[18I6-7
represented
by an electorate of about 100,000. He entrusted to Guizot the defence of the
ministerial plan in the press. Guizot did not conceal that he and his friends
desired the ascendancy of the middle class, which, according to them,
represented culture and individual independence in civil life and right in
politics. De Serre took another standpoint. He approved of the exclusion of the
masses; but he desired separate representation of the only great interests
which survived the Revolution— landed property ;-,nd urban industry, a proposal
which found no support. Royer-Collard carried the Chamber with him when he
asked them to trust electors, whose material independence was a pledge of
political maturity, and who represented the aristocracies of birth, fortune,
talent, and position. “ Above the middle class,” he said, “ is the longing for
power; below it is ignorance, the habit of dependence, and, therefore, the
incapacity of exercising the functions in question.” The opposition in the
Peers gave way under the influence of the King; on February 5, 1817, the
measure became law. Its main principles governed France for thirty years.
The Right,
under pretence that the Charter would be violated, now refused to consent to
the prolongation of exceptional laws. Royer- Collard, supported by his friends,
defended them and the continuance of temporary press restrictions on the ground
of necessity, and, in a masterly speech, proclaimed it as the faith of
constitutional France that the King governed, spoke, and acted through his
Ministers, so long as these obeyed the law. It was a revolutionary fiction
which separated the King from his Government. At this stage of his career,
Royer-Collard, in friendly relations with Decazes and Pasquier, accepted the
designation of ministerialist. About this time his acquaintance with the Due
de Broglie began. They met at the death-bed of Madame de Stael, whose daughter
the young Duke had married, and were not mutually attracted. But their opinions
harmonised better than their personalities. Broglie had come out of the ranks
of Imperial administrators with extreme Liberal opinions. They were modified by
the doctrine of Madame de Stael, as expressed in the Considerations, and
condensed in her famous saying, “that liberty, not despotism, was old,” and by
the study of English and American writers. Nevertheless he scrupled to support
a Ministry which he reproached with governing under the influence of
foreigners.
It was during
the session of 1817 that the appellation of “Doctrinaires” was applied to the
little distinct group of Constitutional Royalists. The name was given to
Royer-Collard, de Serre, Barante, Camille Jordan, Guizot, and, in a more
limited sense, to Beugnot, Mounier, and Remusat. Broglie, when he ceased to act
with the Liberals, completed the halfdozen about whom Remusat jestingly said
in 1818, that the thinking faction “ collected on a sofa, constituted
themselves the majority.” Till then the group possessed no definite doctrine in
common. According
to Barante,
the struggle with the Ultras led to the gradual formulation of a governing
principle for the interpretation of the Charter. The party, says Guizot, was
formed spontaneously, without premeditation, to resist a pressing evil, not in
the interest of a particular system or set of ideas. To support the
Restoration, while combating reaction, was at first its whole policy. It gained
in distinctness as time went on. Guizot writes that the French monarchy and the
middle class, both alarmed at the pretensions of the old nobility, combined for
mutual protection. The Doctrinaires sought in the power of the Crown a
safeguard against the ambition of the Chamber, and cared little for the
consequences derived from theories of representation; nay more, they rejected
them in the name of monarchy. Royer-Collard, addressing his constituents in
1816, said: “ The King is Legitimacy. Legitimacy is order and security. These
can be maintained by moderation alone, a virtue derived by politics from ethics.”
Barante insists that Royer- Collard was essentially an opportunist.
The political
action of the Doctrinaires was determined less by ideas than by personalities.
They all developed under foreign influences; Royer-Collard under that of Scotch
philosophy; de Serre, Camille Jordan, Broglie in Germany, either in exile or as
Imperial officials; Guizot and Barante at Geneva, in an atmosphere of German
philosophy and poetry. The Duchesse de Broglie represented in politics the
principles of Madame de Stael; it was she who won over her husband, Guizot, and
Barante to orthodox Christianity. The supremacy of ethics in politics was the
aim of the Doctrinaires. “Morals are the serious part of politics,” Remusat
wrote, “ We must show the Ultras that their morals are as corrupt as
superficial, their religion mere formalism. Theories are convictions. If they
are repressed, nothing remains but personal interest, the right of the
strongest.” He described Chateaubriand’s Genie du Christianisme as a
mischievous book, because it did not interpret the Gospel as the source of
political morality, liberty, and civilisation.
Hereditary
monarchy was for Royer-Collard the symbol of reverence. Guizot understood
French society as the outcome, not of 1789, but of centuries. He wanted to
complete the Revolution by expelling errors, and vindicated for himself and his
friends the privilege of associating politics with sound philosophy. Philosophy
taught that neither legitimate monarchy nor popular freedom can be improvised.
He admitted that legitimacy begins with usurpation, liberty in anarchy. But he
placed his hopes for the future in adhesion to the historical past, and, in the
words of de Serre, wished “ to bring customs and law into harmony with
constitutional government.” This line of thought, starting from historical
development and placing moral considerations above party, had always something
repellent for the French mind. The Doctrinaires did not conciliate it by their
uncompromising, authoritative tone. They
influenced
opinion ; a time came when they controlled it; but they never became popular,
nor strong enough to form a governing party.
Divergences
of opinion might be perceived among them so early as 1817. Barante went with
Decazes. Guizot and Broglie showed predilections for English institutions,
which Royer-Collard in reality never shared. Guizot was too overbearing for
him; and his saying that he would not be a figure on Guizot’s chessboard is of
an early date. His cutting remark, when asked whether he had called Guizot an austere
intriguer, “ I never said austere,” belongs to a later time. Remusat, with
Pasquier and Mole, complained that the Doctrinaires were not business men and
had no efficient organ in the Press. Laine and Pasquier objected to their
intellectual haughtiness; Richelieu distrusted them. The Royalists spoke of
them as Jacobins, and called them insufferable pedants. Later they were courted
by the Left.
During the
summer of 1817, after the close of the session, the Government was embarrassed
by scarcity, lawlessness, and disturbances in Lyons, where General Canuel
imitated Donnadieu. The Court prevotales pronounced 28 capital sentences and
others of transportation and imprisonment. It was only when Marshal Marmont was
sent that order was restored. The election of a fifth of the deputies in
September, 1817, left the majority unchanged. The Government, however, with
difficulty prevented the return of Lafayette, Benjamin Constant, and Manuel for
Paris. Before meeting the Chamber, Richelieu reluctantly replaced his colleagues
Du Bouchage and the Duke of Feltre by Mole and Gouvion Saint-Cyr. The royal
speech announced a wide amnesty and the abolition of the Cours prevotales.
Numerous Press prosecutions and the consequent excitement of public opinion
caused the Government to ask for three years’ prolongation of the censorship,
for the trial of minor Press offences by the ordinary Courts and of incitements
to crime before a jury.
The Ultras
and Liberals now combined in an opposition which would have failed without the
support of the Doctrinaires, who demanded a jury for all Press offences.
Camille Jordan, although a ministerialist and Councillor of State, accused the
Government of violating the Charter and of flattering without satisfying
extreme opinions. Royer-Collard declared that liberty of the Press without
freedom to criticise the Government was unthinkable; of all arbitrary powers
those dealing with the Press should be the last entrusted to the executive.
Laine reminded him that he had not always thought so. An attempt by Richelieu
through Villele and Corbiere to come to an understanding with the Right failed.
Broglie went with the Doctrinaires, except that he rejected the censorship
entirely, although he afterwards admitted its necessity while foreign armies
stood in France. The proposed extension of trial by jury was dropped, but the
censorship was only retained for a
year.
Pasquier and Barante held that the distrust between Ministers and the
Doctrinaires originated in this debate.
Royer-Collard,
as President of the Council of Education, had to maintain the university system
against the combined attacks of Lamennais, the Liberals, and his own chief,
Laine, who, obstinate as himself, shared Richelieu’s aversion from him. The
King spoke of the Doctrinaires as traitors who glorified the Revolution at the
expense of the anden regime, but supported Decazes, when accused by
Chateaubriand and Fievee of complicity with the Left. The censorship upon newspapers
was evaded by both parties; they attacked the Government in leaflets. Benjamin
Constant made the Minerve, a non-periodical print, the most powerful organ of
the Left, and sought to win over the middle class by insisting on property as
the basis of political rights.
In December,
1817, Gouvion Saint-Cyr produced a plan for the reorganisation of the army on a
footing of 240,000. Louis XVIII had abolished the hated conscription; but
voluntary enlistment proved insufficient to maintain an effective force. The
Ministry retained the voluntary system, but introduced also recruiting by
ballot and seven years’ service. In compensation for this unpopular measure
promotion by seniority up to the rank of colonel was made the rule for
two-thirds of the officers, and the promotion of non-commissioned officers was
also permitted. The King gave his consent to this limitation of prerogative.
The formation of a reserve of veterans recalled to the colours for a number of
years the disbanded men of the Imperial army.
This system,
based on equality, created, according to Camille Jordan, an army of soldiers
and citizens. It reconciled the veterans of the Empire and limited the
possibility of giving commissions to emigris and nobles. On these grounds it
was an abomination to the Right, who, as in the Press debate, appealed to the
Charter in support of prerogative. Monsieur besought the King to dismiss the
Ministry; Chateaubriand and Villele protested against the democratic measure,
which prepared an instrument for despotism. The Government leaned on the Left
and on the Doctrinaires. Guizot composed the speech which won for Gouvion
Saint-Cyr the greatest triumph of the session. Royer-Collard, like his friends,
defended the measure, but supported by de Serre, Beugnot and Camille Jordan, he
demanded an annual vote for the army, as Parliament had no right to bind its
successors. “ It would be useless for the Chamber to sit," he said, “if
without and apart from it an army exists which could slip from its hands and be
as uncontrollable as the Civil List.” This proposal was rejected. Although the
Government was victorious, Decazes alone in the Cabinet entirely agreed with
Gouvion Saint-Cyr. Richelieu, who had long wished to retire, and Laine,
regretted the breach with the Right in proportion as their antipathy to the
Doctrinaires increased.
The fate of
the third Government proposal was sealed before debate.
Since 1814,
as shown in a later chapter, negotiations bad gone on between France and Rome
for the abrogation of the Concordat of 1801. Not one of the negotiators thought
the assent of the Chamber necessary for the proposed agreement. The omission
had to be remedied; and a bill was drafted by Pasquier, in consultation with
Royer-Collard and Camille Jordan, and with the assistance of Portalis, which
guarded the jurisdiction of the State, reaffirmed the legality of the sales of
Church property, and reserved for the Government control over the publication
of papal bulls, briefs, and decrees. When it became clear that the ministerial
scheme would be rejected by both Liberals and Doctrinaires, the Government put
aside indefinitely the report of the commission; and after fruitless
negotiations with the Curia the Concordat of 1801 remained in force.
Before the
end of the session of 1818, by the intervention of the Tsar through Pozzo di
Borgo and with the final consent of Wellington, it became possible to regulate
the responsibilities of France towards her foreign creditors and the Powers.
The claims of the foreign creditors were considerably reduced and met by an
issue of rentes sur Vfetat; while a further issue of rentes was authorised to
cover the war indemnity, An annual budget became possible now that special
budgets were gradually abolished. The debt was consolidated, the State
creditors were secured, and the ground was thus prepared for that honourable
and economical method of administration which is the chief glory of the
Restoration Government.
But in 1818,
as before, nothing but surrender would conciliate the Ultras. Villele was of
opinion that a Republic was at hand if a Royalist policy were not adopted by
the King. Monsieur tried to force upon him a Government of the extreme Right,
by representing to the Powers, in a secret note draw by Vitrolles, that such a
course could alone save the dynasty and the country. Louis XVIII, incensed at a
Royalist military conspiracy, replied by striking’ the name of Vitrolles from
the roll of Privy Councillors and by depriving Monsieur of the command of the
National Guard (September, 1818).
At the
Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle Richelieu, through his personal influence, finally
liberated France from the army of occupation. There the news reached him that
the annual partial elections had nearly doubled the numbers of the Left
(October, 1818). It increased to 45 deputies. Lafayette and Manuel were
returned, the latter for Vendee. Richelieu gave his diplomatic colleagues
tranquillising assurances, on which he did not himself rely, and promised to
withhold his intended resignation, but returned to Paris with the conviction
that the electoral law must be modified or even sacrificed and the Right
conciliated. “We have defeated the Right wing,” he wrote; “let us now fall on
the Left, which is much more dangerous, seeing that it has its reserves behind
it.” Decazes, who was held responsible for the results of the
election,
admitted that the law required modifications, but remained of opinion that the
Government must lean upon the Centre. This group, however, having split just
then into a right and a left Centre, was no longer able to secure a compact
majority. During the election Camille Jordan had issued a proclamation which
was considered as the manifesto of the Doctrinaires. It rejected any
understanding with the Royalists, and was interpreted as a declaration of war
against the Cabinet.
The Chambers
met in the middle of December. The last speech from the throne had deprecated
excessive zeal and declared the King’s system to mean peace and union between
the two nations into which France was unhappily divided. Now Louis XVIII spoke
of principles which, under the guise of freedom, led through anarchy to
despotism— words which were considered by Royer-Collard and Camille Jordan as
an affront to new France. In the Peers the Royalist majority filled the
committees with their nominees; in the Chamber of Deputies the Doctrinaires did
the same, although de Serre, whose new rules for the Chamber were rejected, was
replaced as President by Ravez, a friend of Laine. In opposition to Decazes,
Richelieu and Laine advised an alliance with the Right, and proposed that all
elections should be suspended for five years. Richelieu then approached Villele
and Corbiere, suggesting the retirement of Gouvion Saint-Cyr and Decazes and
the reform of tne electoral law. When nothing came of this advance and all hope
was over of a Ministry representing the Right Centre and the Right, Richelieu
resigned (December 21, 1818). He advised the King to send for Decazes, who,
only at the express desire of Louis XVIII, consented to accept the Home Office
in a Ministry without Richelieu. On his recommendation, General Dessoles, a man
in the King’s confidence, became President of the Council; de Serre was made
Minister of Justice, Baron Louis of Finance; Portal, an excellent
administrator, of Marine; Gouvion Saint-Cyr remained at the War Office. The
Ministry of Police was suppressed by Decazes as inconsistent with free
government, and the Prefecture of police was restored.
The Cabinet
was homogeneous and sincerely Liberal; the Doctrinaires promised de Serre their
support. The programme of the King still held the field : “ Let us hold out our
hands to the Right and to the Left; and let us say, those not against us are
with us.” De Serre wrote that the safety of the Crown and the country lay in
the development of free institutions, Liberally interpreted. He hoped to sever
the Royalist Opposition from the Ultras, and at the same time to win over men
like Broglie. The latter still considered the electoral law the masterpiece of
the Doctrinaires, and the abandonment of it as synonymous with capitulation to
reaction. At a later time he thought otherwise and acknowledged that it was a
capital fault to sacrifice the Richelieu Ministry for that enactment.
Richelieu’s fears, he said, were not groundless; the electoral law of 1817,
right in principle, was revolutionary in its working
58 The Ministry of Decazes and the Chambers.
[isi9
and could not
be maintained. This was proved in 1819, when the Ministry formed to defend it
had to give it up. Richelieu was overthrown at the moment when his foreign
policy triumphed; and the Right Centre was driven slowly but inevitably into
the arms of the Right.
The
Doctrinaires now joined the Left Centre in defence of the Ministry. The Left,
although favourable in principle to a Cabinet in which four Ministers were more
advanced Liberals than Decazes, became exacting in their claims; while the
exasperated Ultras were so churlish in the debate on a grant to Richelieu,
that, though a comparatively poor man, he handed the money over to the
hospitals of Bordeaux.
On February
20, 1819, Barthelemy; the former Director, proposed “ that the Peers
should humbly request the King to sanction a measure tending to modify the
organisation of electoral bodies.” This proposal obtained a large majority. In
the Lower Chamber Laffitte moved an address to the Crown in favour of the existing
law. De Serrc replied that the address was useless, because the Ministry were
resolved to propose no change. The hostility of the Peers was shown by their
refusal, without debate, to sanction a harmless proposal, accepted by the
deputies, for altering the commencement of the financial year from January to
July. A dissolution was considered; but it was decided to create sixty Peers
(March 6, 1819), among them Mounier and Barante. About thirty of the new Peers
were former dignitaries of the Empire. Thus, as on September 5, 1816, a coup
d'etat of the King stopped the reaction. Monsieur talked about the beginning of
the end and the doom of his House.
When the
proposal of Barthelemy came to be discussed in the Lower Chamber, Royer-Collard
declared that any attack on the system of direct election threatened the middle
classes, which embodied modem interests and upheld the existing order. The
passionate eloquence of de Serre excited the enthusiasm of the Left. He replied
to a charge of Villele as to ministerial pressure on the magistracy by a
denunciation of the White Terror and the intimidation of the juries by the
fanatics of the South. Barthelemy’s proposal was rejected by a large majority;
and, on March 22,1819, de Serre introduced the three great measures which
established the liberty of the Press.
These laws
were claimed by Broglie as the work of the Doctrinaires and the realisation of
their principles and promises. He drew them with the help of Guizot and agreed
as to their bases with Royer-Collard and Barante. All offences of the Press
were to be dealt with under the ordinary law. The first measure defined crimes
and offences and classified them under four heads: offences against the person
of the King; incitement to crime; offences against public. morality; libel. The
second measure fixed the tribunals; all offences, with the exception of libel,
were to be tried before a jury. The third measure related specially to
newspapers. Preliminary authorisation and censorship were done
away with.
This was an enormous step in the direction of liberty. But the Left were not
satisfied, while the Right, although committed in the previous session to
liberty of the Press, now denounced these measures as a breach of the
Constitution. But the Government had at its command the greatest oratorical
talents of modem France. When the clauses relating to public morality were
alternately criticised by the Right as atheistical and by Benjamin Constant as
amounting to State protection of religion, Royer-Collard and de Serre triumphantly
vindicated liberty of conscience and morality as the shield of religion. “ What
is man,” said de Serre, “ that feeble and passionate being, that he should
offer to the Almighty the help of his arm? Does he pretend to usurp His
strength or to offer the aid of his own weakness ?...'The vanity of this
presumption has often been shown. The centuries that are gone teach in bloody
characters its terrible results.”
The tone he
took raised the level of the whole debate, which remains one of the most
remarkable in parliamentary history. In reply to Laine, who had joined the
Right Centre, de Serre made use of the phrase, never forgotten by his enemies,
that, in the French assemblies, the majorities were sound. “What, even in the
Convention?” exclaimed La Bourdonnaye. “Yes,” retorted de Serre, “even in the
Convention. That majority debated with daggers at their throats.” The Bills
were carried by large majorities in full Chambers. On May 1, 1819, the Press
became free. Chateaubriand made the Dibats the organ of the Royalist middle
class. The Doctrinaires were represented by the Courrier, to which Villemain,
Remusat, and Salvandy contributed. But their appeal to impartial justice left
them isolated.
The Left
organised petitions in favour of amnesty for the exiles of 1815. De Serre
looked on this agitation as a revolutionary cabal, to force from the King the
pardon of all exiles, including the members of the Bonaparte family and the
regicides. He reminded the Chamber of the history of the breach between the
Revolution and the monarchy, of the treachery of the Hundred Days, of the
covenant of the monarchy with liberty, of the magnanimity of the King, of the
vote of the Chamber of 1815, which demanded the punishment of treason; and he
concluded with the famous sentence that, except in special cases and by the
clemency of the King, “the regicides could never be pardoned.” The united
applause of the Right and the Centres, with which this remarkable speech was
received, convinced the Left that they had nothing to hope from de Serre, who
stood by the monarchy as firmly as he upheld his Liberal convictions.
Royer-Collard replied as distinctly to Benjamin Constant that the attempt to
wring an amnesty from the King would be considered an outrage in the case of a
private individual. How much more so when the outrage was directed both against
natural feelings and the royal majesty, which was identical with the dignity of
the nation! Decazes held similar language, and the petitions were rejected.
The military
law served as a pretext for renewed attacks on the Ministry by Villele,
Chateaubriand, and La Bourdonnaye on the Right, by Manuel and Benjamin Constant
on the Left. The session closed with every presage of future conflict. The
belligerent attitude assumed by the clergy in the Royalist cause, and the
aggressive demonstrations against all who did not adopt their opinions, were
met by the Liberals with equal violence. In the early summer of 1819
disturbances occurred among the students in Paris, in favour of a censured
professor, which led to the closing of the law school. Royer-Collard declared
that he would put down with the utmost vigour any attempt to introduce
political strife into the schools. But, when Decazes agreed to an arrangement
under which the Christian Brothers could obtain, for members of their
confraternity, examined by themselves, diplomas from the University, enabling
them to teach, Royer-Collard retired from the direction of the Education
Department, as he considered that an encroachment had been made on the privileges
of the University. His resignation seemed to indicate the separation of the
Doctrinaires from the disunited Cabinet. The Liberals congratulated
Royer-Collard; the Royalists ironically asked how the Ministry was to get on
without the support of the half-dozen men to whom they owed so many victories ?
With the ciy,
“ Rather support a Jacobin than a ministerialist," the Right went in 1819
to the annual partial election. With their assistance, Gregoire, formerly
“constitutional” Bishop of Blois, was elected for the Isere. He had been the
very first man to propose, in 1792, the abolition of royalty and the
prosecution of Louis XVI. Though personally respectable, he was a wrong-headed
and fanatical partisan, who had compared Marie-Antoinette to Jezebel and Kings
to monsters, whose deaths in all cases should be an occasion for rejoicing.
Besides Gregoire, 28 members of the Left were returned, among them General Foy,
while only five Ultras secured seats. Louis XVIII wrote to Decazes, to whom he
was becoming daily more attached: “It is a consolation for me to think that one
day history, which, in the long run, flatter? nobody, will say to whom we are
indebted for such an election.” He alluded to Monsieur, who was embittered
beyond measure by the decline of his influence. Benjamin Constant, afraid of
reaction, warned his party of the danger of overthrowing a Ministiy on whose
merits he insisted, while Camille Jordan deplored the apparently irreparable
breach of the Ministry with the Left. The elections in France coincided with
revolutionary movements in Spain, Italy, and Germany.
Under the
double pressure of home and foreign influence, three Ministers, Decazes, de
Serre, and Portal, hesitated no longer to change the electoral law. De Serre
went back to his former idea of the representation of property by classes, and,
with the help of Broglie, he completed, by the end of October, 1819, a
comprehensive measure
1819]
Difficulties of Decazes and de Serve.
61
of
parliamentary reform by which he endeavoured to introduce an element of
stability in the electoral system by favouring landed property. There was to be
a Chamber of hereditary Peers, with an endowment of
3,500,000 francs. The Chamber of Deputies was to be
composed of 456 members, of SO years of age and upwards, paying in direct taxes
600 francs, and elected for seven years by a complicated electoral system under
which the wealthier classes had a double vote.
At the time
when Broglie joined in this scheme he was already separated from his friends of
the Left. In 1817 he had founded with them the Societe des Amis de la Presse,
which soon became the meeting- place of Republicans and Bonapartists. Decazes
dissolved this society in 1819; Broglie, driven by Benjamin Constant to explain
his position, said that the society had always been illegal and that there was
nothing for it but submission. He knew that his own step-father d’Argenson,
Manuel, and Lafayette, were allied with conspirators and pretenders, and
thought it his duty to terminate his political connexion with them. Meanwhile
Decazes, when he realised that the consent of Dessoles, Gouvion Saint-Cyr, and
Baron Louis was not to be obtained for a reform of the electoral law, tried
through Villele and Corbiere to come to an understanding with Richelieu, who
was then travelling in Holland. He sent him (November, 1819) a confidential
agent bearing a note from the King and a letter from himself, explaining the
situation and enclosing a draft, by Barante, of the proposed legislative
measures. At the same time Decazes approached Royer-Collard, to induce him to
join the Ministry. Royer-Collard also was alarmed by the election of Gregoire,
but met every proposal to deal with the situation by remarking that no
legislative enactment could save the monarchy: the evil came from men, not from
things; to perish was also a solution. But Decazes was so anxious for his
assistance that he offered him the Presidency of the Council and his own
resignation, whereupon de Serre remarked that self-sacrifice consisted in
standing by the colours and not in flying from them. Royer-Collard himself was
of opinion that no Prime Minister was possible but Richelieu, and insinuated
that he might then take the Education Department himself. His interview with
Decazes took place on November 15. The next day de Serre offered the War Office
to Broglie. The latter replied that he could give no assistance and only do
harm; that he had no influence with the Ultras; and that his vindication of
liberty would be looked upon as a relapse into error. When he broke with the
Left he changed, not his opinions, but his party. Nobody would believe in his
disinterestedness, if he accepted office. On the day on which Broglie
declined, Richelieu’s answer arrived. He wrote to the King that he, speaking in
the presence of God, did not deem himself capable of undertaking the task; but
he promised his general support.
De Serre then
unfolded his whole scheme to Royer-Collard, who neither
favoured nor
opposed it; he still thought it possible to overcome the objection of Richelieu
to take office. So late as November 17 de Serre wrote to Decazes that he still
hoped “to make the Pope”; i.e. to persuade Royer-Collard to form a ministry. On
that very day, after de Serre had produced his plan to the Cabinet, Dessoles,
Gouvion Saint- Cyr, and Louis resigned. Royer-Collard refused at the last
moment to join the Government. De Serre gave up the intended increase of the
Ministry, but succeeded in obtaining the appointment of Roy, Latour- Maubourg,
and Pasquier, on whom the King specially insisted, as Ministers of Finance,
War, and Foreign Affairs respectively. De Serre having declined the Presidency
of the Council, that position was given to Decazes.
Royer-Collard
expressed his disapproval and disappointment in a letter to de Serre, who
replied that the constitution of the Ministry was the result of the refusal of
Royer-Collard himself to take office. Louis XVIII wrote to Decazes that the
delight of the Comte d’Artois and the Duchess of Angouleme made him fear he had
been guilty of folly. The attempt to rally the Left Centre round the standard
of de Serre had failed. The Cabinet, reconstructed in a Koyalist sense, without
conciliating the Royalists, was now dependent on the Right Centre. Villele
declined to make any concessions to it. Chateaubriand, in the name of the
Ultras, stated, as the conditions for their support of electoral reform,
reorganisation of the National Guard, municipal reform, alteration of the
system of promotion in the army, reduction of taxation, reestablishment of the
religious Orders, and compensation for the victims of the Revolution.
The speech
from the throne insisted on the necessity of amendments in the Charter in order
to save the country from the disquietude caused by annual elections. Eight days
later the Right moved to annul the election of Gregoire. The Ministers would
have been willing to exclude him on a point of form. The Left, who had tried to
make him resign, would have accepted this solution. But Laine, representing on
this occasion the Right as well as the Right Centre, in a memorable speech
insisted on the exclusion on grounds of personal unworthiness; only the extreme
Left voted against expulsion. During the debate on a Government motion for a
vote on account, pending the introduction of the estimates, the Ultras were so
violent that Villele became alarmed and persuaded his friends to vote with the
Government against the Left and a few Ultras. Two great speeches by Pasquier
and Decazes accentuated the difference between the Government and the Left,
which organised petitions in favour of the existing electoral system. A fatal
blow was now given to the Ministry by the physical breakdown of de Serre, who,
in January, 1820, was obliged to go to Nice to recruit his shattered health.
Before he
left, he reluctantly consented to a modification of his electoral plan. The
scheme finally put forward was that of de Serre,
1820]
G3
with
amendments by Richelieu, Pasquier, and Laine. Colleges of the arrondissements
were to select colleges of the Departments out of the most highly taxed
landowners; septennial general elections and the reduction of the age
qualification were dropped; but the annual election of one-fifth of the
deputies was to be suspended for five years. The measure, accepted by the King,
was to be introduced on February 14. On the evening of February 13, 1820, the
Duke of Berry was stabbed at the door of the Opera House by Louvel. Overcome by
grief, Decazes, who had hurried to the scene, scarcely perceived that the wife
of the dying Prince turned away from him in horror. On the next day his
impeachment, “ as an accessory to the murder,” was proposed. Chateaubriand
wrote, “ The hand that struck the blow is not the most guilty.” The whole
Right, in fact, held Decazes responsible for the catastrophe. On February 15
the Government asked for exceptional laws in restraint of liberty, and the
reintroduction of the censorship for five years, and at the same time
introduced their measure of electoral reform.
The Left
Centre were not consulted. Royer-Collard, Camille Jordan, and Beugnot made it a
condition, before consenting to the temporary measures of security, that the
existing system of election should be maintained. In the Upper House,
Doctrinaires and Royalists rejected the proposal to restore the censorship.
Every attempt at conciliation made by Decazes was fruitless. “We have all been
killed with the Duke,” he wrote to de Serre. With the consent of the King he
went to Richelieu on February 18, to whom, at the request of Decazes, Monsieur
promised the support of himself and his friends, saying, “I will be the first
of your soldiers.”
Without
confidence in this assurance Richelieu threw himself into the breach. The
King’s powers of resistance were broken by the tears and supplications of his family.
He dismissed the favourite, who was made Ambassador in London and a Duke. Thus
disappeared from the parliamentary stage a man, who to exceptional ability and
great personal charm united a clear apprehension of the requirements of the
modem State. Decazes in 1820 was only forty years old; but, although he lived
to an advanced age he never recovered political power. Though he cannot be
numbered among great and creative statesmen, he was an excellent administrator,
energetic, hard-working, and of a conciliatory disposition. His greatest
achievement, the Ordinance of September, 1816, which finally led to his fall,
secured years of peaceful development to the Government of the elder branch of
the Bourbons.
After his
return to power, Richelieu placed the moderate Royalist Simeon at the Home
Office and Mounier at the head of the police; Portalis replaced de Serre ad
interim; Pasquier, who remained at the Foreign Office, brilliantly vindicated
the ministerial policy in the Chamber. The Doctrinaires continued in the
Council of State. De Serre charged them with having, by their conduct, brought
about the
64
[l820
sacrifice of
Decazes to the Ultras. De Serre’s friends were of a similar opinion; in their
letters to him they termed Royer-Collard the greatest master of destruction,
Decazes recommended that Broglie should be secured to the Ministry as the least
Doctrinaire of the Doctrinaires, now that de Serre no longer belonged to them.
Broglie described the situation as desperate, and the King’s rule as at an end.
“ Richelieu,” wrote Royer-Collard, “is the last bulwark”; all opposition was
dangerous and he would have nothing to say to it, but he would never agree to
the electoral proposals of the Government as they stood; and, in the debates on
the exceptional laws, the hostility of the Doctrinaires became dear.
Royer-Collard compared these measures to money raised at usurious interest,
which ruins the creditor; the nullification of the representative system by the
reintroduction of privilege would prove deadly; the royal standard, which was
hoisted on September 5, 1816, was sinking in the hands of incompetent leaders.
The Left,
encouraged by the success of the Revolution in Spain, and animated by the fieiy
eloquence of General Foy, who acted as mediator between them and the
Doctrinaires, attacked the Government with ever increasing violence. The Right
reluctantly provided a feeble and precarious majority. Guizot wrote to de Serre
that the monarchical and Liberal reform which he intended was doomed; he ought
to resign and clear himself of responsibility, as he no longer had power.
Royer- Collard held similar language: “ I dreamt of an alliance between order
and liberty, between Legitimacy and the Revolution....I am now awake.” But de
Serre had taken his stand. He thought there were sighs that both groups of the
Right would come to an understanding for the defence of monarchy. Should that
come to pass he would gladly see them in power. Till then the only course was
to fight on. The notion of deserting his post seemed to him cowardly. Since
March there was absolutely no prospect of carrying de Serre’s project, either
as proposed by Decazes or in its original shape. On April 17 the Government, in
agreement with Villele, Corbiere, and Lain£, introduced a third scheme,
according to which two different classes of electoral colleges were to be
created in each Department; those of the arrondissements, with a franchise of
300 francs, were to elect as many candidates as the Department had deputies;
that of the Department, consisting of the most highly taxed fifth of the
voters, was to elect the deputies from these lists.
TTie
recognition of property, defined by Benjamin Constant no less than by the
Doctrinaires themselves “as the natural, necessary inequality, on which the
exercise of political rights reposed,” had been the root- idea of the electoral
law of 1817. The project of 1820, which introduced the dual vote, transferred
political preponderance from the middle class to landed property, which, in spite
of all upheavals and changes, tb about half of its original extent remained in
or had returned into the hands of the old nobility. The Left saw in the new
proposals an injury
1820]
65
to the
industrial as opposed to the landed interest, and a preparatory step towards
the reintroduction of privilege. They attacked the withdrawal of the project
of Decazes as illegal, with the support of Royer- Collard.
The Ultras
considered the measure inadequate and the expression of the mind of the Centre.
In another speech, on May 17, Royer-Collard characterised liberty and
legitimacy as inseparable ideas, and equality as the corner-stone of French
liberty. He repudiated, as before, the doctrine that the sovereign people
represented persons and individual wills, not society, its rights and
interests. Constitutional theory should make no distinction between owners of
large and small properties. Property as such was the moral guarantee of civil
capacity. “All the interests and rights of the community are represented by the
Lower Chamber. Equality of electors and of votes and direct election are
inseparable. Election by majority is alone valid. The representation of
minorities is a fraud, a violation of the Charter, a coup d'etat against
equality and the representative system; it is the Counter-revolution.” Pasquier
retorted on the 18th that equality, the fundamental principle of the Charter,
was already set at nought, 27,900,000 souls being disfranchised as against
about 80,000 voters. He charged Royer-Collard with confounding civil rights,
which were equal for all, and political rights, which were not.
The strongest
pressure was brought upon de Serre, who returned at this time to Paris, by
Broglie, Guizot, and Royer-Collard not to sacrifice himself “to the mutilated
Bill and the wretched Ministry.” “We have imperishable recollections in common.
We have revealed our souls to each other,” wrote Royer-Collard. For a whole
week, in silence, de Serre listened to orators who accused one another of conspiring
with the Left against monarchy, and with the Right in the interest of the
Counter-revolution. The excitement was tremendous, in the gallery, at the doors
of the House, throughout the country, in the army itself, which Laffitte,
Lafayette, and d’Argenson were attempting to corrupt, while Vitrolles intrigued
for Monsieur. On May 27 Lafayette spoke. He contended that the obligations of
the Charter were reciprocal; the tricolour was insulted by the emigres, the
conquests of the Revolution threatened. It would not be well to drive the young
generation to the defence of the sacred symbols of truth and justice. De Serre
rose. He now began, in the words of Broglie, his Homeric struggle against the
Left, which attacked him with fury, against the Right, which branded him as a
traitor, against his former allies now incensed against him; he stood alone
amongst colleagues, all of whom had sought his assistance and yet were divided
by his presence. The hand of death was upon him; nevertheless he fought with a
cool courage and mental activity never surpassed. Lafayette, he said, had
alluded. to the Revolution. “ Have not those times,” he continued, “left to
the honourable
66
[1820
member
sorrowful experiences and profitable recollections? He must have feltj more
than once, with death in his heart and the blush of shame on his cheek, that
when once the masses are roused, it is not only impossible to arrest them in a
career of crime, but that one ma be often forced to follow thiem, perhaps sometimes
to lead.”
Royer-Collard
again repudiated any connexion with the doctrine of the sovereign people, and,
after insisting once more on his views about direct election and equality of
votes, admitted the necessity of modifications in the Act of 1817. In order to
avoid the proposed two different jystems of election and the double vote,
Camille Jordan moved an amendment to create as many electoral colleges as the
Department had deputies. This idea was now approved by the Left Centre and the
Left, although the Left knew very well that the division of electors by
arrotidissements would raise up local influences against the revolutionary
propaganda. The Chamber consented, by a majority of one, to consider this
amendment. If this were accepted by the Government, they must renounce alliance
with the whole Royalist party and break up their majority, while Camille Jordan
could only offer the steady support of his friends, who were a minority in the
Opposition. De Serre moved its rejection; describing the measure of Decazes,
which was in reality his own, as that which would stem the tide of revolution
in France and elsewhere by means of a powerful, generously interpreted
representative system. Neither the Right nor his disconcerted colleagues dared
to repudiate de Serre. The amendment of Camille Jordan was lost by ten votes.
On June 3 the first clause of the electoral law, regulating the electoral
colleges, was carried by five. On that morning Royer-Collard and Guizot let de
Serre know that five-sixths of the Left were willing to vote for the clause, on
condition of immediate dissolution, the election of the present 258 members by
colleges of the arrondissement, and that of 172 additional members by colleges
of the Department, but on a reduced franchise which would render impossible a
predominant reprt sntation of reactionary interests.
Immediately
after the vote the demonstrations in favour of the deputies of the Left, which
had gone on daily since May 16, assumed the character of revolt. The Ministry
placed the troops under the command of Marshal Macdonald. Officers of the Guard
in plain clothes and returned republican exiles, among them an agent of
Lafayette, took part in these riots. On June 6 Camille Jordan proposed that the
Chamber be adjourned till the safety of the national representation, threatened
by the Royalists, was secured. De Serre denied the existence of danger, but
charged the Left with endeavouring to obtain, by incitement to disorder, what
they could not get by parliamentary methods. Manuel replied that justice could
not be expected from de Serre: the Ministry was no longer able to save the
country. The Keeper of the Seals did
1820]
Electoral scheme amended and passed.
67
not waver for
an instant. He held his ground against Benjamin Constant, Casimir Perier, and
Laffitte.
Louvel’s
execution made this a critical time, but the Government mastered disorder.
Guizot acknowledges that this was done firmly and moderately, without violating
freedom of debate. While the Government were concerned about the maintenance
of order, two deputies of the Left Centre, Courvoisier and Boin, gave notice of
two farther amendments. That of Courvoisier rejected the double vote. The
amendment of Boin, which was considered privately by de Serre, Villele, and
Corbiere, was substantially the proposal which Royer-Collard and Guizot made to
de Serre on June 8. But it fixed the franchise for the departmental colleges at
a qualification of 1000 francs, equal to that of the deputies. It further gave
to the members of these colleges the double vote. This amendment was carried,
on June 9, by 185 against 66 votes of the Left and the extreme Royalists. In
the Peers the law once more underwent severe criticism from liberals and
Doctrinaires, especially from Barante and Broglie. They regretted the omission
of provisions for general elections and the reduction of the age qualification.
They however admitted that the gains outweighed the losses and that de Serre’s
project of 1819 was revived in essentials. With the assistance of the moderate
Royalists the Ministry were victorious. A fortnight after the measure became
law, Laine offered Villele in the name of Richelieu a seat in the Cabinet.
Villele declined for the present, pending the elections, in order to keep
himself free from the appearance of having sought a position for himself.
During the
debate on the budget the Left abstained from voting, on the ground that the
Charter had been violated; and all legal opposition was at an end. Two only of
their newspapers had escaped censure. General Foy and Laffitte were now
dismissed from their posts. The Right, however, remained dissatisfied, so long
as members of the definite Opposition were alone touched. The adversaries they
most feared were those who had once fought side by side with them in the interests
of the monarchy. The memoirs of Pasquier prove that Monsieur, Villele, and
Corbiere insisted, as the price of their alliance with the Richelieu Ministry,
on a complete breach with the Doctrinaires. The aversion felt for them by
Richelieu and Pasquier was not lessened by the manner in which Royer-Collard,
Camille Jordan, and Guizot, although Councillors of State, worked against the
Ministers during the debate on the budget. Guizot, although not a deputy, had
made himself conspicuous in the lobby and elsewhere by encouraging resistance.
De Serre characterised Camille Jordan’s tone as an appeal to revolution. His
position was more difficult as regards Royer-Collafd, with whom, as with
Barante and Broglie, he had remained on terms of intimate friendship. The
attachment of Royer-Collard to the dynasty was beyond suspicion; in critical
moments he had, more than oilCC, stood by dc Serre. But
feelings of
comradeship, the recollection of so many battles fought in common, failed after
the refusal of Royer-Collard to take office and to secure for the Government
the solid support of a majority in the Centre.
On July 17, a
few days before the close of the session, the Keeper of the Seals dismissed
Guizot, Camille Jordan, and Royer-Collard from the Council of State, “on the
ground of violent and continued opposition to the measures of the Government
against the enemies of the monarchy.1’ Royer-Collard and Guizot
declined honours and pecuniary compensations. Barante soon after resigned his
newly-acquired diplomatic position and, with Broglie, went into Opposition. “We
are about to undertake a difficult task,” said de Serre to Barante in a last
conversation ; “ we intend to govern by reasonable methods while leaning on
the Right.” The task turned out more difficult than he thought. After the
reenactment of the temporary laws of exception the chiefs of the Left formed a
committee to assist those who might be attacked, which soon was organised as a
secret, anti-dynastic society in touch with similar associations, such as the
Charbonnerie, the Chevaliers de la Liberte, etc. A far-reaching military plot,
which was primarily organised to revolutionise Paris and then to bring about a
change of dynasty, and was to, break out on August 19, had been discovered by
the Government in good time. The guilty were brought before a tribunal of the
Peers, which did not pass judgment till July, 1821. In consequence, however, of
the spirit in the army, the Peers and the Government were afraid to proceed
against several deputies strongly suspected of having knowledge of this
conspiracy and of being privy to the riots of June, 1820. Hence d’Argenson,
Manuel, Foy, Corcelles, and above all Lafayette, escaped trial. The mildness of
the sentences on those convicted was attributed by both parties to the weakness
of the Administration. It was in reality largely due to the influence of
Broglie, who, in his memoirs, takes the credit for it.
When, on
September 29, 1820, a posthumous heir, the Duke of Bordeaux, was bom to the
bereaved dynasty, Richelieu and de Serre, pressed by the Royalists and against
the advice of Pasquier, decided in favour of partial instead of general
elections. Guizot, in a widely-read pamphlet, called upon the King to place
himself at the head of the Revolution in order to overthrow the
Counter-revolution. The advice came too late. A royal proclamation was issued
calling on the electors to choose tried Royalist candidates. An overwhelming
Royalist majority was returned, recalling the days of the Chambre introuvdble.
This majority was not satisfied when Richelieu, in order not to separate from
colleagues, appointed Villele and Lain^ Ministers without portfolios, Lauriston
head of the Household, Corbiere to the Ministry of Education, Chateaubriand
ambassador at Berlin, Ravez President of the Chamber, and favoured Royalist
claims in the services. .He hoped to conjure
1820-1]
69
away
difficulties by legislation directed mainly towards the development of
material interests. In the meantime he had to meet foreign complications.
The policy of
observation, which, in opposition to the Emperor Alexander but in agreement
with the other Powers, had been adopted by France as regards the military
revolution in Spain and the restoration of the constitution of Cadiz, was no longer
possible in presence of an identical movement in Naples. Richelieu, who at
Aix-la-Chapelle had led France to adhere to the Quadruple Alliance, which was
based on the maintenance of the treaties, proposed a conference, but tried in
vain, by mediation between King Ferdinand and his Neapolitan subjects, to
prevent Austrian intervention. The Congress met at Troppau. In spite of the
protests of England, of reservations of the French plenipotentiaries concerning
limitations of the right of intervention and the arbitrary action of the other
three Powers, the French representative at Laibach nevertheless signed the
protocol sanctioning the action of Austria against Naples.
The attitude
of the Ministry at Troppau and at Laibach gave dissatisfaction to both the
extreme parties at home. The feeling was so bitter that, when the light
sentences passed on the conspirators of August 19 were interpreted by the Left
as a tacit avowal that proofs against them were wanting, de Serre retorted by
accusing the entire Left of being accessory to conspiracy. But it was in vain
that the Ministry endeavoured to meet the wishes of the Right. The Ultras would
not be conciliated, and refused to vote the censorship for longer than three
months after the opening of the next session. Nevertheless de Serre advised
Richelieu to reconstruct his Cabinet in a Royalist sense. This advice was based
on the supposition that the influence of the moderate Royalists would
preponderate in a future combination, in the event of the demise of the Crown,
which the King’s ill-health showed could not be far distant. He had slipped
from the hands of Richelieu into those of Madame de Cayla; Monsieur now felt
himself strong enough to require that the compensation for the emigres, which
Richelieu for financial reasons wished to defer, should be introduced during
the next session.
At the
partial elections of October, 1821, the Right again increased their majority by
more than 50 votes, of which 20 belonged to the Ultras, while the Ministry
obtained only 20 votes for their own group, the Right Centre. De Serre tried in
vain to prevent the return of Royer-Collard, who during the last session had
repeatedly opposed measures advocated by his former friend. The Ministry now
only existed in consequence of the divisions in the ranks of their Royalist
opponents. The Ultras resolved to overthrow it by an alliance with the Left
against the censorship. The address to the King, drawn up by the Ultras, was a
declaration of war against the Government. It expressed the hope, which
70
Richelieu succeeded by Villele.
[1821
was in
reality an insult, that the foreign policy would be so conducted as not to
lower the honour of the nation and the dignity of the Crown; it charged the
Ministry with having brought about an agricultural crisis by their dilatoiy
action in not prohibiting the importation of com; and it called for measures to
fulfil the promises of the Charter. This last paragraph indicated the policy
which ensured the support of the Left. The Ultras now approached Royer-Collard,
who repaid de Serre for opposing his election by carrying the Left Centre over
to the coalition and thus ensuring the defeat of the Government. The Sing,
deeply offended by the address, returned a haughty answer. A dissolution might
still save the situation. Five Ministers, headed by Pasquier, urged this
course, and offered to resign if their advice were not accepted. In these
circumstances Richelieu would have had to reconstruct his Ministry with
Villele, Corbiere, and other members of the Right; but the attitude of the
Chamber shut out all possibility of an understanding with the Ultras. Mindful
of the pledge given by Monsieur when the Ministry was formed, Richelieu
resolved to claim his mediation. He went to the Prince, explained the factious
conduct of the Ultras, and asked for the fulfilment of his solemn promise.
Monsieur evaded the question, and pressed for a Ministry under Villele.
Richelieu turned away in indignation, exclaimed to Pasqui'ir, “ He has broken
his plighted word—the word of a gentleman,” and reported to the King the
substance of the interview. “ What can you expect ? ” said Louis XVIII in
answer, “ he conspired against Louis XVI, he conspired against me, he will end
by conspiring against himself.” But the King also, broken in health and
spirits, was now ready to accept Villele.
Richelieu and
his colleagues resigned on December 12, 1821; and the Government of the Right
Centre became a thing of the past. It had succeeded, in spite of the most
unscrupulous opposition, in disarming revolution, reorganising the army,
regulating the finance, reviving credit, and laying solid foundations for
constitutional government. The integrity of its administration, the rare gifts
and high moral standard of its leaders, the eloquent genius, the fine character
and governing power of de Serre, the patriotic self-devotion of Richelieu,
above all the serious endeavour to apply to politics an elevated ideal of
morality, deserved a better fate than the ungrateful desertion of those whose
passions they condemned and whose true interests they served.
REACTION AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.
The more ardent of the Royalists who had
gone into exile, either voluntarily or by compulsion, together with the royal
House, had hoped after its restoration in 1814-5 to share in its triumph and
its power, and to inflict upon Revolutionary France a signal revenge. Within
one year, 1815-6, their excesses, often bloodthirsty, against the men and
institutions of the preceding regime had brought them into discredit. Louis XVIII
and his Ministers Decazes and Richelieu had cut themselves off from these
infatuated and uncompromising allies, in fear lest the anger which they had
aroused in the nation should recoil upon the monarchy. For four years, till
1820, the country was governed without their aid or in their despite. . But in
their turn the Liberals, who had in this crisis become the principal support of
the monarchy, seemed to be turning traitors to it, and to be leading back the
country, after the evacuation of France by the Allies in 1818, to the
adventurous policy of the Empire and the crimes of the Terror, when by degrees
they opened their ranks to Bonapartists or to regicide Republicans such as the
Abbe Gregoire. The assassination of the Duke of 86117, which was laid to their
charge, became in 1820 for the Royalists gathered around the Comte d’Artois the
occasion of a return of unexpected good fortune. Louis XVIH, Richelieu, and de
Serre made appeal to their devotion; and the nation itself, through fear of conspiracies
and of revolution, gave them, by the elections of November 13, 1820, a fresh
lease of credit. It is true, however, that these elections were the result of
an electoral law passed on June 12,1820, with the purpose of suppressing the
secrecy of the ballot, and of correcting the possible errors of electors, by
taking from them the choice of oner half the deputies, and entrusting it to the
twelve thousand most heavily taxed landowners in France.
Victorious
for all these reasons, what use were the Royalists likely this time to make of
their victory in 1821 ? Their programme had always been a design of revenge
upon the Revolution, and an attempt at reconstituting the anpien regime, ■
CH. JJJ.
To carry out
this programme, they counted chiefly upon proceeding by a restoration of the
rights and doctrines of the Ultramontane Catholic Church. Their hopes and the
basis of their calculations rested on the concealment of their ambitions and
intrigues by a moral alliance between altar and throne, by a campaign against atheism
and immorality, by a disinterested zeal for the welfare of souls and of society
at large. Their chief instrument was the “Congregation” of the Rue du Bac,
which since 1814, under the direction of a Jesuit, Pere Ronsin, had gathered
together laymen and priests, the nobility, the Royalist magistracy, and the
young blood of the schools. The “ priest-party,” as it was afterwards called,
even more Royalist than religious, organised branches in the provinces,
conducted countless missions at home, or retreats with magnificent ceremonial
like those of the Abbe Forbin Janson on Mont Valerien. It seemed to be
conducting a crusade in a land of pagans. Declamatory journalists, editors of
such organs as the Drapeau Blanc, the Bibliotheque Catholique, eloquent and dogmatic
polemists, Lamennais, who between 1817 and 1820 brought out his Essay on
Indifference in Matters of Religion, and Joseph de Maistre, author of Du Pape,
did not hesitate to claim for the Roman Church the control of France, won back
from the Revolution.
From the
beginning of 1821 a majority in the Chamber urged the King to strengthen “the
authority of religion in the hearts of the people, and to purify existing
morals by a system of Christian and monarchical education.” This majority now
formulated its programme —a religious monarchy founded upon a strict alliance
of politics and religion, and upon the spiritualisation of society. Thus, under
the pretext of reforming morality in France, they intended to remake their
country according to their liking, to replace the prefectoral administration
of the Empire by the old generalites, to restore to the Church its authority in
civil matters, to break down the revolutionary legislation on the question of
marriage and of succession, and finally, to restore to the aristocracy, when
replaced in the possession of the property forfeited at the time of their
emigration, their influence at Court and their authority in the provinces.
At that time
the Royalist party was already beginning to listen to the counsels of one of
the most illustrious of its members, Chateaubriand, who by his speeches and
through the medium of the Press had from 1818 to 1820 been preparing the way
for his victory. This brilliant writer hoped to induce the French, in love with
glory no less than with equality, to accept the programme of his friends by
offering them opportunities in Europe, and a policy of action and of revenge.
It was the time when the people of Naples and of Piedmont were rising against
their rulers, who persisted in refusing them liberty and reform. With a view to
establishing his power in the Italian Peninsula, Mettemich was endeavouring to
obtain from Europe authority to' interfere at Naples against
i820-i] Moderation and a Royalist Government.
73
the
democratic party. Acting as envoy of Louis XVIII in Prussia, since November
30,1820, Chateaubriand, at Berlin, had been demanding on behalf of France an
analogous mission in Italy. “The white cockade will be established when it has
once more faced the foe. A bold measure of high policy, which flatters the
self-esteem of the French, will by that means alone ensure great popularity.”
Such were the
broad lines, the elements of the scheme by which in 1821 the French
aristocracy—restored to power by force of circumstances, confirmed in that
power by legislation touching the Press, and by the elections, which were
favourable to their aims—hoped to satisfy their desires of revenge and to
assert the claims of privilege against the new society.
Louis XVIII
and his Ministers, in this period of trouble and unrest, had seemed to
participate in the plot, the King by dismissing Decazes ; the Due de Richelieu,
the First Minister, by making room in the Ministry for two leaders of the
extremist party, Villele and Corbiere. “ I prefer,” Richelieu had written after
the experience of 1818, “Royalist fanaticism to Jacobinism.” However, as his
ally de Serre, a brilliant orator and adroit minister, remarked, “ While
governing with the help of the Right, Richelieu yet wished to govern with
moderation.” He reckoned on some measure of patience in the Royalists, and
believed that by pacifying them he could give them satisfaction.
In order to
satisfy their religious zeal, he placed one of their own men, Corbiere, at the
head of the Council of the University (December 21, 1820). He approved the
Ordinance of February 27, 1821, which gave the President almost absolute power
over the teaching staff, and surrendered the control of instruction to the
Bishops, giving them permission to inspect the Colleges and to employ State
subsidies for the benefit of religious Houses. Professors of too Liberal views,
such as Tissot and Cousin, were shut out from the College of France and the
Sorbonne, while at the same time an abb'e was summoned to the directorate of
the most important Academy, that of Paris.
Besides
authority over the schools, the Church was destined shortly to derive other
benefits from the law of May, 1821. The Ministry had recognised the fact that
there were not enough Bishops in France, and that the clergy lacked the
resources necessary for their own use and the maintenance of their places of
worship. They accordingly proposed to create twelve new bishoprics. It became
necessary to make still further concessions to the party of the Congregation,
which had already been encouraged by these promises, and to declare that the
King would shortly proceed to the creation of eighteen additional sees. In the
course of the discussion upon this law, the Ministry were forced to break with
the most eminent of the Liberal monarchists, Royer-Collard and Camille Jordan,
who accused them of compromising the monarchy and the Church to serve party
ends. And yet they did not succeed in
satisfying
the more ardent Royalists—Delalot, Donnadieu, Castalbajac— who were eager to
proclaim the superiority of religious authority over that of the Chambers, and
the right of the Crown under the old order to regulate without consulting the
nation the relations between Church and State. Richelieu had hoped to create a
ministry of “ reconciliation and of pardon”—vain hope, in face of a party
over-excited by victory and eager to obtain from it all possible results, in
face too of the just alarm of the nation and the Liberal deputies aroused by
the reassertion of these claims.
When a year
had passed a crisis brought about by foreign affairs modified the situation.
Europe, in 1821, was disturbed more than ever by the revolt of the Spaniards
against their King, Ferdinand VII, and by the struggles of the Greeks against
the Sultan. The French nation was in a state of irritation at the inaction of
the Government. The Liberals demanded that succour should be given to the
Greeks, the Royalists that support should be afforded to the Legitimist cause
in Spain, and all were at any rate agreed in demanding some manifestation of
French power abroad. It was not the fault of Richelieu’s Ministry that no such
manifestation took place. In spite of the joint representations of the
Secretary of State and of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pasquier and
Rayneval, the leader of the Cabinet inclined to action in the East and on the
Rhine, in concert with the Tsar, Alexander I. But at the last moment, alarmed
by the attitude of England and the other Eurojpean Powers, Alexander drew back;
the French people held the Ministry responsible; deputies from the extreme
Right and the extreme Left alike united in their reproaches of Richelieu and
their efforts against him. They accused him in the address to the Crown of
“having purchased peace by sacrifices incompatible with the honour of the
nation and the dignity pf the throne” (November 26, 1821). After a violent
speech complaining of treachery, he resigned office; and on December 12 Louis
XVIII appointed Villele and Corbiere as his successors. Richelieu was not long
to survive this undeserved check. He died the following year.
Still it
might seem as if the retirement of the monarchists of the Right would simplify
the situation. Did it not give victory above all to the Royalists of the Left,
the extremists, leaders of the “priest- party,” as it was called? Were they not
thenceforth in a position to realise their hopes and their programme in its
entirety ? While Matthieu de Montmorency was appointed to the charge of Foreign
Affairs and Chateaubriand to the Embassy in London, the Duke of Belluno, a
Marshal of the Empire, was made Minister of War, on the understanding that he
was to prepare and cany out in the immediate future a foreign enterprise
intended to achieve glorious results, “ offered to the nation in exchange for
privilege* restored.” The hour seemed propitious; and the necessary elements
united for a restoration
of the old
order, to he effected by the aid of the refurbished glories of the Revolution
and of the Empire.
However, the
chief of this Cabinet, the Comte de Villele, who for six years was destined to
govern, first in the name of Louis XVIII and then in that of Charles X, was not
one of those leaders who follow their troops. A practical and dexterous man of
affairs, he had a firm grasp of realities; unlike the Royalists who had placed
him in power, he had not lost the recollection of the defeat which his party
had experienced in 1816 as a result of their misuse of victory. His dreams were
of a progress more sure, if less dazzling, to be slowly realised without
alarming the nation. He desired, in common with the Royalists, the restoration
of the old order; but his policy was to effect it little by little, rather than
at a rush. “ To know where it is best to go, without ever taking a wrong
turning, to make a step towards the goal on every possible occasion, never to
get into a position from which it is necessary to retreat—such,” he said, “is
the need of the moment.”
On the other
hand, Villele counted less upon the gloiy of a foreign policy, active and
consequently costly, to confirm and strengthen the restoration of the amxAen
regime, than upon the results of a good internal administration, by means of
which the monarchy might succeed in restoring to a conquered France sound
finances and prosperity in succession to defeat. Thus, for seven years, France
was to submit to the programme of the extremists, the Royalists, and the clergy
of the widen r&gime; but it was carried into execution by Villele, by means
of an adroit system which often aroused the anger of these impatient Royalists,
but which lulled the nation into a sense of wellbeing.
The Chief
Minister had the merit of keeping constantly in mind the fact that his friends
owed their power to the forces of reaction and alarm, aroused in the country by
the dagger of an assassin who had mortally wounded a member of the royal
family. To keep this fear awake, in order to establish his authority, was his
first care. In this he succeeded. The Liberals, finding themselves compelled to
prudence, jrganised themselves into secret societies; and the Republicans,
imitating the Neapolitans, actually formed in 1821 the Charbonnerie fran^aise,
which avowedly aimed at giving back “to the French nation the free exercise of
the right to choose its sovereign.” In order to give battle to the ancien rigime
and its Bourbon protectors, they recruited their soldiers and captains without
hesitation from among the officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, of the
old Imperial army. Villele showed particular skill in the discovery,
exaggeration, and signal punishment of these conspiracies. For a long period
he destroyed any sympathy which the Liberals might still retain throughout the
country. With a magistracy obedient to its orders, the Ministry devoted itself
assiduously to representing isolated movements, no sooner known than crushed,
as
ch. m.
forming part
of a permanent conspiracy organised by the Liberals, not only against the
monarchy, but against society itself.
Some young
men belonging to the military school of Saumur were arrested in December, 1821,
for having planned a rising in favour of Napoleon II, a rising which had never
even gone so far as a single overt act. At Belfort and Neubreisach the King’s
lieutenant arrested officers and ex-officers on mere suspicion. At Marseilles
two old soldiers, Valle and Sicard, were discovered carrying papers which
revealed plans of conspiracy. There was a singular coincidence, to say the
least, between the coming into power of the new Ministry and the sudden
discovery of these conspirators.
Three months
afterwards a general not in active service, named Berton, after having
endeavoured to enrol superior officers from the Breton regiments, started with
a handful of men to attempt the surprise of Saumur (February 23 and 24) and
then of Thouars. This enterprise had hardly been more than a disorderly
skirmish, at the end of which Berton, who was fortunate enough at first to
escape, fell into a trap set by the police (June, 1822). At the beginning of
March the people in Paris, excited by the Catholic missions at the Church des
Petits Peres and the law-students of the Latin Quarter, made a demonstration,
but offered no effective resistance to the police force. About the same time
the colonel of a regiment garrisoned at La Rochelle, a former imigre, arrested
four non-commissioned officers on suspicion of desiring to enrol their men in
the secret societies. Finally, at the moment when sentence was to be passed at
Colmar on the Belfort rebels, another officer on the retired list, Caron, a
colonel of dragoons, made a last attempt to raise regiments in the east (June
to July, 1822).
Sentences of
death, pronounced in emulation of each other by the civil magistrates and the
Courts-martial, fell pitilessly throughout the year upon those who were
associated with these political plots. The four sergeants of La Rochelle were
executed at Paris on September 21; Caron at Strassburg, September 1; Berton and
two of his accomplices at Poitiers, October 6 and 7; Valle, at Toulon, had
ascended the scaffold on June 10. It seemed that the Ministers were eager to
multiply these trials and executions. Since certain deputies of the Liberal
Opposition, Lafayette among others, and d’Argenson, had openly associated
themselves with these enterprises, which otherwise were devoid of danger, this
supplied a fair pretext for exhibiting them publicly as criminals. The
indictment which the King’s Procurator, Marchangy, formulated, in order to
obtain the condemnation of the four sergeants of La Rochelle, left no doubt as
to the intentions of the Government. Its chief aim was to terrorise the French
people “by this vast conspiracy against social order, against the families of
citizens, which threatened to plunge them once more into all the horrors of
anarchy.” While keeping up the appearance of saving society, Villele gained
forthwith the power
to govern it
in accordance with the wishes of his friends. The threat of anarchy, exploited
by the judges in his service, allowed him to organise a despotism.
On January 2,
1822, Peyronnet, the Keeper of the Seals, brought before the Chamber of
Deputies the draft of a Press Law which would place the direction of public
opinion in the hands of those in authority. No newspaper was to appear for the
future without royal sanction. Every sheet was to be laid upon the table of the
King’s Procurator, who was to have the right to examine “tendencies,” and to
suspend or even to suppress dangerous publications. At the same time Villele
revived another proposal prepared by his predecessors, dealing with journalistic
misdemeanours: the trials of these cases were transferred from the juries to
the magistrates of the royal Courts, who could receive orders from Government.
The first article of the law was expressly designed to punish with great
severity, imprisonment for five years or heavy fines, all writings and
illustrations “which outraged or turned into ridicule the religion of the
State, or which excited hatred or contempt of any class.” It became clear that
this legislation aimed at arming the Crown against the Press with extraordinary
powers in favour of the aristocracy and the Church: it was the weapon prepared
for the war which the Ministers wished to declare against the secular and
levelling spirit of the society established by the Revolution.
On March
13,1822, this twofold law was passed in its entirety by a majority of fifty.
Public opinion, already terrified into submission to the Royalist designs,
became thus for the future dependent on the mercy of the Crown, its Ministers,
and the ministers of the Church. In vain, during discussions which frequently
became very violent, the champions of liberty, Benjamin Constant and Royer-
Collard, protested in magnificent speeches “against this Parliamentary
Jacobinism, this arbitrary legislation which recalled the principles of the
revolutionary tribunals.” To avert this reproach Villele had taken his
precautions better than had the authors of the White Terror. He had had the wit
to preserve at least the outwaid forms of legality. The laws which he-passed
were oppressive; but they were laws for which he had prepared public opinion,
and gained the support of Parliament.
By a further
step this Parliament, thanks to fresh elections, became in May, 1822, still
more favourable to his designs. The Administration had skilfully handled the
electors, who were less numerous than hitherto; it had nominated as presidents
of the electoral colleges avowed and zealous monarchists, and called upon
Government officials to support the Government candidates. Of 86 deputies, 54
were elected whose programme was clearly favourable to the Ministry. A revenue
law which Villele had proclaimed in the month of January, imposing heavy duties
upon imported goods—a law which pleased the landowners and large
78
1'he priest-party and education.
manufacturers,
who found it “quite reasonable to see the majority of the citizens of a State
sacrificed to a minority of individuals *—had not been without its share in the
popularity and success of the Ministry. The two Chambers passed it with
enthusiasm (July, 1822).
The
opportunity was a good one for finishing the task of the subjection of the
schools to the Church, which had been begun in 1821. The President of the
Council of the University, who was already endowed with great powers, became
once more, as in the time of the Empire, a Grand Master (by a decree of June 5,
1822), invested with absolute police rights over the teaching-staff and the
curriculum of the schools; and when a Bishop, Frayssinous, was summoned to this
office, the pretensions of the clerical party were further strengthened. In his
first circular, the new Grand Master demanded that the entire youth of France
should before all else be educated “ on religious and monarchical principles,”
and that no teacher should continue in his Appointment who did not accept this
decree of the Chinch. Shortly afterwards Guizot, a Protestant, and Cousin, a
philosopher, were compelled to relinquish their professorial chairs at the
Sorbonne. The School of Medicine was closed in November, 1822, and only
reopened ifter the exclusion of Jussieu and Vauquelin, the lecturers who had
held heretical opinions. It was the turn next of the ilcole Normtele, whose
pupils were dispersed through the provinces. And yet the extremists considered
Frayssinous timid and irresolute!
What the
priest-party would have liked was the entire overthrow of the University.
Schools that were wholly ecclesiastical were being multiplied, and were kept up
by subsidies granted by the communes and Departments. The Grand Master himself
encouraged this development. The smaller seminaries—those in which, with the
complicity of the Bishops, the Jesuits were giving their lessons free—drew away
pupils from the secular schools and from the University. It seemed as if the
friends of the monarchy, in order to bring about the restoration of the ancien
regime, were not afraid of returning to the Middle Ages.
The country,
glad of a dearly-bought and firmly-established peace after the long wars of the
Revolution and the Empire, while deprived of the counsels of a free Press, and
of all electoral rights, allowed Villele and his party to dispose of power and
opinions, and to break down the Opposition whose sole refuge was in the Chamber
of Peers. At the end of the year 1822, after one year of government, the
Cabinet was able to point out to its friends with pride the task accomplished
with such rapidity and, above all, with such discretion. “The security of the
citizens and the action of the laws were completely established; the finances
were on a fair way to prosperity; the charges on the taxpayers were
diminishing; and the treasury was becoming rich.” Without friction and with
the consent of a satisfied people, Villele was capturing the public conscience
and turning it towards the old order and the Church.'
These successes
emboldened the more ardent Royalists, “a mere handful,” as the Minister said,
but active, bold, and stirring. They listened eagerly to Chateaubriand,, who
from London had long been preaching to them a policy of war that might add to
the solid rather than dazzling progress made by their party the prestige of
military glory. “ The idea of restoring to our arms their former strength and
spliendour constantly dominated me,” wrote, speaking of this time, the author
of Memoires dPoutre tom.be. An opportunity presented itself. The King of Spain,
Ferdinand VII, threatened with the loss of his kingdom in addition to that of
his colonies, by the advice of Russia implored the aid of Louis XVIII. In the
councils of the King the extremists intrigued to bring about intervention
beyond the Pyrenees on behalf of absolute rule. In obedience to their demands
Montmorency proposed to Louis XVIII to send out to the extremists in Spain
money, ammunition, and arms. Villele gained time by agreeing that France should
join a Congress which was to be held in Italy for the settlement of these
matters in favour of the King of Spain, who was still further involved in
difficulties by the revolt of July 7,1822, in Madrid.
. “This
Congress,” said Chateaubriand, “is our secret and our hope.” He disputed with
his own chief, Montmorency, the honour of representing France there. The point
at issue was which of the two should cause war to be decided upon at the
Congress, so as to earn for himself the honour of having conferred a great benefit
upon the monarchy and upon the country. Villele forced Montmorency’s hand,
appointed Chateaubriand as envoy to Verona, and obtained for himself the presidency
of the Council in order that by means of the rivalry of the two opponents and
this new authority he might preserve his mastery over ?oreign
politics. Satisfied with the present state of affairs, and disturbed by the
projects which were being hatched abroad, he feared for the future of his
schemes if France were involved in foreign war. Until the month of December,
1822, he prevented Montmorency* who disobeyed him nevertheless, from arranging
with Austria and Russia for the intervention of the French by sending their
army beyond the Pyrenees. Louis XVIII even granted, on December 25, Villele’s
request for the dismissal of Montmorency. Did the Minister think to find a more
complaisant colleague in Chateaubriand, the successor whom he nominated three
days later ? What is certain is that the nomination of the great writer to a
position, from which he hoped to dictate laws to all Europe, almost coincided
with Louis XVIII’s declaration of war agairist the rebels in Spain (January 28,
1823).
Chateaubriand,
though ever a poet in his dreams of glory* seemed to triumph over the
methodical and prudent politician who had given him a jlace in his “little
ministry." Almost immediately the nation was able to hail the awakening of
the army and of French influence,
80 War in Spain.—Villele and Chateaubriand.
[1823-4
to acclaim
the victories of the generals of the Empire, Belluno, Reggio, Molitor, Moncey,
who under the leadership of a Prince of the Blood recaptured Madrid from the
revolution, and who at the Trocadero, near Cadiz, completed in six months the
defeat of the Spanish Liberals. The return of the Duke of Angouleme and his
army on December 2,1823, was the signal for a series of banquets and
illuminations, in short, of a fete nationale. At Paris men forgot that this
army had been the instrument of a campaign against a people’s liberty. Their
only thought was of joy at the successful effort which had restored to France “
all her military glory and diplomatic influence.” By this questionable
achievement, the Restoration found itself more firmly established than by the
more genuine services rendered by the monarchy, which had been engaged since
1815 in the work of reparation, liquidation of losses, and adjustment of the
balance-sheet after the wars of the Empire. “ The glory and prosperity of my
country,” proudly wrote Chateaubriand, “ date from my inclusion in the Ministry.”
But Villele,
who gained by these successes, kept a watch on the warlike action of his
colleague in order to restrain it within bounds. He was aware that in the
department of Foreign Affairs negotiations were on foot with Russia to engage
the unoccupied Army of Spain in other struggles for national victories. In his
interviews at Court Chateaubriand, when commenting upon the successes in Spain,
hinted to the King the question of the Rhine frontier. He sowed the seeds for a
new harvest of glory and of war. On June 6,1824, Villele demanded of the King
his dismissal and obtained it. The motive skilfully alleged for his removal was
not the fear of a war which would have caused the monarchy and the Ministry to
lose all the benefit of the recent victories. The King reproached Chateaubriand
with his opposition to the financial measures of the Cabinet, of which he was a
member. In reality he was sacrificing him to the pacific policy of the
President of the Council. Villele, as a practical man, thoroughly understood
how to reap the rewards of an enterprise abroad, which he had been unable to
prevent but which he was determined to keep within bounds, and of the popularity
which it brought the Bourbons, which he considered to be now sufficient; he
understood also how to obtain at home fresh victories iiscreetly won for the
benefit of his own party. His programme had never been that of the impatient
Royalists; it was not his aim to offer a further bribe of glory to France in
order to reestablish at a blow the whole of the old order, the absolute power
of the Crown, the privileges of the nobility, the domination of the Church, “
to lead the nation,” as Chateaubriand’s phrase runs, “to reality by the way of
dreams.” In vain did the leaders of the extreme Right, La Bourdonnaye, Delalot,
Vaublanc, General Donnadieu, and the journalists of their party— writers for
the Drapeau Blanc and La Qwtidienne—reproach him with his teinporisation as if
it were betrayal. It was by winding paths,
1823-4] Peers created. The Chamber of
Deputies dissolved. 81
without noise
or outward show, that the Minister of Louis XVIII and the Church continued the
restoration of the widen regime.
In order to
proceed in legal form, his first concern was to strengthen his majority in the
two Chambers. He adroitly quoted the example of a free country like England
which nevertheless was obedient to its constitution, when he laid before the
King in 1823 the measures he had chosen. The Chamber of Peers, in opposition to
this progressive reaction, had been since 1820 the asylum and refuge of
Liberalism. Composed for the greater part of men attached to the modern system
and hostile to all forms of despotism, such men as Count Mole, the Due de
Broglie, the Baron de Barante, and their friends, it had opposed the
legislation against the Press and the intervention against the people in Spain.
In December, 1823, after having enrolled ill this body the generals who had
conquered in Spain, Villele advised Louis XVIII to nominate 27 peers, chosen
from among his most faithful friends. The opposition in the Upper Chamber
seemed broken.
At the same
moment Villele procured the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies by a royal
ordinance. He had never indeed lacked a majority, but he believed that the
moment had come to make certain of it for a longer period. By urging the fact
that the British Parliament was appointed for seven years, Villele hoped in a
moment of national enthusiasm to prevail upon a still more obsequious Chamber
to suppress the article in the Constitution relating to the annual displacement
of deputies by fifties. The elections were fixed for February 25 and March 6,
1824. The Minister did not omit to influence them in his favour by the choice
of presidents of the electoral colleges, by the action of his subordinates, and
by the revision of the electoral lists. The result proved better than his
hopes. Among 434 members elected the Liberals numbered only 17 representatives,
who were lost in the midst of this Royalist Convention. In the month of April,
1824, Villele brought forward a proposal before the two Chambers, in which they
were asked to modify Article 37 in the Charter, and to declare that
thenceforward the new Chamber would sit for seven years. Under the specious
pretext of importing into France the constitutional customs of England, he
easily obtained from a docile and satisfied majority the vote which assured him
a long continuance of power.
The great
difference between France and England, which Villele did not mention, was that
under his Government there no longer existed either public opinion, or a free
Press, or free elections. The journals of the Left, such as Le Pilote and Le
Courrier, succumbed under incessant prosecutions. A Royalist association was
formed to buy up bodily the Liberal press, which was ruined by the fines
inflicted. The Government set its money and authority at the disposal of a
party. The Chamber, elected for seven years, in a country reduced to silence by
threats or bribery, was no longer anything but an instrument of despotism, all
the
82 Proposed Conversion of the French Debt. [i824
more
dangerous because it sat for a longer period. Villele had reckoned well; and
when this Septennial Act had been passed, the demands he made upon this Chambre
retrouvee were for services rather than for votes.
The work upon
which he was then engaged with the help of the body of deputies was the grand
liquidation of claims which the Royalists had looked for ever since their
return from exile. When he returned with them, Louis XVIII had refused them the
hope of regaining the possessions they had lost during the Revolution. He had
proclaimed “ all rights of property inviolable and sacred.” He had thus given
an absolute guarantee that the holders of national possessions should retain
their lands. Nevertheless the Royalists asked whether the restored monarchy had
no duties towards those dispossessed owners, those faithful adherents who had
sacrificed their fortunes in defending its cause. Louis XVIII and his
counsellors could not ignore these counter-claims, but they were bound by their
promise. They first attempted to indemnify the former emigres by reserving for
them the best places and offices at Court, in the army, and in the Ministry.
Thus they gained some years’ respite. But the progress which the Royalist party
had made since 1821 reawakened their grievances and increased their demands.
How were they to be satisfied without disturbing the nation P
Villele, that
“grand mdeur d'affaires,” as Chateaubriand called him, evolved in 1824 the
necessary expedient. Thanks to the peace, which the expedition to Spain so
speedily concluded had not seriously interrupted, the finances of the State
were in a prosperous condition. The French Government stock at 5 per cent, had
risen steadily since the great disasters at the end of the Empire. It touched
par on February 15 ; it rose to 105 in the month of March. This movement was
partly attributable to a general rise which took place all over Europe. But it
was also the proof and result of the relief in French finances brought about by
the industry of the nation and the good administration of the Ministers of
Louis XVIII. The occasion was a good one for reducing the interest on the
National Debt. This debt stood at 2,800,000,000 francs, which at the rate of 5
per cent, required an annual payment of 140,000,000 francs. By reducing the
rate to 4 per cent, an annual saving to the Treasury would be effected of
28,000,000, without reckoning the advantage to the State, when liquidating its
debt, of no longer being obliged to buy its stock above par.
The Minister
did not hesitate. On April 5 he proposed to the Chambers to lower the rate of
interest to 3 per cent. He offered to holders of stock 3 per cent, bonds at 75
francs instead of 100 francs, which was the equivalent of converting 5 per
cent, to 4 per cent. He made play with “ the fruits produced by the wisdom of
the King and the good fortune of France,” the marvellous cffect “ of an
operation which would attest the general prosperity and put an end to the
disastrous discrepancy between the interest on capital invested in stock and
the
1824] Compensation for the Emigres.
83
interest
yielded by capital employed in agriculture, commerce, or manufacture.” “If you
wish to give fresh life to these three pillars of prosperity, direct towards
them the flow of wealth,” he urged. Public economy, profits for the nation at
large and for general industry—were these not enough to justify this conversion
at the expense of holders of stock?
The only
point which Villele failed to mention, in obedience to his tactics of prudent
compromise and partial concealment in the measures he brought forward, was the
employment of these 28. millions, set free by public economies. If he had
applied them to the development of the public wealth, nothing could have been
better. But he kept them back for a particular application, which was the final
end and essential object of his financial enterprise. It was reported and known
that Villele was arranging with foreign financiers for a new French loan, the
interest upon which was to be paid by the anticipated economy. The loan was for
1,000,000,000 francs; and its purpose was the indemnification of the imigres.
In the discussion which took place in the Chambers, the Liberals, above all
Casimir Perier, denounced the iniquity of this operation, which robbed the
holders of stock in order to satisfy one special class of the nation, a
minority of privileged individuals, who had been punished in time past for
having conspired with foreign Powers to recover their own privileges. However,
the majority which the elections of 1824 had provided for the Government
approved the proposed action, and passed the law on May 4,1824.
The Chamber
of Peers threw it out on June 3. This Chamber was ruled by old public officers
of the Empire, men of the Revolution, such as Count Roy, Mollien, Pasquier, and
Talleyrand, who were irreconcilably hostile to the emigres. Their opposition,
enfeebled as it was by the nomination of new Peers, to which the Minister had
recently persuaded the King, would have been insufficient, if Chateaubriand,
who was jealous of Villele, and dissatisfied with the foreign policy which the
Minister forced upon him, had not wrecked the proposed measure by using his
influence in the Royalist circles of the higher Chamber. He paid for this
intrigue by the loss of his post on June 6. But this was the beginning of a war
to the death between him and the Ministry which he had attempted to overthrow,
and which dismissed him for his obstinacy and infidelity.
Thus the
campaign whose success Villele considered certain met with more obstacles than
he had imagined among obstructionists of his own party. Before many days had
passed, he was to undergo a fresh experience of the same kind. In working for
the aristocracy he did not forget the Church; but his intention was to make use
of the same crooked paths to serve her. Modem France, , the France of the
Revolution, was still hostile to the religious Orders that had been dispersed
at the end of the eighteenth century, above all to the Jesuits who had been
expelled
ch. m. 6—2
by the
monarchy itself. This Villele knew. He judged it more prudent not to mention to
the people the reestablishment of the monasteries, but to leave their members
scattered in a secular society to gain the mastery over the seminaries, the
University, the education of the young, and even over the administration, so as
slowly to extend their control over public opinion and government.
But he
thought that the hour had come for working on behalf of the religious bodies
who were not suspected by the people on the same grounds. On April .8,1824, a
royal ordinance confirmed the privileges of the Brothers of la Doctr'me
chretienne, granted in 1819, and, by exacting of all teachers total submission
to the Bishops, prepared for them a kind of monopoly of primary education. Some
time afterwards, on June 12, the Ministry requested the Chambers to resign
their right in favour of the Crown and to authorise it once for all to grant
permission for the establishment of convents when it seemed advisable. The
nuns, who were for the most part devoted to works of charity or to education,
did not awaken in France the same distrust as the monks. Villele hoped that in
their favour the monarchy mighi be granted uncontrolled authority to foster the
development of their work and wealth, and that a precedent might be thus
created for hereafter depriving the law and the Chambers of the direction of
religious bodies in general. This was the beginning of a period in which the
Roman Church, chiefly with the help of the French Catholics, was to reestablish
throughout the world her troops, which had been scattered in the preceding
century by unbelief and revolution. It was of the highest importance that she
should find in France a monarchy and Ministers capable of assisting her without
being obliged to render accounts to the French nation, faithful to her laws and
unfettered by those of the State.
The Chamber
of Peers, which was obstinately Liberal in sentiment, though strongly
monarchical, saw through the schemes of Villele and baffled his calculations. “
If we decide to-day,” said Baron Pasquier, “that religious bodies of women can
be established by simple royal ordinances, the force of circumstances will
drive us to make the same decision for the religious bodies of men. The
sanction of law is necessary.” A majority of the Peers adopted his opinion. The
Ministry had gained nothing by their adroitness. In spite of all their
precautions against alarming the country, and their selection of docile Chambers,
their plans on behalf of the Church and the aristocracy came for the time to a
full stop. Yet, to a certain extent, these difficulties must have enlightened
those of the Royalists who reproached Villele with his temporising policy, and
who waxed angry over his hesitations. This repulse proved his wisdom. He had
failed; but defeat, in the conditions under which he made war, while making
sure of retreat, left him with the hope of revenge. Time was working for him.
In point of
fact, the reign of Louis XVIII was drawing to an end.
I824-5] Accession of Charles X.—Fresh
projects. 85
The health of
the old King, who was broken by gout and long since incapable of walking,
became rapidly worse during the summer of 1824. He yet made an effort to appear
in public on August 25, his saint’s day, and to continue till September 12 his
royal functions. But then his strength gave way and fever supervened. After
three days of acute sufferings and of repeated crises, Louis XVIII died on
September 15. The accession of Charles X, the Comte d’Artois, who had always
looked with more favour than his brother upon the hopes and aims of the more
uncompromising Royalists, was to furnish Villele with a new point of support.
Though the new reign, in accordance with custom, began by measures of
concession, yet the promotion of the three Bishops of Bourges, Amiens, and
Iilvreux to the House of Peers, and the enforced retirement of the whole body
of general officers of the old army, left no doubt as to the intentions of
Charles X. His sovereignty claimed to be a government by divine right,
supporting and supported by the Church in an attempt to wean men’s minds from
the recollection of the Revolution and the Empire.
A rumour
spread immediately that the President of the Council, taking up his plans
afresh with a confidence that nothing could shake, had collected in the
Departments detailed reports as to the amount, nature, and value of the
properties confiscated in accordance with the laws of the Revolution. This time
he boldly resolved to couple a scheme for the indemnification of the emigres
with the plan for the conversion of stock which he had preluded by measures of
economy in the administration of finances. Charles X came himself on December
22 to declare in the Chambers the intentions of his Ministers. “ The King my
brother,” he said, “ found great consolation in preparing the way for closing
the last wounds left by the Revolution. The moment has come for executing the
wise plans which he had conceived. The state of our finances will permit us to
accomplish this great act of justice and of policy without increasing the taxes
or injuring the public credit.” On January 3, 1825, Martignac, a former
secretary of Sieyes, who had become a Councillor of State as a reward for his
Royalist principles (1822), and Director-General of Registration, read in the
Chambers the statement of grounds for the project on behalf of the Emigres.
With Charles
X on their side, the obstinate and confident Ministry no longer hesitated to
serve the aristocrats who had striven against the Revolution with the aid of
foreign help. The Emigres were victims who came to claim back their own; and it
was incumbent on the Ministry to give them their due. “ It is important,” said
Villele, “ that by one memorable and universally useful example we should teach
the lesson that great injustices should receive in course of time signal reparation.”
By this language it was easy to measure the sense of security that had grown up
in the Cabinet in the course of one year. The emigration
86
Law for
Compensation to iWigrds. [1825
was not
sufficiently remote for the French to have forgotten the fact that these nobles
had conspired at Versailles against the nation for the maintenance of their
privileges, and that they went away without compulsion, and at the dictates of
levity or fashion, to form fresh conspiracies upon the threatened frontier.
Modem France could not help being moved by the words of an orator of the Right,
who seemed to define the tendency of his party and of the Ministry. “The
country is founded upon religion—its altars were thrown down. The country is
founded upon the King and those who surround him—and he had disappeared in the
storm.”
Villele, it
is true, alleged other arguments, drawn, as his custom was, from policy rather
than justice. He represented his design as a measure of reconciliation and
amnesty; and it was on this ground that later it succeeded in winning approval.
Would not the holders of the confiscated estates be still more firmly
guaranteed than by the Charter against all claims of the former proprietors,
when the emigres should have received a just and satisfactory indemnity? “
Security for present holders, satisfaction for the emigres ”—this would bring
about forgiveness and reconciliation around the restored throne, at the hands
of a King faithful to his promises of pardon and to the cause of his best
servants.
In spite of
the skill of this reasoning, one hard fact nevertheless struck public opinion
and remained firm afterwards in men’s memories— the sum total of the indemnity,
1,000,000,000 francs, which was the valuation based upon the revenues produced
by the estates confiscated in 1790. “ There could be no question of restoring
such a capital sum to the dispossessed families.” That was admitted by the authors
of the measure themselves. Still less was it possible to despoil the holders of
these estates by an act of expropriation which would have roused the whole of
France. But, if 30,000,000 of interest were added to the National Debt in
favour of the emigres, securing to them the interest instead of the capital,
this would not even augment the burden of the debt. For these 30 millions
nearly balanced the economy which the State proposed to make on the same day by
the conversion of stock. Clever as the operation was, was it possible for the
Ministry permanently to conceal the fact that they were taking from the
stockholders 28,000,000, a sum which nearly corresponded to a capital of
1,000,000,000, in order to make it over to their friends, the aristocratic
party, those courtiers who had already been enriched by all the favours of
Royalty ever since 1815 ? In principle and in fact, this double law, intended
for the profit of the nobles, was a blow, almost a defiance, aimed at the whole
nation. General Foy and Benjamin Constant opposed it in eloquent speeches, and,
even in the Chamber of Peers, the opposition of Broglie and Chateaubriand was
no less active. Nevertheless it passed the two Assemblies in the middle of
April, 1825, by a majority of nearly one hundred.
I825] Laws
relating to Religious Orders and Sacrilege. 87
The decisive
success of the Ministry encouraged the Crown to make larger day by day the
place which seemed reserved for, and due to, the Church in a society which was
being little by little won over to a rigime of privilege and of divine right.
In his last
days Louis XVIII had created a Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs, and had
entrusted it to the head of the University, Bishop de Frayssinous, in order to
lay stress on the high place that Catholicism was to hold in the State, which
had determined to hand over all the schools to the Church. Charles X followed
in his steps. On January 4, 1825, he allowed the Church to reintroduce in the
Chamber of Peers the Bill touching the religious bodies of women which had been
thrown out the previous year. The Assemblies were once more invited to rob
themselves, in favour of the monarchy and its Ministers, of all right of
control over the development of the religious bodies and of theit property.
Hurling a new defiance at the Revolution, the Bishop dared to say, “I am far
from being the enemy of perpetual vows. Liberty has been for many of the nuns a
torture.” If he did not demand their immediate reestablishment, it was not
through principle but policy, and because Villele was unwilling “ that he
should expose himself to be broken by the resistance of the laity.” They lulled
France to sleep in order to get her into their power, and they were successful.
In the Chamber of Deputies the law was passed at a single sitting, and almost
without opposition. The Chamber of Peers itself gave way.
Another law
came up for consideration almost at the same moment, intended to perfect the
system of stifling public expression of opinions. The Liberals, in spite of the
threats that overhung their journals, attempted once more to put the nation on
its guard against the progress made by the priest-party. To prohibit discussion
on religious matters, Villele and his colleagues evolved the “law of
sacrilege,” which was passed on April 15,1825. It was not apparently directed
against the Liberals, but against malefactors whom the Ministry wished to visit
with special penalties, even with death, for crimes, thefts, and profanations
committed in churches. In point of fact, it was never carried into execution.
The true object of the proposer of the measure was to establish by this first
attempt a class of religious offences and corresponding exceptional penalties.
“To-morrow,” wrote Broglie, who, with Barante, Pasquier, and Mole, opposed this
unsuccessful attempt, “you will be asked to pierce with a red-hot iron the
tongue which has committed blasphemy, to close the pulpits where error makes
herself heard, to violate openly the great principle of the liberty of forms of
worship.”
This “ to-morrow
” was actually inaugurated in the month of May,
1825, by a significant manifestation. In his
first speech Charles X had announced his intention of reestablishing the custom
of consecration, of prostrating himself “ at the steps of the altar where Clovis
received the sacred unction.” On April 26 he requested the Chambers to send
88
[l825-6
deputies to
Reims to take part on May 29 in this ceremony, to which all the great
personages of State and foreign monarchs were bidden. The holy vessel was
rediscovered, though it had been publicly destroyed during the Revolution; and
on May 16 the Moniteur announced to the nation this precious find. A commission
of architects and other functionaries was installed.at Reims to give to the preparations
all the traditional splendour. When the day arrived, the Bishops of France
handed over to Charles X the sword of Charlemagne, with the hope “ that he
would protect and defend the churches, repair disorders, preserve what had been
reestablished,” and, in short, strengthen the restoration of throne and altar.
Monarchy by divine right, supported by the nobility and clergy, once more took
possession of France, and fro in that day Charles X believed himself charged
with a sacred mission to guard, in direct communion with God, the welfare of
his subjects and the honour of the throne.
But from that
day also the country began to awake to the perception of this domination of the
clergy. The Royalist poets, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Soumet, and Baour-Lormian
celebrated the consecration. Beranger mocked at this “ consecration of Charles
the Simple,” and his popular song made more enemies for the monarchy than the
official poetry made friends. The Liberal press, the Constitutional, the
Courrier Francois, reopened a violent campaign against the enterprises of a
clergy “ under Jesuit orders.”
The editors
of these journals were arraigned before the tribunals but acquitted by the
magistrates, who were themselves uneasy at the ultramontane doctrines
professed by the French clergy. Finally, when the great Liberal orator, General
Foy, died suddenly in the month of November, 1825, an immense crowd thronged to
his funeral ceremony. A subscription set on foot immediately afterwards to
raise a monument to him produced in six months nearly 1,000,000 francs. By
uniting their cause with that of the ultramontane Church party, the Bourbons
issued a challenge to the nation and put a dangerous weapon into the hands of
the champions of Liberal ideas. This new form taken by the Opposition ought to
have warned the Ministers. It was not without reason that Casimir Perier said
in the Chamber: “We are only seven in this house, but we have the nation behind
us.” Villele however did not pause; and with his colleagues he brought forward
at the beginning of 1826 a proposed law of successions, which modified the
rules of equal division of the inheritance among children prescribed by the
Civil Code. This project g$ve to the eldest son a right over that part of the
inheritance which was outside the portion left in equal parts to the children,
and whieh the Code put at the disposal of the father under the title of quofite
disponible. As on the other hand, by the permission of entails for the future,
it became possible to tie up this wealth in perpetuity, the nation saw in this
legislation a step towards the reestablishment, by the custom of the right of
the eldest, of the estates
1826-7] Return of the Jesuits.—New Press Law
proposed. 89
of the
nobility of the ancien rSgime. In vain did the Minister plead that it was to
the general advantage to prevent the breaking up of patrimonies, and to
maintain in the country on behalf of agriculture a great landed aristocracy. He
did not disarm all those who began to recognise and to dread the return of the old
order, under the legal forms and with the modifications devised by Villele. It
was the Chamber of Peers, composed of men of the Revolution and the Empire,
which offered the most determined opposition (March, 1826).
The
Opposition unmistakably gathered force in the course of this year, when it
heard from the lips of the Minister of Religion himself of the authorisation
secretly granted to the Jesuits to return to the Church of France, and to teach
in the seminaries of the State (August, 1826). It seemed that for the future
the Church, and with it the State, were to be at the mercy of those parties who
had resolved to efface the last traces of the Revolution. Villele, roused by
this opposition, departed from his policy of prudence. He had recourse to measures
of severity and made a Press Law which was called in mockery “ the law of
justice and love.”
This law,
which was brought forward by the Ministry on December 29,
1826, as a simple “police law” with regard to
the Press, which was described as “having reached a pitch of utterly unbridled
licence,” was in reality a bold return to the customs of the old monarchy,
which had been sovereign arbiter in France on all printed matter. Orders were
to be given to the printers of journals, who were thenceforward to be held
responsible, and to the proprietors, to submit five days before publication all
writings which emanated from their presses, in order that the Government might
examine them and permit the circulation of those alone which had been stamped
with the government mark. Severe penalties and the right given to the
magistrates to take official proceedings in the case of anything which might
seem of defamatory character threatened the future freedom of thought and pen
in France. It was no longer merely newspapers, but pamphlets of all sorts and
books in general, which the Crown intended to subject to its decrees. “It would
be the same thing,” said Casimir Perier, a deputy moreover of moderate Liberal
views, “ to propose a law for the suppression of printing in France for the
good of Belgium.” “ It is a law of barbarism,” added Chateaubriand. It was not
only in the Chamber and the Opposition but in the French Academy and in the
country at large that emotion showed itself. The Ministry believed they would
defeat opposition by measures of severity which deprived of their offices
writers such as Villemain and Michaud (January 17, 1827). And at first they
seemed to succeed: the eloquence of Benjamin Constant was insufficient to win
over a majority in the Chamber, which was composed of friends or dependents of
Villele. But the Chamber of Peers gave the Liberals a complete revenge, and on
April 17 forced Peyronnet, the Keeper of the Seals, to withdraw the law for
fear of its rejection.
This check
should have given Villele a final warning. The withdrawal of the law provoked
an outburst of joy in Paris; illuminations and fireworks blazed forth that very
evening in many parts of the town. Ten days later, when Charles X held a
l’eview of the Garde Nationals at the Tuileries, in the ranks of several
legions there arose cries of “ Down with the Ministers, down with the Jesuits !
” After a Gallican Royalist, Montlosier, had denounced to the country by books
and petitions the progress of the priest-party and the religious bodies, all
the Liberalism in France, alarmed at and convinced of the existence of a
conspiracy between the Ministers and the Jesuits, proclaimed itself prepared to
defend freedom of thought and the New Order.
Villele,
driven by opposition and the counsels of his party further and further from the
paths of prudence and discretion, imagined that he would gain the victory this
time by drastic and authoritative action. The Garde Natianale was forthwith
disbanded (April 29). Then, two days after the Chambers had risen (June 24,
1827), a royal ordinance, countersigned by Villele, Corbiere, and Peyronnet, reestablished
the censorship over all journals and periodical writings. And the censors, who
were appointed by the Minister of the Interior, received instructions to show
themselves inexorable towards all Liberal or Opposition journals. Public
opinion had no longer any medium of expression. It could only make itself felt
on extraordinary occasions such as the funeral of the Republican Deputy,
Manuel, whose hearse was drawn to Pere Lachaise by the youth of the Liberal
party amid the applause of the Parisian mob (April 24, 1827). Despotism at that
time seemed to have gained victory and acceptance. The people in the provinces,
and the army engaged in manoeuvres at St Omer, acclaimed Charles X, who was
making a triumphal progress in the north which had been arranged by his
Ministers. The prosperity of industrial enterprise and of public finance which
was being strengthened in various ways, and particularly by the exhibition of
products of industry held at the Louvre on August 1,1827, justified Villele in
his own eyes and those of the King for having maintained order at the expense
of liberty. He boasted, and for the time being it seemed credible, that in this
reactionary campaign he would have the last word, and that the ancien regime,
thanks to his skill and perseverance, would be decisively restored.
Its defeat,
however, was near at hand. It was brought about by those Royalists whom, to all
appearances, its policy ought to have bound closely to it. Since the enforced
resignation of Chateaubriand, Villele had definitely alienated and had been
unable to win back a group of extremists, pointus as he called them,
obstructionists who fought him and his policy without intermission. This
irreconcilable and dangerous opposition was founded without doubt upon wounded
or dissatisfied ambitions; it was to be explained in part upon the ground of
posts refused, and of jealousies aroused against men who had been too long
and too
exclusively in possession of royal favours. But other and loftier motives
cooperated. Chateaubriand and his friends, more violent partisans of the throne
and the Church than Villele, reproached him with not seeking by means of a
policy of glorious activity abroad to secure a more rapid triumph for the
anti-Revolution movement. They demanded, like the Liberals, liberty of the
Press, in order to fight him and to win over national opinion. They professed,
like the Liberals, ardent sympathy for Greece, who for the past five years had
been struggling for her independence, under the eyes of Europe, at first
hostile, then indifferent. Their incessant attacks shook the Ministry of
Villele more than the opposition of the Liberals, who owed to them their rare
successes in the elections. When in the month of November it became known that
at Navarino the French Admiral, Eigny, striking a blow for French glory, had
prevailed upon the English and Russian Admirals to destroy the fleet of the
Pasha of Egypt, which had been put at the disposal of the Sultan to use against
the Greeks, all Villele’s enemies, Royalist and Liberal alike, united in
raising a cry of victory against the Ministry. It seemed that it was chiefly
the policy of the Ministry which the cannon of Navarino had overthrown (1827).
Villele still
believed himself strong enough to eliminate from his majority these
contumacious and troublesome Royalists. He threw over the Chamber which in 1824
he had established for a term of seven years, and sent it back for reelection
on November 5, 1827. At the same time he nominated to the Higher Chamber 76 new
Peers, in order to create for himself there a more docile majority. The
elections gave the victory to his opponents. In spite of the law of the double
vote and the raising of the qualifications necessary for a voter, many
Liberals, upheld by an awakening of public opinion and supported by the
Royalists in the electoral colleges, by the manufacturing industry, the
financiers, and the merchants, were enabled after seven years of exclusion to
regain possession of the Chamber of Deputies. On December 5, 1827, Villele sent
in his resignation.
He retired,
the victim of a singular coalition which rendered the King’s task of choosing a
successor highly difficult. His conquerors were such Liberals as Lafayette,
Chauvelin, Etienne, Bignon, Keratry, the two Dupins, Mauguin, Alexandre de
Laborde, Odier, and Lefevre, men who were almost republicans. On the other
hand, there were also the extremists whom Villele had most persistently
combatted, Hyde de Neuville, Bertin de Vaux, editor of the Debats, Ravcz, La
Bourdonnaye, and Delalot. From such representatives of the two extreme parties
united in Opposition, though absolutely different in aims and principles, no
lasting Ministry could be formed. There was no other Government possible than
one analogous to that which had just been overthrown, alien alike to the party
of ultra-Royalists and to that of the Liberals properly so called.
Charles X
entrusted the task and responsibility of governing to the Vicomte de Martignac
(January . 4, 1828). In choosing him the King gave satisfaction to the
Liberals, who were happy, in the first place, at seeing the direction of
ecclesiastical affairs separated from that of public instruction, which was
under the directorship of Vatimesnil. In the second place they received a
guarantee when the president of the Courts of justice was taken from Peyronnet
and restored to a Liberal Peer of France, Count Portalis. Moreover, the
presence of Hyde de Neuville, a friend of Chateaubriand, at the head of naval
affairs, and of Count de La Ferronays, ambassador to Russia and friend of the
Tsar, at the head of foreign affairs, seemed to the Royalists to be a pledge of
glorious action abroad. In reality Martignac, the chief man in this new
combination, bore more resemblance to Villele than to the majority of the
Chamber elected in opposition to the ex-Minister.
Their origins
were similar; as advocate at Bordeaux, or Mayor of Toulouse, both had been in
1815 in the South determined champions of Legitimism. Afterwards, when in 1821
the Royalist party, composed of the former emigres and extremists, came bade
into power, and Villele was called to be its leader, Martignac was conspicuous
in the front rows of the majority. He was created Vicomte by Court favour,
which recognised in him an active and eloquent coadjutor of the measures
prepared by Villele. This man, whom, by contrast with his former chief, men
were now regarding almost as a Liberal, had counselled the Chamber to severe
measures against the Press in 1822, had encouraged and aided Louis XVIII in his
struggle against the Spanish Revolution in 1823. It was he too who had brought
forward in the Chamber the law of 1824 for a septennial Parliament, and so
furnished Villele with this instrument of power and reaction. Soon, in 1825,
the King summoned him to his counsels as a reward for his services, and commissioned
him with the task of pleading before the Chamber the cause of the emigres, and
of supporting the proposed measure which was to restore to them 1,000,000,000
francs by way of indemnity. And in 1827, in the debate upon the Press, we find
him once more giving his support to legislation of a kind “ to prevent crimes
by severity and fear.” There was nothing in his past to cause men to anticipate
a new change of front in policy. When the principal actor had been hissed off
the stage by the public, the same play went on with an understudy.
In order to
win acceptance, the new chief had the skill, it is true, to revive the earlier
and more successful tactics of Villele, to abandon measures that were openly
reactionary, and to reassure the nation by timely concessions. He had all the
necessary qualifications. As a parliamentary orator he was full of charm; he
was a tactful and pleasant politician, who seemed chosen to soothe by his
eloquence the alarm of parties and the country at large, to disarm hostility by
his graciousness, and to bring about the necessary reconciliations.
Royer-Collard,
the respected leader of the Liberal Royalists, was summoned immediately to the
Presidency of the Chamber. The doctrinaire professors, his pupils or his
friends, who had been persecuted for four years, Guizot, Villemain, and Cousin,
were allowed to return to their posts, “ with tranquillity in their breasts and
liberty for thought.” The restoration of authority to these eminent
representatives of the Liberal party, the withdrawal of royal favour from the
Prefects and the chief of police, Franchet, who had been plotting for clerical
domination, and from Frayssinous, who was suspected of having handed over
ecclesiastical affairs to the Jesuits, and the suppression of the “ cabinet
noir ”—all this seemed to foreshadow a new system. Charles X resigned himself
with regret. “Martignac,” he said, “is meeting the Revolution half-way with his
cowardice.”
It was not,
however, either cowardice or total change of method on the part of the
Minister, who was reduced to depend for existence upon his concessions and his
skill in steering between two parties. It was merely the necessary recoil. We
find him, moreover, promising to the deputies greater honesty in the elections
by the law upon the revision of the electoral lists; but at the same time he
declared that he would nevertheless retain for the Government “ such authority
as they deemed indispensable for the conduct of the elections.” The annual
revision of the lists of voters would no longer be left to the arbitraiy
decision of the Prefects, but be subject to appeal either to the tribunals or
to the Council of State (March 20—July 10, 1828). Before long Martignac brought
forward a law concerning the Press (April 14,1828), which stands as the exact
measure of his Liberal intentions. He suppressed the censorship of newspapers
which he had himself been instrumental in establishing in 1822, to which he had
set his approval a second time in 1827, and for whose abolition the parties of
the Left and the extreme Right were clamouring. He swept away “ preliminary
authorisation” and “ offences of tendency.” But he did not restore to the
juries the trials of press cases, and he gave to the ordinary tribunals, which
were always under the thumb of the Government, a severe code, the right of
suspension for three months, and of imposing heavy fines the payment of which
was secured by the preliminary deposit of an exorbitant sum. “This is a new
Bastille,” remarked some of the Liberals, “with liberty for its pass-word.”
This verdict
was not far from the truth. The task which Martignac was attempting was the
maintenance of monarchical authority, strengthened by the fact that it was
willing to rid itself betimes of the men and institutions most disliked by a
sensitive and uneasy public opinion. The reproach of tacking made against him
is unjust. He merely threw overboard such ballast as was necessary. This also
was the motive which impelled him to publish on June 17 two royal ordinances
countersigned by the Minister of Religious Worship and the
Minister of
Ecclesiastical Affairs. The one, directed against the Jesuits, forbade the
giving of instruction by any religious body not authorised by the State, and
reported to the University eight Colleges suspected of giving clandestine
instruction. The other attacked the smaller seminaries, which since the Empire,
in spite of the monopoly of the University, had been allowed to attract
students under the pretext of preparing candidates for the priesthood. This
ordinance compelled their pupils to wear ecclesiastical costume, and limited
the numbers of the children in their schools to 20,000, all told, for the whole
of France. In short, it restricted them to their proper aims and duties. If the
University had been at that time an institution hostile to the Church, as was
alleged by the priest-party, the measures of Martignac’s Cabinet, which announced
the intention of reserving to it the entire education of the middle classes in
France, would doubtless have been vigorous acts of secularist policy. But the
State system of education which these ordinances strengthened was based upon
principles which were essentially religious and Catholic, and many clerical professors
were on the staff of teachers.
These laws
were doubtless instruments useful to the monarchy, but it was a monarchy which
was still the eldest daughter of the Holy See, and they contained no real
Liberal principles, still less principles of the Revolution. Above all, they
were not weapons directed against the Church. Judging by the applause they
aroused among the Liberals, and the indignation evinced by the opposite camp,
it might have been thought that they were. However, Martignac had acted with
the full authority of Charles X; and those secret counsellors of the King who
were most devoted to the “Congregation,” Bishop de Frayssinous, Father Ronsin,
and the deputy Ravez, had themselves pronounced these concessions to opinion to
be opportune.
The hostile
section, however, of the extreme Right, who had thought that by overthrowing
Villele they would clear their own path to power and bring about the triumph of
their ambitions, were aggrieved that, apart from some concessions of detail,
they had received nothing but a set-back. The Bishops protested against the
ordinances of June. An “association for the defence of the Catholic religion”
was organised, with Bonald and Dambray as its chiefs. Lamennais, the eloquent
champion of Ultramontanism, was incensed at the “progress of the Revolution,”
and wished the Church of Rome to break publicly with a monarchy handed over by
its Ministers to the Jacobins. The Royalist journals, the Quotidienne and the Gazette
de France, declared war upon the Cabinet which had had the audacity to give
counsels of prudence to their party. To Martignac’s temporising policy they
opposed a method which had brought failure to the Royalists in 1816, and had
been condemned by Villele in 1821—the establishment by force of a kind of
royal dictatorship, an act of defiance to the nation. “ Those who give
the King such
advice are mad,” Martignac wrote at the end of 1828. “ Your Majesty’s Ministers
are firmly convinced that the course they propose is the only way to restore
power and dignity to the monarchy.”
Deserted and
thwarted by the more violent Royalists, the Ministry, on the other hand, were
unable with this programme to give assurance or satisfaction to the Liberals.
They had an instinctive feeling that Martignac was not working for the cause of
liberty. They never accorded him more than a “conditional confidence.”
Victorious beyond their hopes in the elections of 1827, they were stronger in
the Chamber than they had been for seven years. They were supported by a new
generation, by the publicists of the Globe, Thiers, Mignet, Dubois, Jouffroy,
Remusat, Duvergier de Hauranne, and were determined that once for all the
Crown should cease its secret or open attempts to restore the ancien regime, or
to make war upon the new and lay society. They demanded of the Liberal Minister
as the price of their actual support a formal declaration of his adhesion to
the revolutionary principles of 1789; but they found that Martignac was in no hurry
to give it to them. In this frame of mind they awaited the end of the year 1828
for a decisive turn in affairs which was to be brought about by the law of
elections.
The deputies
of the Left could not be under any real misapprehension as to the causes of
the unhoped-for success they had won in the elections of 1827. When Villele
sent the Chambers back to the country, in the conditions under which the
suffrage was exercised—the double vote and official control—the Minister, with
his long career of success behind him, had thought himself certain of the
result. His anticipations were falsified, because in many of the Departments,
including Paris, the Opposition of the extreme Right held out support to
candidates from the Left. Thus the Liberal Opposition was at the mercy of those
allies whose desires were the exact contrary of their own. They were eager to
escape from so onerous and precarious an alliance, and to consolidate a victoiy
thus won by a surprise attack. Thus they waited for Martignac to bring forward
a new electoral law which would, by increasing the number of electors, give
them a firm foothold in the country.
Martignac, at
the beginning of 1829, did not bring forward the law they wished. With his
wonted skill, deeming it as he did a primary necessity to gain time, he brought
before the Chambers two proposals touching communal and departmental
administration (February 9, 1829). He offered freer and more widely
representative elections, but only in the councils of the Communes, Cantons,
and Departments. He refused to extend them to the central Assembly. His purpose
was sufficiently clear. “ Are you not,” he said, “ concerned on behalf of this
crowd of educated, industrious, and energetic men whom public life admonishes
and arouses, who are impelled
towards
public affairs by their social position, the consciousness of their own
ability, and the force of example ? What means have you of satisfying their
natural and legitimate impatience ? Open for them a new career at their doors.
They are ambitious to win men’s suffrages in their honour. Give them the means
to satisfy this noble ambition at home, and draw round them a circle of honour
within which there is profit and glory to be won by remaining.” Men might
really have thought that they had returned to the ancien regime and the days of
Turgot. To a nation which had known the Constituante and the Convention, and
which was being constantly reminded by Thiers and Mignet and the other Liberals
of the glorious memories of the great national assemblies, Martignac vouchsafed
the concession of provincial assemblies. He admitted that he was seeking “to
divide the current of men’s minds in order to make its actions less forceful
and less impetuous.’’
Thus on April
8, 1829, the party of the Left declared open war against him by throwing out
his measure, or rather by forcing him to withdraw it. The Royalists of the
extreme Right, “irritated by these concessions to democracy,” had taken part in
the struggle with equal violence. What was not sufficiently Liberal for the one
side was too much so for the other. From that time the Ministers, who had just
lost by the defection of the Left the sole majority by whose aid they could
resist the influences of the Court and the demands of the extremists, and who
were reduced to making Liberal protestations at the tribune, while defending
reactionary measures imposed upon them by the secret counsellors of the King,
were, in spite of their skill, really powerless to fulfil their mission. Their
weakness became obvious in the summer of 1829, in the course of the discussion
of the Budget. Without a party in the Chamber, without credit at Court, without
support in public opinion, Martignac had failed in this fifteen months’
attempt, which indeed was foredoomed from the beginning.
In point of
fact, the period from April 8 to August 9, 1829, witnessed the second victory
of this strange coalition, formed in the last days of Villele’s Ministry, a
coalition composed of extreme parties who could not govern in union. Under
Martignac, the system of prudent reaction and prudent temporisation, which had
for so long been practised by Villele, showed clearly that it had had its day.
Charles X
thus found himself forced in 1829 to make a choice, decisive for the future of
his monarchy, between the two parties whose ephemeral coalition had ruined the
policy followed by his Ministers ever since 1821. Like Louis XVIII in 1816, he
was compelled to declare himself on the side of the no-compromise Royalist
party, who were impatient to complete without half-measures or diplomacy the
restoration of the old order, of privilege, and of the ultramontane Church, or
on the side of men who, like R^musat, had for their
programme “to
defend the Revolution and continue it without the revolutionary spirit.” The
crisis had not changed after thirteen years; it was the same at the end as at
the beginning. The solution, however, was more difficult for Charles X than it
had been for his brother.
Charles had
neither the subtlety of mind nor the sceptical prudence of Louis XVIII. Fickle
and volatile from youth, Charles was, by the habits of his riper age, passed
amid the flatteries of the ultraRoyalists who surrounded him, by his
conviction that Providence would guide him by mysterious ways towards the
accomplishment of the divine mission with which he believed himself charged, by
his lack of reflexion and his obstinacy, ill fitted to make the necessary
concessions. Moreover, those which he would have to make to the Liberals, if he
separated himself from the ultra-Royalists, would thenceforth be greater than
those which would have been sufficient for his brother. Defeated and occupied
by the enemy, tired of revolutions and of war, France in 1815 hungered less for
liberty than for repose. Since then new generations had arisen with the design
and the desire to take up once more by teaching and action the national task
which France seemed to have ibandoned through fatigue. Against the royal will
of the Bourbons, restored by means of foreign aid, which had seemed to be the
foundation of the Charter they had granted, these younger Liberals put forward
the rights of the nation, in their eyes the only true foundation of that
Charter. More and more, Liberalism invoked principles irreconcilable with the
ideas that the restored Bourbons, especially Charles X and his Mends, held
concerning the rights of the Crown. “ There is no way of dealing with these
people,” said the King to Martignac on April 9,1829. “ It is time to call
halt.” On August 9 he entrusted Prince de Polignac, his ambassador in London
and his favourite, with the task of forming a Ministry. The period of halting
was past. This was a declaration of war, not an act of negotiation.
The Journal
des Debats, a Royalist paper of moderate principles, dealt with the King’s
decision on August 15 in an article which was subsequently made the ground of a
prosecution. In alluding to the three Ministers—Polignac, an emigre and
accomplice of Georges in his conspiracies with foreign Powers, Bourmont, a hero
of the wars in the Vendee, who deserted in the face of the enemy after the
Hundred Days, La Bourdonnaye, who took part in the White Terror—the writer
said: “Coblenz, Waterloo, 1815—those are the three principles, the three
personages of the Ministry. Squeeze and wring this Ministiy, and you will get
nothing from it but humiliations, misfortunes, and dangers.” While at Paris the
whole of the Liberal press raised a ciy of defiance against the Crown, at Lyons
the people acclaimed Lafayette as the republican and national hero. Companies
were formed in Britanny and elsewhere for the defence of the Charter by the
refusal to pay taxes.
Though he had
decided to attempt the restoration of the ancien
regime
by some drastic act of authority, Polignac, the trusted champion of the
fomgr&s, nevertheless at first felt some hesitation. He proclaimed his
intention “ to reorganise society, to give back to the clergy their weight in
state affairs, to create a powerful aristocracy, and to surround it with
privileges,” but he took no action. Was this the fault of his colleague, La
Bourdonnaye, Minister of the Interior, who, after having for ten years
clamoured for war to the death against the Revolution, showed himself as
incapable of undertaking as of conceiving a plan of action, and retired on
November 17 ? The lack of decision seems in fact to be due to Polignac also. “
He has made up his mind,” said an opponent, “ but he does not know exactly to
what.” The serious thing was that, having the temperament of a mystic and a
touching confidence in Providence, he looked to heaven rather than to his Own
resources for the necessary help, and even for the signal. Foreign Ministers,
Lord Stuart de Rothesay, and Villele himself, watched him march slowly towards
a battle without any plan but with smiling serenity and the confidence of a
somnambulist.
On March
2,1830, he convened the Chambers. He laid before them a programme of external
policy, which circumstances offered him, and which he thought would be decisive
for the success of his plans. At first he had thought that events in the East,
the victories gained by the Russians over the Turks, would permit to Finance a
glorious intervention in European politics, and to Charles X an act of vigorous
self-assertion at home. He had formed a plan in concert with the Cabinet at St Petersburg,—a
general rearrangement of Europe, beginning with Turkey and ending with the
Rhine; but the Peace of Adrianople, which was rapidly arranged for Nicholas I
by the mediation of Prussia, had upset his arrangements (November, 1829).
Failing a war upon the Rhine, Polignac meditated an enterprise in Algiers,
where the Bey had since 1827 refused to make any reparation to the King of
France, who had been insulted in the person of his ambassador. He “ made
preparations for it with a prodigality of resources and a superabundance of
precautions which betrayed that a greater interest was at stake than the
national honour or the advantage of Conquest.” He wished to increase his power
abroad in order to be able to strike a strong blow at home.
“ If this
Algerian enterprise,” wrote Talleyrand, “ is an expedient to facilitate
government at home, it is a great mistake.” The Chamber which Polignac hoped to
bend to his designs was forewarned and unwilling to follow him. The future
belonged to the moderate Royalists, friends or disciples of Royer-Collard, who
were equally afraid of the dictatorship which the party of the extreme Right
and the Cabinet were endeavouring to establish, and of the revolution for which
the journals of the Left, the National, the Globe, the Republicans, and the
Bona- partists, were now prayi&g. “ We must strike hard and soon,” Royef*
Collard insisted to his friends. Their hope was that Parliament, between
a monarchy
ready for a coup dCldat to establish its rights and the nation forced to act vigorously
in defence of its own, might still perhaps be able to prevent the conflict by a
firm attitude. On these grounds an -ddress was drawn up, voted by 221 Liberal
deputies, and presented to the King on March 18,1880. It was an address of
reproach to the Crown for its resistance to the people’s wishes by its choice
of a non-representative Government instead of one chosen in consultation with
them; and at the same time it was a declaration of the deputies’ principles.
Charles X
took the address as a defiance of the Crown. To set up his standard, as he
said, he authorised his Ministers first to prorogue, and afterwards to
dissolve, this rebellious Chamber, and ordered Peyronnet, a man of battle, to
take all suitable measures for the elections (May 16, 1830). Perhaps he was
still reckoning on the moral effect of the expedition which was shortly to be
undertaken in Algiers. He was certainly persuaded that he would escape the lot
of his brother Louis XVHI by forestalling with energetic action a factious Opposition.
But, contrary
to his hopes, the majority of the nation took sides with the deputies who were
sent back to them. Their reelection was the Watchword given in the month of
July. The election was completed on July 19, and 53 new members were added by
the will of the electors to the Opposition of 221, who had in the month of
March resolutely demanded the dismissal of the Polignac Ministry. That Ministry
had now in the Parliament only 100 supporters, determined but powerless. This
counter-stroke exasperated the King and those around him. He was incensed, like
a King of the old order, that the nation could have and express a will
different from his own. Force still remained to him, and he used it. Under the
pretext that the Charter by virtue of Article 14 left to the Crown the right of
providing for the safety of the State by ordinances issued at his own
discretion, Charles X resolved upon a special act of authority supported by
this legal form. On July 25 he published three ordinances, one to dissolve this
Chamber, which had been regularly elected, before it had met, the second to
establish a new electoral law which would permit the monarchy to reduce to
submission or to remove from the lists obstinate electors, the third to crush
the Opposition press.
On July 26,
1830, the printers and journalists, eager to proclaim the sovereignty of the
people against that of the Bourbons, summoned the people of Paris to armed
insurrection. At the same time they invited the Chamber of Deputies, the
authorised representatives of the nation, to defend their rights and those of
the people. To the Ministers who, believing themselves sure of Paris, while
attempting an extraordinary act of authority, had left the Government with
insufficient forces, and to the King himself, who was on the point of departing
for a hunting expedition at Rambouillet, this popular insurrection came as an
entire surprise. To the citizen classes and many of the deputies, who were
defenders of the law, but constantly mindful of the recollections of
the Terror,
the sight of the people of Paris under arms brought alarm and dismay. However,
by July 28 the people had succeeded in gaining the mastery over the royal
troops in the Hotel de Ville; the next day (July 29) the insurgents, led by
former officers and young men from the schools, forced the Duke of Ragusa to
evacuate the Louvre, the Tuileries, and before long Paris itself. After having
attempted vainly negotiations with the Court at Saint-Cloud, which, now that it
was too late, threw over Polignac and the ordinances, the deputies and Peers
were fain to rally to the victorious Revolution and to proclaim the downfall of
the Bourbons. It was on behalf of the Charter that the people had risen. By the
popular victory the Charter ceased to be an act of royal favour conceded to
obedient subjects. It became a national Constitution, a sovereign guarantee of
the rights of the people.
Legitimism
had finally succumbed, ruined by the faults and excesses of its partisans. As
for a return to the old order—religious, social, or political—France would have
none of it. The obstinacy of the Royalists, who had attempted this enterprise
at first by cunning methods, and afterwards boldly, had inflicted a double
injury upon the Crown. In the first place, its fall resulted. But, worse still,
it caused men to forget all the services which the restored monarchy had
rendered to France since 1815—the rapid evacuation of a territory occupied by
foreign armies, the liquidation of the cost of a long war, financial prosperity
favourable to the development of industry and commerce. In short, peace with
honour.
Nothing was
fated to survive of this short-lived regime but the lasting glory of the
literary and artistic achievement which testified to a real renaissance of the
French genius. The honour belongs especially to Chateaubriand, whose influence
and example were more potent in his writings than his political life. Though
Madame de Stael, after having by her powerful imagination exercised a
considerable influence upon the opinions of her day, and after having welcomed
at Coppet the beginning of the reign of Romanticism, died in 1817, the author
of Le Ginie du Christianisme and of Les Martyrs lived on in undiminished glory,
to be the guide of successive generations of writers in the new paths which
both these authors in their different ways had opened, by breaking the narrow
mould of classical form. The representation of nature, the expression of the
deepest emotions of the soul, and the discovery of the beautiful, instead of
being a convention and tradition, became the living sources of a lyrical stream
which fertilised all at once the French genius.
This period
saw the rise of a constellation of poets formed in the school of Chateaubriand
or of foreign lyrical writers, Schiller, Byron, Manzoni. The Meditations of
Lamartine, who, after a peaceful and happy youth, became a poet at thirty years
of age owing to a shortlived passion, served in 1820 as the signal, the
firstfruits of that harvest which was to prove so abundant. While Lamartine, in
his
Nouvelles
Meditations (1823), renewed his confessions of sorrow, soothed his griefs by
turning them to song, and sought for consolation in a hymn of faith, Les
Harmonies (1830), Victor Hugo, son of a general of the Empire, still a
classicist and a Royalist, celebrated the monarchy in his Odes (1822), in which
at twenty years of age he showed the force of his talents. Alfred de Vigny, an
officer out of love with military glory, and almost with humanity itself, at
twenty-six years old, began with his Poemes (1822), followed up in 1826 by the
Poemes antiques et modemes, the sober and eloquent work of a solitary life
consecrated to thought informed by beauty and force of expression, to the
mission of a poet in human society. The greatest names of the lyrical cycle of
the nineteenth century in France henceforth command the attention of the
public.
Around them
groups soon began to form, either at the Abbe aux Bois, in the company of
Chateaubriand, Ballanche, Ampere, and their friend Madame Recamier, or at the
Arsenal, where dwelt Charles Nodier, who brought back from his travels the
inspiration of English and German Romanticism (1823). In these circles talents
were discovered and encouraged. Sainte-Beuve appears, who drew his inspiration
from the French poets of the sixteenth century before the Classical period, and
made his first trial of romantic poetry with Joseph Delorme and the
Consolations (1829-30); the two brothers 6mile and Antony Deschamps came
forward with their writings in the Muse Frangaise in 1823. In this society
which Stendhal (H. Beyle) frequented, publishing in 1822 his Racine et
Shakespeare, Victor Hugo was growing up, contributing to the new literature his
Ballades in 1826 and his Orientales in 1829. And towards the end of this
period, in 1830, French poetry counted two recruits whose names were to
increase in glory, Alfred de Musset with his Contes cTEspagne et (Tltalie, and
Theophile Gautier with his Premieres Poisies (1830).
Apart from
this lyrical awakening, the renaissance, of which Romanticism with its
fervours and its fruitful throes seems to have been the dominant
characteristic, made itself felt in every department of art. In the theatre the
drama of the new school was inaugurated with the Cromwell of Hugo (1827), the
prologue of which was a defiance of all rules and ancient traditions, and set
the author in the front ranks of his companions in the strife. Hernami
(February 25, 1830) was the great battle of Romanticism, following on Cromwell,
the declaration of war. It had been preceded by skirmishes of some importance.
The early works of Merimee, the plays Clara Gazul (1825) and Jacquerie (1828),
already gave examples of dramas akin in form to the classical conventions,
clothed in familiar and picturesque forms drawn from actual life or from
history. In 1829 Alexandre Dumas produced his first romantic play, Henri III et
sa Cour, and was engaged upon Antony (1831). Vigny set himself to enter these
lists with Chatterton.
102
Historical novels and histories.
[1815-30
In its turn
the French novel of that period opened for itself all the paths which it was to
follow further in the course of the century. First historical novels began to
spring up, perhaps owing to the example of Walter Scott and the English. In the
hands of great artists, this style at once counted among its achievements
powerful works, the Cinq- Mars of Alfred de Vigny (1826), the Chronique de
Charles IX, by Merimee (1829), and shortly after Notre Dame de Paris by Hugo
(1881). Moreover in Adolphe, by Benjamin Constant (1826) and Le Rouge et le
Noir, by Stendhal (1881), we have profound studies, in the form of novels, of
the psychology and philosophy of individuals and of history. The lyrical novel
also took its rise with the first works of George Sand; and the Comidie Humaine
of Balzac, with its powerful presentment of a complete society, is a world in
itself.
History
itself, in this great movement of ideas, this revolution of form, had a fresh
birth owing to the efforts of great writers, who made it their task to ransack
the pages of the past for new sources of life and of truth. Fired by
Chateaubriand, Augustin Thieny strove to rediscover the character and the soul
of vanished generations. He wrote the Conquete de PAngleterre par les Normands
in 1825, and in the letters upon the History of France, which he published from
1820 to 1827 in the Courrier Francois and the Censeur Europeen, he helped to
awaken in France a passion for national history, a taste for ancient chronicles
and for truth. Guizot, who was more strictly a philosopher working upon ideas,
but who was also an anxious seeker after truth, told the history of the
Revolution d'Angleterre (1827-8) in order to draw from it a lesson based upon
the documents; and as one of his lecture courses he prepared the Histoire de la
Civilisation en Europe. Villemain, a successor to Madame de Stael, proclaimed,
though in an incomplete and superficial fashion, a new method of literary
history. Last, Jules Michelet, like Quinet, who was also engaged from 1827 with
the philosophy of history in his Commentaires sur Herder, took up the Scienza
Nuova discovered by Vico to devote himself to it entirely. Appointed professor
immediately after the close of his student years, inspired by Chateaubriand,
learned moreover, and a child of the people, in his History of France he united
the conditions of a great work, which are rarely found combined to so high a
degree—science and poetry. The work did not see the light till “ the brilliant
morning of July, 1830." But it was in this fruitful period of the
Restoration that the author found his inspiration and the resources of his
genius.
This period
can in no sense be measured by the political struggles, the intrigues of Court
or of Cabinet, the dark plottings of the priest- party or the conspiracies of
the Republicans. What we must look to is the intense vitality which grew up in
the whole sphere of the intellect. Through the orators and polemists it
penetrates and in some sort expands the domain of politics. The resplendent
eloquence of Royer-
Collard, Camille
Jordan, Benjamin Constant, General Foy, de Serre, and Chateaubriand, was not
always understood by their party, but was always listened to. The youth of
France thronged to the Sorbonne, round Guizot, Villemain, Cousin, and Jouffroy.
Perhaps theirs was not, strictly speaking, instruction. But in fact, by the
sincerity and the talent of the masters, by the eagerness and the intellect of
the pupils, instruction it was. In the thick of the party strife, where
pamphlets had their birth, those of Paul-Louis Courier and of Lamennais
appeared in sudden glory, destined long to survive the struggle which gave them
birth. Extraordinary talent was shown in journalism, and in journalistic
criticism; and the brilliant writers of the Globe deserve especial mention.
Lastly, b’fe
itself, quickened by this fever of growth, gave back to the artists in their
turn their perception of life. The painters of the “flamboyant” school, in
place of the neutral tones which the school of David had too long imposed upon
them, called for emotion and movement. Gericault gave the signal in 1814, and
still more in 1819 with his Raft of the Medusa. Delacroix, a great genius who
combined with inspiration a severe artistic conscience, startled men with his
Dante's Bark (1822), and carried them away with the Massacres of Scio (1824).
Eugene Deveria in 1827 was spreading upon his canvas the colours of his Birth
of Henry IV. Ingres alone stood firm against them, taking his stand upon
draughtsmanship, proving by his portraits of what value it was to preserve the
ancient methods. And in sculptors such as Rude and David d1 Angers,
and in musicians such as Auber and Rossini, who recreated opera in 1828 and
1829, the same victorious effort to realise the national dream of glory and of
liberty can be recognised.
ITALY.
Italy had been the most distinguished victim of the
ruling principles of the Congress of Vienna, and of the emulous desires of its
members. Austria came forth from the Congress the actual ruler of the
Peninsula, as mistress of the rich provinces of Lombardy and Venetia, and
immensely superior in armed forces to the minor Italian States which she confronted.
Hence the policy of the latter was controlled by fear, the most efficient of
guardians. Now that the right of might had been vindicated and that
satisfaction had been given to the paltry ambitions of the ruling families,
restored to hereditary thrones by the logic of legitimist theory, it seemed as
though Italy must perforce live at peace, submissive to her rulers, relapsing
into the sleepy indifference in which she had lain for centuries past. But
certain bodies may be compressed, though not crushed; indeed, from their
compression they derive a new strength, an elastic force, which increases their
energy. Equality before the law, liberty of conscience, freedom of speech and
of the press, free access to all posts, and above all the right to national
self-government —these were not passing phantoms called up by the Revolution,
and its short-lived passage over Italian soil had not been without effect. It
was a fatal error to ignore, or to feign to ignore, the fact that the people
was no longer a confused and passive crowd, but rather an organic body with
aspirations and desires which would soon become demands. Contempt for the people
was no longer a part of the acceptcd order of things; it had become an insult,
and like every other insult, it produced reaction and rebellion. Hence, about
thirty years after the Treaties of Vienna there set in a period of reform which
was in direct opposition to the leading principles of those treaties. This
period closed with the risings of 1848 and 1849, which in their turn constituted
an open and systematic attack upon Austria, the authority to which the Congress
had placed Italy in practical subjection.
Let us now
proceed to examine the causes which, during this time of despotic rule
exercised or inspired by Austria, helped to bring about so radical a change and
to train minds for those brave deeds which
altered the
course of Italian history. What was it that, from 1815 to 1846, kept alive the
sparks of patriotism, which afterwards burst into so marvellous a flame ? In
the sphere of action the period of reform was heralded by conspiracies, and in
the field of thought by a general intellectual movement, which affected
philosophy, literature, and art.
Prince
Mettemich, convinced that every point yielded to the demands of the Liberal
party would necessitate further concessions, had adopted in Italy a policy of
unqualified absolutism. He declared that such concessions would lead, in the
first place, to the union of Italy as a single republican State, and, in the
second, to fierce discord between the heterogeneous parties into which this
State must split, in consequence of the diversity of its inhabitants. In order
to escape this danger he determined, from the outset, to destroy in the Italian
people the very germs of civil life, and to stamp out even the desire for
self-government. The means for the execution of this purpose were ready to his
hand in the provinces subject to Austria. For the other States, he had provided
in Modena and in Tuscany Austrian Archdukes, in Parma an Austrian Archduchess,
and had promised to them and to the other rulers of the Peninsula Austrian aid
at the first sign of a revolutionary outbreak. Under this yoke life in Italy
was always hard, and at times intolerable.
The
letters-patent of April 7, 1815, placed a Viceroy at the head of the new
kingdom of Lombardy and Venetia; but, in order to facilitate administration, it
divided this kingdom into two States, separated by the Mincio—the Milanese on
its right, and the Venetian on its left. Each State was ruled by a Governor,
one having his headquarters in Milan, the other in Venice, both being in due
dependence on the Aulic Council. Thus the new kingdom was one in name only, and
its territories were, in fact, two provinces, subject to Vienna. All its
business was transacted in the distant capital; naturally there were many
delays; and this, added to Austrian ignorance of Italian affairs, counteracted
all the advantages which might have accrued to this kingdom from connexion with
an important State. The taxes were exceptionally heavy. The kingdom of Lombardy
and Venetia, of which the population formed one-eighth and the territory one-eighteenth
of the Austrian Empire, was forced to contribute one-fourth of the state taxes;
aud every year, after meeting the local expenditure, Lombardy forwarded thirty-
four, and Venetia twenty-three, millions of lire to Vienna. In 1817 Mettemich complained
to the Emperor: “There is little of the industrial spirit in the kingdom of
Lombardy and Venetia; in spite of the increased demands for consumption, Italy
receives from foreign countries the greater part of the necessities of
every-day life.” But the system of taxation was designed to repress, in the
interests of Austrian manufactures, every attempt at improvement of home
industries. Thus, even in the matter of trade, this province, destined to so
brilliant a future and so full of latent force, was treated as a conquered
territory.
To education
Austria devoted a zeal unknown in the rest of Italy. In 1846, out of 2247
townships, there were only fifty which had no elementary school for boys.
Secondary schools were established in the chief towns of each district. But
political manipulation prevented this praiseworthy and generous system from
bearing good fruit. Francis I had once said, “I require obedient subjects, not
enlightened citizens.” And Cantu tells us that, in accordance with this maxim,
the schools were content to promote mediocrity and to discourage superior
talent. Mazzini may perhaps exaggerate when, in the Apogtolato popolare, he
declares that the catechism used in the elementary schools taught that “
subjects should conduct themselves towards their sovereign as faithful slaves
towards their master.” Nevertheless, it is certain that an attempt was made to
destroy all patriotic feeling in the minds of children ; and we can still read
in the geographical text-books used at that time the dogmatic assertion that
Lombardy and Venetia form geographically a part of Austria. The university
chairs were filled from Vienna; these posts were won by competition, in which
the fittest took no part and novices and charlatans prevailed. However, in the
faculties of mathematics and of medicine there were brilliant minds, who
triumphed over scorn and neglect.
The rigour of
censorship was extreme. The chief censorial tribunal was at Vienna, on which
were dependent provincial inspectors with very limited powers. To Vienna,
therefore, the manuscripts of many original works and of all modem histories
were transmitted. The action of the censors was petty and vexatious; they even
corrected Dante; Filangieri’s Scienza della Legislazionc was prohibited and
mutilated; the tragedies of Alfieri were condemned. There were no political
newspapers, with the exception of the privileged Gazettes of Milan and of
Venice, which were composed in the government offices. The police system, which
cost five millions, was a vast and complicated network from which nothing
escaped ; on the slightest suspicion it made or unmade a man; no appointment
was ratified^ no favour was granted, without recourse to the reports of
unworthy agents or officious spies. The impediments arising from centralisation,
the pedantic arrogance, and the aggressive interference of the officials, were
galling to the citizens, who had not forgotten the promptness, the generosity,
and the Adaptability characteristic of the French rule. Hence Mettemich, in one
of his reports to the Emperor, was obliged to utter this frank warning: “ Your
Majesty is aware that the delay in the conduct of business, our supposed wish
to Germanise entirely the Italian provinces, the composition of the tribunals,
the daily nomination of Austrians for the posts of magistrate and other public
offices, are causes of constant irritation which counteracts all the advantages
accruing from our government, as compared with that of the other Italian
States.”
Fate was less
cruel to the reconstituted duchy of Parma, which
1815] Government of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany.
107
bordered upon
Lombardy. Its new ruler, the Archduchess Marie-Louise, was amiable and
well-disposed. Under her government, Parma saw her impaired finances restored,
magnificent buildings erected, a new and wider system of education established,
justice strengthened and purified. But, either from filial affection, or from
motives of self-interest, she submitted to the will of Austria. She was,
moreover, indolent and dissolute, allowing herself to be swayed by the Austrian
envoys. And although Count von Neipperg,, who was first her lover and
afterwards her husband, exercised a healthy influence on her conduct of
affairs, his successor, Baron Werklein, “ a man of small intelligence, solely devoted
to amassing wealth,” soon counteracted the good results of the first peaceful
years. Thus even the people of Parma came to suffer from the tyranny of an
intriguing police, from the insatiaole greed of public officials, and from the
ignorance and arbitrary rule of bigotry.
The
inhabitants of Modena from the beginning were less fortunate. Their ruler,
Francis IV, was a Ccsare Borgia, without the distinction, the courage, and the
will-power of that unscrupulous politician. Francis had a certain amount of
intellect combined with boundless ambition and a proud and cruel disposition,
and he defined authority as despotism. From the time of his accession he showed
himself for what he was; he grafted marked privileges to the nobility and
clergy, the traditional supports of the throne according to legitimist theory,
and he revoked all laws and ordinances subsequent to 1791. Throughout his reign
he ruthlessly plundered his subjects, spent large sums on convents, entrusted
to the Jesuits the education of the young, enrolled himself as a champion of
intolerance, persecuting the Jews whom he virtually deprived of citizenship,
and reduced the independence of the magistrates to a mockery. Acts of
liberality, which sprang from his natural love of display, for example, the
institution of the Montifarina, which sold com to the poor at a reduced price,
arrangements for the care and protection of idiots and of the deaf and dumb,
and his patronage of literature and the exact sciences, were set off by the use
which he made of the eight millions of lire annually extorted from his
subjects. A great part of this went to swell his ample private fortune; the
rest served to maintain the police, the system of spies, and the prisons. Hence
it is not surprising that so early as 1817 the Austrian Commissioner at Rovigo,
in his report to Vienna on the state of Modena, should speak of “extreme
discontent,” and should state that “a dangerously large number of the
inhabitants wished to revert to the former regime?
In Tuscany
the Government was that of benevolent despotism. In accordance with the mild
traditions of this province, the House of Lorraine endeavoured to maintain its
position by an easy-going policy, which was soothing rather than irritating,
insidious rather than oppressive. It tried to divert from dangerous channels
the strong current of intellectual force, and to employ it in schemes for
material welfare. Hence
mediocrity
reigned supreme; and Gino Capponi complained of “the profound melancholy of the
mind condemned to inaction and constraint.” The keen-eyed, sharp-tongued
people, who prided themselves on being no man’s dupes, lashed their patriarchal
despotism with light and cutting derision which defied all attempts to suppress
it. A large class of officials, ignorant, idle, arrogant, and vexatious, made
themselves felt in every act of common life. They were called the sedicini, as
if the receipt of their wages on the sixteenth of the month was their most
important function. The army was as inefficient as the bureaucracy; few in numbers,
without discipline, self-respect, or warlike spirit, the soldiers were commonly
known amongst themselves by the significant nick-name of “ mice.” Count
Vittorio Fossombroni, the Premier, was a faithful representative of the spirit
of the Government: an acute intelligence, a profound sceptic, whom studied
indolence had rendered incapable of any effort in thought or action. His sole
aim was a long, easy, and cheerful life. When his office hours were over he
laid aside all care for business, saying with a smile, “ To-morrow, to-morrow!
dinner will spoil, the State can wait.”
In Piedmont,
which had remained faithful to its ancient dynasty, it must be admitted that
the return of the exiled Princes was greeted with sincere and general
enthusiasm. On May 20, 1814, after a period of French rule, Turin saw once more
the members of its royal House. Massimo d’Azeglio, then in his sixteenth year,
was in the ranks of the civil guard drawn up to receive them. In his Ricordi he
gives the following description of this return so long and universally
desired: “ I was on guard in the Piazza Castello, and I can distinctly recall
the appearance of the King and his staff. Their dress was old-fashioned,
-almost grotesque; for they wore powder, pig-tails, and hats dating from the
time of Frederick H; but to me, and to all present, they seemed both
beautifully and correctly attired; prolonged and resounding acclamations
assured the good Prince beyond doubt of the affection and sympathy of his most
loyal subjects of Turin.” But discontent followed closely on the heels of this
short-lived joy. On entering the city, Victor Emanuel declared that he felt as
though he had been asleep for fifteen years; and he certainly began to treat
his subjects as though he had awakened from prolonged slumber. His famous edict
of May 21 ran as follows: “ Setting aside all other laws, henceforward our
subjects shall obey the Royal Constitutions of 1770, together with the statutes
made by our Royal Predecessors before June 23, 1800.” This edict ignored the
hard-won reforms of recent times and reestablished a medieval system of
privileges and disabilities, of restriction and repression. The people were
divided into “pure” and “impure," the former being those who had refused
to accept honours or posts from the French. These alone were selected for
appointments; and as they were of a low stamp, the Ministry, the law-courts,
the army, and the offices, were filled with
mediocre and
ignorant men, all inexperienced, and many of them dishonest. The latter, i.e.
the “impure,” though not subjected to actual measures of revenge—for this would
have been contrary to the benevolent nature of their sovereign—suffered, so
Cesare Balbo tells us, every moral and intellectual indignity short of
persecution and physical torture. Nevertheless, amid the disillusions of the
Restoration, the Piedmontese remained loyal to the ancient House of Savoy. But
the educated classes in particular did not hesitate to show their scornful
impatience of a Court which wavered between the influence of a retrograde
aristocracy and of a bigoted, zealous, and aggressive clergy. This should have
warned the rulers that, though they themselves might have slumbered, their
subjects had remained awake and had made progress.
But the worst
Governments in Italy were those of the Papal States and the kingdom of Naples.
Even writers who were not ill-disposed to the Holy See recognised that its
administration was more harmful in its results and more oppressive than that of
Austria. Austria had set up a despotic rule, rigid and harsh to the point of
cruelty, but regulated by fixed laws and supported by a system of finance which
was not intolerable to the prosperous inhabitants of Lombardy and Venetia. The
Church, on the other hand, had restored a Government far more despotic, and
rendered more destructive and oppressive by its internal confusion—a blind,
changeable, and capricious Government, whose rapacity worked by means of an
arbitrary system of taxes, too onerous for its needy subjects. Vannucci
declares that from 1818 to 1848 there was no justice in Rome; the judges were
corrupt, there was no personal safety. A Bishop’s tipstaff had the power to
arrest; three forces of police spied upon the subjects; there were eighty
thousand barbarous and conflicting laws in operation; and the administration
was a chaos of heterogeneous institutions. D’Azeglio’s Ricordi give a living
picture of Rome as it was then, a complex of fraud, favouritism, and cowardice.
The author blushed in the presence of his foreign friends to think that he was
an Italian. The Restoration had strengthened the Holy Office, extended the
ecclesiastical exemptions, reestablished entails, and revived the tortures of
the mallet and the horse. In short, the condition of the people had become such
as to occasion the remarkable prediction of Marquis Crosa, the Sardinian envoy,
to Count Solaro lella Margherita: “It is only reasonable to suppose that, if
the present state of things continues in Rome, some fundamental crisis will
take place; the most probable issue is that the great city will become merely
an ecclesiastical capital, retaining only the shadow of her temporal power.”
Ferdinand IV
had reascended the throne of Naples with false professions in his mouth. The
declaration of May, 1815, had proclaimed individual and civil freedom,
security of property, access for all alike to all posts, and judicial
independence. But at the same time Ferdinand, in whom failure to respect the
most solemn oaths was a fixed
habit, was
negotiating with the Emperor of Austria for a treaty of alliance which should
contain the following secret clause: “ Since the engagements for the internal
peace of Italy, on which their Majesties enter by this treaty, bind them to
preserve their respective States and subjects from reaction and from the risk
of hasty innovations, which would conduce to fresh disturbances, it is agreed
between the two High contracting parties that His Majesty the King of the Two
Sicilies, in restoring the Government of his kingdom, will not admit any change
that is not in accordance with the ancient institutions of the monarchy and
with the principles adopted by His Imperial Majesty and Royal Highness for the
internal administration of his Italian Provinces.” Thus the principles of
Austrian government were established in the kingdom of Naples. The instrument
chosen to enforce them was the Prince of Canosa, formerly agent of Queen
Caroline, chief of the Sanfedisti, a patron of brigands, and a bitter enemy of
all progress and of Liberal ideas. Even at that time some of the important
offices in the State were filled by able and cultivated men. To such, for
example, were due the new codes, which in parts show a profound skill in the
science of legislation. But what was the advantage of sound laws P The
corruption of almost all those chosen to enforce them was such as to disgust
the foreign envoys accredited to the Neapolitan Court. The camorristi and the
brigands were protected by, and in turn protected, those whose duty it was to
suppress them; the judgments of the magistrates were conditioned,! on the one
hand, by fear of the executive, and, on the other, by the lavish bribery of the
interested parties. In short, administrative life on every side presented those
signs of decadence, corruption, and baseness which led William Gladstone, a
generation later, in his crushing attack on the Bourbons of Naples, to speak of
their Government as the “negation of God.”
In face of
this determined and powerful organisation of despotism, what could the Italians
do ? What means had they to make their protests heard, what platform to
proclaim their wrongs, what tribunal to vindicate their rights ? Every lawful
way was closed to them; all public demonstrations were prohibited; conspiracy
was the only weapon of the governed against their governors. The use of this
weapon has been severely censured; some have laid stress on its intrinsic
immorality ; others have thrown doubts upon its efficacy. Already Ugo Foscolo
had declared that to restore Italy the “sects,” or secret societies, must be
destroyed. But in what other field, in what other form, could the patriots of
that day manifest the love which they bore to Italy ? The Italian conspiracies
and insurrections are to be considered, not as isolated events, but as
incidents in a general movement. Viewed in this light, as confused and obscure
embodiments of the ideals which later took a more legitimate and definite form,
as explosions of indignation leading to reprisals, which again awakened noble
wrath and fresh
magnanimous
revolts, it is not possible to deny their value; they must be regarded as an
indispensable preliminary of the painful labour of a nation’s redemption.
The Italians
have ever been, and perhaps are still, a people singularly prone to faction.
The mystery and the surprises of conspiracy attract their fervid imagination
and satisfy their mute rebellious instinct, resulting from long years of
servitude which, even at the present day, renders all exercise of authority
difficult among a people that is by nature kindly, industrious, and generous.
Towards the close of the Napoleonic era, when the decline of the military glory
which had dazzled the multitude revived the desire and the hope for liberty,
numerous secret societies were already scattered in different parts of the
Peninsula. Thus, even before the fall of Napoleon, in Bologna the Raggi, in
Mantua the Centri, the Anti-Eugeniani in Milan, the Massoneria in Upper Italy,
the Carbonari in Naples, were developing their subterraneous and intricate
existence. These societies fostered diverse aspirations, but all were united in
opposition to the constituted authorities dependent on the French. Later, when
by the decrees of the Congress of Vienna the Italians had been excluded from
all prospects of free government, these societies multiplied, and their
activity became more intense and more audacious. By reason of their essential
secrecy their history is obscure, if not impenetrable; and it is impossible to
give a correct account of their number, their acts, and their power. We find trustworthy
information concerning them in the important collection of the Secret Papers of
the Austrian Police, taken from the Venetian archives, and published by Daniel
Manin. From these we learn that national independence was the common aim of all
these societies; but it is also clear that their action was not coordinated,
and that they had no clear or identical vision of the future beyond the
attainment of this end. From the same papers it is clear that the “sects”
possessed numerous adherents; for instance, from the report of a Bourbon
general we learn that, in the city of Lecce alone, the Adelfi and similar
societies could reckon forty thousand members, the majority of whom were armed.
The most
widely-spread and influential was that of the Carboneria, which had its
headquarters in the kingdom of Naples. Colletta defines it as “a vast society
of landowners, who desired peace and improved conditions.” It was already
flourishing in the time of King Joachim, who was forced to take measures
against it; but after the restoration of the Bourbons it extended its action
and increased its power. Many of the prosperous middle-class belonged to it;
but the majority of its members were soldiers who hoped for advancement,
provincials, lawyers in search of employment, and finally, those who, by reason
of their political views or of the positions which they had occupied during the
French regime, were opposed to or mistrusted the Government of the
112
[l820
Restoration.
At Naples its leaders were waiting till an accident should set in motion the
accumulated force of silent indignation and suppressed discontent. The signal
was given in July, 1820, when men’s minds had been unusually stirred by means
of the success of the Spanish Revolution.
On July 2,
two sub-lieutenants, Morelli and Salvati, followed by a force of 127 horsemen,
left their quarters at Nola and set out for Avellino crying, “Long live God,
the King, and the Constitution,” and flying the tricolour banner of the
Carbonari, black, red, and blue. At Avellino they were joined by others, and,
inducing the Governor to join them, they started for the capital. They were few
in number; it was but a small pronurwiamiento on the part of the army and of
the revolutionary societies, which could easily have been suppressed by the
forces controlled by the Government. But the Ministers were weak and undecided;
and the Bourbon King, like most of the later representatives of his House in
Naples, was a coward. When the news reached him, he was in the Bay, having embarked
on a luxurious yacht to meet his son, the Duke of Calabria, who was coming from
Sicily. On hearing the unexpected news, he was seized with an agony of terror,
declared that he would fly to Sicily, or remain at sea, and was with difficulty
persuaded to land. Meanwhile, profiting by the delay caused by the timidity and
uncertainty of the authorities, the band of rebels increased in number and
opened communications with other centres of rebellion. In the night of July 4-5
the Carbonaro general, Guglielmo Pepe, knowing that he was suspected, escaped
from Naples, stirred up the people to riots, and placed himself at the head of
the rebels. The King summoned his Ministers and asked their advice.
Terror-stricken and incapable, they all thought it best to yield and appear to
support a movement which they were not in a position to check. Very early on
the morning of the 6th, five Carbonari arrived at Court, and, in the name of
the people, whom they represented as being all in arms, imposed upon their
sovereign a Constitution, the Spanish Constitution of 1812 (described in a
later chapter), which was popular and ready to hand. The Duke of Ascoli
intimated the King’s assent; and when the good people of Naples rose from their
beds they learnt that their Government was changed, that constitutional rule
had been substituted for absolutism. Many were under the delusion that this was
the beginning of a new era; and the patriotic poet, Gabriele Rossetti,
intoxicated with joy, saluted the dawn of Parthenopean liberty with a hymn
which soon was on the lips of all: “ Thou art fair with the stars in thy locks,
sparkling like living sapphires, and sweet is thy breath, thou crimson herald
of the dawn. From the neighbouring height with a smile of rapturous longing
thou dost proclaim that in the balmy garden of Italy servitude is at an end.”
But, in their
dreams of hope fulfilled, these patriots forgot the
1820]
113
jealous
vigilance of Austria and the innate treacbeiy of Ferdinand. From the outset,
the new order was weakened and discredited by internal agitation, by the
domination of the victorious Carboneria, by the childish extravagance of the
Liberals, who were devoid of experience and intoxicated with rhetoric.
Nevertheless, it is possible that the Constitution would have stood firm and
gained in strength if the skill and power of Austria, that watchful sentinel,
had not at once been employed for its destruction. So early as July 25 Prince
Metternich had sent a circular to the German Courts to inform them that Austria
could not tolerate the Revolution of Naples, and that, if need arose, she would
send an army to suppress it. Before attempting this intervention she needed the
consent of the other Great Powers; at the Conference of Troppau Metternich set himself
to obtain a free hand for Austria, that she might be at liberty to stifle
throughout the Peninsula such ideas and movements as might result in the
triumph of independence. As for Ferdinand, who, shortly before, at the opening
of Parliament, together with the princes, had sworn on the Gospels to respect
the Constitution, he had lost no time in secretly informing the sovereigns
assembled at Troppau of his intention “to leave his kingdom and to resume
absolute power with the help of the Austrian army.” Accordingly, in the
following November, he received an invitation to Laibach to discuss in Congress
the political affairs of his kingdom. The Parliament was unwilling to allow him
to go; but he addressed to the Chamber an elaborate epistle, a signal monument
of falsehood and treachery, declaring that he wished to go to Laibach solely “
in order to act as peacemaker for the common good, and to obtain the sanction
of the Powers for the newly-acqtrced liberties”; and he added, with formal
solemnity, “ I declare to you, and to my nation, that I will do everything to
leave my people in the possession of a wise and free Constitution.” His
Parliament, deceived by this declaration, permitted him to cross the borders.
He proceeded to Laibach and denounced the Constitution to those who dreaded the
dissemination of Liberal ideas as much as, or more than, himself. It was not
difficult to come to an understanding. The Congress, which maintained that it
was its right and its duty to concern itself with the peace of Europe, and that
the condition of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was dangerous for the Powers,
agreed that an Austrian army should be sent to restore order in Naples.
The
Neapolitan Parliament did not hesitate to declare war. General Pepe was eager
for it; the best of Ferdinand’s subjects desired it, believing, with patriotic
credulity, that their King had been constrained by the Powers at Laibach; the
Carbonari clamoured for it; and war was proclaimed—not by a valorous
resolution of the people, nor, as Colletta says, from a desire for glory, but
in lightness of heart. Pepe placed himself iat the head of the army, which was
not inferior in numbers to
114 Neapolitan Revolution crushed-Rising in
Piedmont. [1820-1
that of
Austria; and the troops met on March 7,1821, near Rieti. The untrained,
undisciplined soldiers had no confidence in their own power to resist the shock
of the enemy, and broke before the battle had well begun. This defeat at a blow
changed the position of affairs. Humble and inglorious submission followed in
all parts; in the Parliament, which had but yesterday shown itself so proud and
inflexible, only twenty-six deputies had the courage to vote for a protest
drawn up in emphatic and haughty terms by Giuseppe Poerio. On March 23 the
Austrian army entered Naples to restore absolute government; shortly afterwards
Ferdinand returned, having broken his journey at Florence to place, in
expiation of his treachery, a votive lamp in the Church of fie Annunciation.
Such was the inglorious end of the Neapolitan Revolution. But the flame of
patriotism, once kindled, was not yet extinguished, whatever might be the
illusions of the easy victors of the day. And these worked with blind obstinacy
to keep it alight by inaugurating a period of violence, persecution, and
cruelty;
Whilst,
between the treacherous intrigues of the Bourbons on the one hand and the
imprudence of the rebels on the other, the breath of liberty, which had passed
over the fair Parthenopean soil, was dying away, there broke out a second
revolution in the extreme north of Italy, in Piedmont. Even here the Carbonari
had many adherents, especially in the ranks of the army. Moreover, other secret
societies had sprung up, drawing their recruits from among the better classes
of the population. All these societies, whether their programme was more or
less audacious, united in one common aim expressed in the cry for the expulsion
of the Austrians from Italy and for a Constitution. The good and gentle
disposition of Victor Emanuel had led people to hope that when the movement was
declared he would end by joining it, especially as it was controlled by men of
rank and birth in whom he could trust. Such were Count Carlo di San Marzano,
his aide-de-camp, Giacinto di Collegno, commander of the artillery, Guglielmo
Moffa di Lisio, Colonel Regis, the Prince della Cistema, Santorre di Santarosa,
the Marquis of Prie, and others, who were in favour at Court or held important
posts in the Government. In this circle of leaders and amongst all those eager
for change the news of the Neapolitan Revolution produced the utmost
excitement. On July 29, 1820, Silvano Costa di Beauregard wrote: “ We stand on
the brink of a precipice; innumerable placards demand a Constitution similar to
that of the Spanish Cortes. The King is assailed by anonymous memorials
demanding a Constitution.
Words fail to describe the universal
conditions of feverish
excitement.
The events in Naples have completely turned our heads.” The conspirators had
planned a rising for the moment when the Austrian army should be occupied with
the Neapolitan revolutionaries. No serious preparations were made, but there
was abundant enthusiasm. Much was hoped from Prince Carlo Alberto di Carignano,
the heir-
apparent to
the throne, whom the conspirators believed to be their leader, and whose
action, in their opinion, would carry the army with him, and with the army the
King.
Concerning
this Prince, who, although at the time he did not respond to the prayers of the
revolutionists, afterwards sacrificed himself in order to keep faith with them,
there has raged the fiercest controversy. On the one hand, his behaviour in
this conjuncture was the occasion for charges, which found a popular echo in
Berchet’s poem, “ Carignano, thy name is held accursed by every nation”; on the
other, it found supporters and admirers, who even went the length of asserting
“ that his action in 1821 was the boldest and most courageous of all his
political life.” His was a strange character, full of seeming contradictions,
which led Carducci, in a celebrated poem, to call him “ the Italian Hamlet.”
But the contradictions were only apparent. It was his conduct in 1821 and 1833
that provided his enemies with an opportunity of attacking the memory of one
who bestowed on Italy that generous gift, the Statuto. It is said that in 1821
he betrayed his friends, after promising to help them in the movement; that in
1833 he persecuted the Liberals, condemning some to exile and others to death.
But, after many years of discussion, the exact nature of his promise still
remains in doubt; we do not know whether it was a desire which the revolutionaries
interpreted as an intention or an intention which the force of circumstances
transformed into an unsatisfied desire.
It is certain
that, by education, inclination, friendship, and habits of thought, he was in
sympathy with the ideals of Balbo, San Marzano, and Collegno; but it is also
certain that to their first advances he made the following unequivocal reply,
“My conduct will always be determined by my duty and my loyalty to the person
of the King.” It was this conception of his duty towards his sovereign and the
traditions of his House, which deterred him from taking too active a share in
the development of the rising; and his prudence, which some called weakness,
served him in good stead at this juncture, seeing that the movement, which had
originated in a desire for reform, had exceeded the limits intended by those
who had been its chief promoters, and that it would have involved him in a
rebellious faction, and cut short a career advantageous to his country.
With regard
to his severity towards the rebels in 1833, it was excessive and therefore
reprehensible; but his critics should remember that this was at the beginning
of his reign, when he was, on the one hand, exposed to the suspicions of
Austria, who would assuredly have removed any Italian prince who showed Liberal
tendencies, and on the other, firmly convinced that these revolutionary
outbreaks would end by weakening the prestige of a dynasty and of an army which
he foresaw would he called to accomplish a task of national importance. It is
indisputable that, throughout his life, he was ruled by one clear
and dominant
passion, namely, hatred of Austria; and this feeling, given, the conditions of
Italy, was patriotic, and justifiable. His political career began and ended
with the expression of this sentiment; —first, when, as a young boy on reading
the famous proclamation of Schwarzenberg he exclaimed, “ To avenge this shame
we must drive the Austrians from Italy ”; and, ■ lastly, after Novara
(1849), on his way to voluntary exile, when “pale with the pallor of death and
of hope,” at Nice he declared to ■ the son of Santorre di Santarosa, “
If, at any time, at any place, a constituted Government should raise a force
against Austria, the Austrians may be sure of finding me, a simple soldier, in
the ranks of her enemies.” This hatred of Austria, and the conviction that, to
be efficacious, it must be shown in valorous and warlike action, formed the
sole article of his faith, and the programme of his ‘career as a king: a faith
which was only to end in the gloomy silence of Oporto with his life; a
programme which he bequeathed in the agony of defeat, unfulfilled but not
abandoned, to the more fortuuate hands of his young son.
The
insurrection in Piedmont advanced up to a certain point with the cry of “Long
live the King.” On March 10, 1821, before the news of the defeat of Rieti,
which had occurred on the 7th, the garrison of Alessandria hoisted the
tricolour flag, and demanded the Spanish Constitution and war against Austria,
who held the King in her bondage. The conflagration quickly spread; on the 12th
the garrison of Turin followed the example of Alessandria. The authorities,
undecided and timorous, raised no opposition; nor did Victor Emanuel follow the
advice of those few who counselled him to place himself at the head of the
loyal troops and to quell the bold attempt with one decisive blow. On the one
hand, he was unwilling to break the promises which he had made to Austria,
whose decision to maintain absolutism in Italy had been recently reported to
him by San Marzano on his return from Laibach; on the other, he could not bring
himself to shed the blood of his Subjects in fratricidal warfare. He therefore
decided to abdicate in favour of his brother, Carlo Felice; and, since the
latter happened to be then at Modena, he entrusted the Regency to the Prince of
Carignano, who, surrounded by rebels who demanded a Constitution, struggled
hard and long, but finally yielded. He writes: “I told them that it was not in
my power to make any change in the fundamental laws of the State, which must
await the decrees of the new King; that anything I might do would be null and
void; but that, in order to prevent a massacre and the disorders with which we
were threatened, I would allow them to proclaim the Spanish Constitution,
pending the command of their sovereign.” So it came to pass; and the
announcement of this concession was proclaimed from the balcony of the royal
palace to the assembled crowd. That night the inhabitants of Turin seemed mad
with joy. But their exultation did
Failure of the rebellion in Piedmont.
Ill
not last;
for, within five days, a decree of Carlo Felice arrived from Modena whereby he
annulled the steps taken without his consent, and commanded Carlo Alberto to
leave Turin immediately. The latter, obliged to pursue one of two courses, to
desert the insurgents, or to declare himself a rebel against the King, the head
of his House, chose the former, and obeyed. His unexpected departure threw
confusion among the rebels, despite the heroic and judicious firmness displayed
by Santarosa: and the party of absolutism, encouraged by the approval of its
sovereign, gained vigour and courage. The hattlefield of Novara saw the
fratricidal strife which Victor Emanuel had feared; soldiers of Piedmont under
General de La Tour attacked other soldiers of Piedmont commanded by Colonel
Regis; the former, with the assistance of a body of Austrian troops which had
crossed the Ticino, had no difficulty in compelling the latter to retreat.
Thus faded
the vision of liberty, which had passed, like the phantom of a dream, over the
lands of Piedmont. The greater part of the fugitives hastened to Genoa, and
sought safety at sea, hoping to reach Spain, where the Revolution was still
successful. There the young Mazzini saw them, “poverty-stricken, of warlike
aspect, their faces lined with profound and poignant grief.” One of them went:
up to the mother of the future conspirator, and held out his hand, with the
words, “ For the exiles of Italy! ” The lady, with streaming eyes, pressed some
money into his palm. “For the first time on that day,” writes Mazzini, “ there
was vaguely presented to my mind, I will not say the thought of country and of liberty,
but the thought that it was- possible, and therefore a duty, to fight for the
freedom of one’s country.”
In the
remaining districts of Italy, during the years 1820 and 1821, although there
were no actual revolutionary outbreaks, there were frequent conspiracies which
alarmed the Governments. Especially in the provinces of Lombardy and Venetia
the police found many traces of conspiracy; and these untoward discoveries,
which they purposely exaggerated, produced fresh tortures and fresh victims.
Among the latter the most distinguished was Count Federico Confalonieri. There
is no doubt that he was at the head of the Liberals in Lombardy, and that he
was in correspondence with the party of action in Piedmont; but, in spite of
the acute and painstaking researches of d’Ancona, we do not know to what extent
he was actually committed, or how far he had carried the organisation of the
Liberals. It is certain that his condemnation, together with that of others,
was the result of a deliberate intention to provide criminals, rather than the
legitimate isstie of a well-founded accusation. Confalonieri was not arrested
until December 18, 1821, when the revolution in Piedmont had subsided, and the
calm of terror was everywhere restored. He had no keen sense of guilt towards
Austria, and watched with indifference the threatening clouds of suspicion as
they gathered around him. On the evening before
his arrest,
the wife of General Bubna, who was on intimate terms with the Countess, went to
his house, with the intention of conveying him in her own carriage to the
frontier. And, a few days before, General Bubna himself, on meeting him in
Milan, had said significantly, “My dear Count, I dreamt that you were in
Switzerland.” But both hint and invitation were unheeded by him, for he was
unwilling to leave his beloved wife, and perhaps imagined that he would have no
difficulty in proving his innocence. His trial consisted in a prolonged,
subtle, and laborious attempt on the part of the public prosecutor, Salvotti,
to build up the specious proof of a crime of high treason. Prince Mettemich
encouraged the legal ardour of his Milanese officials with the following words:
“ It is of the utmost importance that this leader of the Liberal party should
never at any time reappear on the scenes as a victim of arbitrary power.” And,
in obedience to those general instructions, false charges were invented,
suspicions were treated as proofs, and the silence of pretended accomplices was
regarded as hostile evidence. In short, everything was done to give an
appearance of justice to the death sentence of Confalonieri. The sequel to this
trial was heartrending.
His wife, the
generous and beautiful Teresa Casati, addressed a petition to the Emperor; she
herself, her brother, and her father-in-law, proceeded to Vienna in order to
sue for mercy; and, undaunted by’the first refusal, with tears, prayers, and,
above all, with the sympathetic help of Maria Teresa, she obtained a
commutation of the sentence of capital punishment in favour of imprisonment for
life.
The Count was
to be sent to Spielberg. But, on his way thither, he was to have one more
experience of the perfidious methods and the uneasy suspicions of Austria.
Whilst passing through Vienna on his melancholy journey to the fateful castle,
he noticed a sudden change in the cruel treatment to which he had hitherto been
subjected. Every consideration was shown him; he enjoyed comforts which were
almost luxuries, and which formed a striking contrast to the fetters which he
had worn until the previous day. These were the blandishments of the astute
rulers of Austria, who hoped by these means to obtain from him revelations, and
above all to learn what had passed between the conspirators in Lombardy and
Carlo Alberto. One evening during his sojourn in this city the door of his
chamber was thrown open and there appeared the figure of Prince Mettemich, whom
he had known in Paris at the time of the wedding of Marie- Ciouise. The wily
Minister made use of all his arts, drawing dazzling pictures of freedom and advancement
in order to induce the prisoner to speak. But the latter held firm, and with
high-bred courtesy evaded the attacks of his skilled antagonist. After the
conversation had lasted for some time the two parted with the formal politeness
of men of the world, the one to go to a ball at which he was expected, the
other to a dungeon, from which he foresaw that he would never be released.
Confalonieri
was imprisoned in the grim Moravian castle together with Gaetano Castillia,
Giorgio Pallavicino, Pietro Borsieri, and others convicted of the same offence.
The
repressive measures adopted by the Governments subsequent to the risings of
1820 and 1821, although terribly severe in some districts, as, for instance, in
the Milanese which had a melancholy preeminence, nevertheless failed to
extinguish the fires of rebellion which smouldered beneath the peaceful and
picturesque aspect of the Peninsula; indeed, in many cases they fanned and fed
them. Here and there they were manifested in the form of risings which awakened
the fears of the police, who avenged themselves by excessive and unjustifiable
severity. In 1828, for instance, the inhabitants of Cilento in the province of
Salerno, weary of the oppression of Ferdinand’s successor, the dissolute and
bigoted Francis I, took up arms and broke into rebellion. Colonel Guglielmo del
Carretto was sent by the King to repress the rising. As a reward for the
unexampled cruelty of which he made a parade, carrying from village to village
in iron cages the heads of his victims, he received from his grateful sovereign
the title of Marquis and a generous pension.
The French
Revolution of 1830 naturally added fuel to the flames of Italian patriotism.
The false hope was widely entertained that Paris would give active support to
the efforts of the Liberals; this hope had been specially encouraged by General
Pepe, who, by skilful persuasion, had obtained from General Lafayette the
promise of arms and money. The illusion had greater hold on Central Italy,
where it was not long in producing tangible effects. On it were based the rash
hopes of Ciro Menotti, a tradesman of Modena, a high-minded man with generous
ideas. Distrustful of popular risings with republican aims, he had deemed it
opportune to profit by the ambitions of Duke Francis IV, who coveted an
extension of his narrow dominions. Menotti entered into communication with the
Duke, and found no difficulty in persuading him that the French Revolution,
renewing the age of unrest in Italy, would give him the opportunity of
extending his principality and adding to his power. Thus the Duke joined the
band of conspirators; but the confident attitude of Austria, and the timid and
uncertain policy of the new Government of Louis-Philippe, soon convinced him of
the vanity of his dreams and of the aims of Menotti’s adherents. Fearful of
having compromised himself with the Cabinet at Vienna, to give a signal proof
of his loyalty as an Austrian Archduke he became the accuser and violent
persecutor of the very party to which he had given such extensive pledges. When
the conspirators assembled at the house of Menotti in order to receive their
final orders, a regiment of ducal troops surrounded the house, and practically
destroyed it, making prisoners of the conspirators, most of whom had been
wounded in the fray. The next morning Francis IV wrote to the Governor of
Reggio: “ Last night it was discovered that a terrible plot had been made to
overthrow me,
The
conspirators are in my hands. Send the executioner.” The executioner was
immediately despatched; but his arrival at Modena coincided with the news that
a revolution had broken out in the neighbouring Bologna. The Duke,
terror-stricken and uncertain of what the future would bring forth, took refuge
in the fortress of Mantua, dragging at his heels the unfortunate Menotti, a
prisoner in fetters, whose execution was thus deferred for a few days.
The
revolutionists in Bologna had also been relying on help from France; they
invoked also the principle of non-intervention, proclaimed by the new French
Government of July, 1830. At the very time of this outbreak Marshal Sebastiani,
Foreign Minister of Louis-Philippe, made this public declaration: “The Holy
Alliance rested upon the principle of intervention, which destroyed the
independence of all the minor States. The contrary principle, which we have
approved, and which we shall uphold, assures universal liberty and
independence.” Relying on this support, the revolutionary movement, which had
begun at Bologna, soon spread to all Romagna, Emilia, the Marches, and part of
Umbria. The temporal power of the Pope was tottering; Francis fled from Modena,
and Marie-Louise from Parma, and the tricolour waved triumphant from the lower
Po to the upper Tiber. But Prince Metternich did not hesitate to come forward
again as arbiter of the destiny of Europe, and to frustrate the designs of
Louis- Philippe’s Ministers. In a peremptory manner he sent instructions to the
Austrian ambassador in Paris: “We beg that the French Government will not
embarrass the protective action which we may be commissioned from the highest
quarters to take.” At the same time he commanded the Austrian troops to invade
the provinces of Central Italy. The parliamentary eloquence of General
Sebastiani was exchanged for the more prudent diplomacy of Casimir Perier, who,
wishful to prevent war, sought for a path of dignified retreat: and in less
than two months there remained no trace of the rising which had been so
unexpected, and, withal, so imposing in appearance.
This outbreak
and all preceding risings had failed because they originated with purely local
organisations. As a rule, the aim of the conspirators and the means whereby
they sought to attain it, were limited to the boundaries of a province or of a
tract of land corresponding to the ancient historical divisions of the
Peninsula. That the efforts of the Piedmontese might assist the inhabitants of
Calabria, that the causes of discontent, and hence of revolt, were common to
all, that the multitudes of the north should combine with those of the south in
a war of liberation was a conception which had not yet penetrated to the
masses, though it had occurred to a few individuals. In 1821 the risings in
Naples and in Piedmont had advanced, as it were, on i tarallel lines, without
joining hands; and, if the Piedmontese interested themselves in the struggle
between Austria and Naples, it was only to
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121
take
advantage of it as weakening their own adversary. General Pepe, who had
foreseen the advantage of a simultaneous outbreak, says in his memoirs with
regard to these risings, “ If the Piedmontese had rebelled on the first of
March, instead of on the tenth, or if they had informed me of their plans,
affairs in Italy would have taken a more fortunate turn than would be generally
believed.” The sense of brotherhood was absent or feeble; and the want of this
unity of heart and will carried with it the want of unity in action, and
prevented the fusion of those ibrces which were scattered, tense and eager,
throughout the country. A power was needed capable of drawing together all the
threads of the revolutionary organisation, and of inducing all conspirators,
high and low, to transform themselves into representatives of the sacred rights
of nationality. This power was found in Giuseppe Mazzini.
His political
ideals had grown to maturity during the months of his imprisonment on suspicion
as a Carbonaro (1830). He had meditated deeply, and had seen the defects of the
Italian conspiracies and insurrections; the people must first be educated,
then made to feel the indignity of oppression, drawn to a unanimous rebellion,
and taught to think not only of their own district but of the whole of Italy as
of their native country. According to him no real obstacles existed “ for
twenty-six million men, who wished to rise and fight for their country.” On his
release from prison in 1831 the Sardinian Government offered him the choice
between exile and police supervision; and he took up his headquarters in
Marseilles. There he founded “ Young Italy,” the society which was to be the
instrument of the realisation of his ideas. He .ailed it by this name because
his appeal was specially addressed to youth. “ Place youth at the head of the
insurgent multitude,” he said, “ you know not the secret of the power hidden in
these youthful hearts, nor the magic influence exercised on the masses by the
voice of youth. You will find among the young a host of apostles of the new
religion.” A man of burning faith, of blameless life, creative in thought,
heedless of the stumbling-blocks of practice, a writer of rich and vigorous
prose, full of movement and fire, he was bom to win proselytes; and before long
enthusiastic followers ranged themselves around the banner, on one side of
which he had inscribed the words, “Liberty, Equality, and Humanity,” and on the
other, “ Unity and Independence”; magic words which summed up the programme of
the future patriotic mission of the Italians. For two years the band was
limited in number. It was a heroic enterprise; a few young men, with no aid of
family or wealth, and,, excepting their leader, of no great ability, proposed
to mould the destinies of their country and prepared for war against a great
military Power. But in their veins was the feverish ardour which Mazzini had inspired.
With untiring industry they laboured for years; they organised centres of
“Young Italy” wherever an opportunity presented itself, spreading wide the net
of their conspiracy; The
opinions of
the society were published and disseminated by means of a newspaper which
appeared at long and irregular intervals. In this Mazzini and his comrades
advised the young men of Italy to lay aside their trivial writings and love
poems, and, instead, to devote their literary skill to advancing the good of
the people by sacrifices of every kind; they were urged to travel, to bear from
land to land and from village to village the torch of liberty, to expound its
advantages to the people, to establish and consecrate its cult. They were told
to “ climb the mountains and share the humble food of the labourer; to visit
the workshops and the artisans, hitherto neglected; to speak to them of their
rights, of their memories of the past, of their past glories, of their former
commerce; to recount to them the endless oppression of which they were
ignorant, because no one took it on himself to reveal it.” And this appeal
found a ready response. At the beginning of 1833, owing to the efforts of
Mazzini, the society reckoned 60,000 members.
But far more
efficacious than the immediate outcome of the organised conspiracy were the
permanent results of his patient and burning exhortations, which were destined
for some time to work secretly in men’s hearts, rather than in action on the
battle-field. The unfortunate issue of the pronunciarniento of the Piedmont
militia in 1833, and the still more unfortunate result of the invasion of
Savoy, which was attempted in the following year by a handful of fanatics,
under the leadership of the inexperienced Ramotino, proved that the time was
not yet ripe for a serious outbreak, and that common-sense was not the most
conspicuous virtue of the followers of Mazzini. But the fiery words of the
apostle—who seemed to draw fresh life, fresh courage, from defeat, and,
undismayed by the horrors of torture and imprisonment, declared that “ideas
grow quickly when watered with the blood of martyrs ”—illuminating the civic
consciousness of Italy, fulfilled their educative function and produced more
effect than a victory or than the fall of a tyrant. This was shown in 1844 by
the glorious and touching episode of the two Bandiera brothers, Attilio and
Emilio. They were officers in Venice, sons of an Austrian admiral who had
played a most important part in suppressing the revolt in Romagna. Filled with
enthusiasm by the writings of Mazzini, they resolved to devote their lives to
the liberation of their own country. They had won over to their designs
Domenico Moro, another Venetian officer of the navy; and these three, leaving
the Austrian ships which they commanded, went to Corfu, there to wait until
the news of some event in the Peninsula should call them to action. There broke
out in Calabria one of those trifling insurrections which were then of such
frequent occurrence in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and which were
invariably repressed without delay. A false or exaggerated account caused the
Bandiera to attach more than due importance to the event, and they decided to
hasten to the assistance of the rebels. They were
joined by a
few other patriots, and the little band of nineteen landed at Cotrone and set
out for Cosenza. But, betrayed by a companion, they were quickly surrounded by
Bourbon troops, and after a short struggle all were captured. Nine of them,
including the brothers Bandiera, suffered the extreme penalty, and died
bravely, crying, as they fell beneath the bullets of King Ferdinand’s soldiers,
“Long live Italy." Such heroism was not exceptional at a time when heroism
came naturally. But it was the first time that a band of Venetian youths had chosen
for the field of their patriotic exertions a remote district in the south of
Italy; this was the first solemn manifestation of the brotherhood which linked
all the peoples scattered from the rugged Alps to the sun-bathed shores of the
blue Ionian Sea. Among the little band which fell crashed by the odious tyranny
of the Bourbons in the valley of the Rovito, there were natives of Perugia, of
Romagna, of Frosinone, and of Modena; and the diversity of the districts to
which the victims belonged was eloquent proof that one programme and one banner
had begun to concentrate the aspirations of the Italians, hitherto disunited.
Meanwhile,
the sympathies of the Liberals were awakening in favour of Carlo Alberto, the
sovereign who had once so cruelly disappointed them, and who in 1831 had
succeeded Carlo Felice on the throne. The harsh and almost ferocious reaction
of 1833, occasioned by a conspiracy in the army of Piedmont, had not succeeded
in destroying their affection for him; and the reforms which he had afterwards
effected in his States had sufficed to revive it, especially amongst the more
moderate of his subjects. The promulgation of the Civil Code, which included
many of the principles originated by the French Revolution; that of the Penal
Code, which acknowledged the equality of all citizens before the law; the wise
and lenient financial administration; the erection of suitable buildings for
the service of the State, prisons, lunatic asylums, and hospitals; the
foundation of important institutions of different kinds, such as the Savings
Bank, the Commission of National History, and the Department of
Statistics—indicated a movement towards more notable and radical changes. Men
understood that the King must proceed with caution, that, as he himself
asserted, he constantly stood “between the daggers of the Carbonari and the
poisoned chocolate of the Jesuits.” But, on the other hand, there was ground
for hope in one who could write thus to Count Giuseppe Ricci: “ Ah, Ricci, the
form of Governments is not eternal, we shall march with the times.” He was
hampered by religious scruples and by the influence of the priests; but all
understood that, if these ties could have been severed, or even relaxed, he
would have made more generous concessions and would have wielded an avenging
sword against the prolonged and shameful oppression of Austria. “ At present,”
he exclaimed, “ I should be unwilling to commit any action contrary to the
precepts of our holy religion, but I feel assured that to my dying day the
words ‘ Patriotism ’
and ‘Freedom
from Foreign Rule’ will cause my heart to throb.” Hence the Church must herself
make smooth the way for the bold thoughts which seethed within his breast; the
Church must first seem to approve the enterprise which attracted him. This was
shortly to come to pass through Cardinal Giovanni Mastai Ferretti, who became
Pope on June 16, 1846, with the title of Pius IX. 1
During this
period of thirty years, literature, which joined hands with politics, played an
important part in the movement of preparation. On the fall of the Italian
kingdom the Romantic School established itself; it stood forth as a protest
against the old order, against the tyranny of tradition, as a symbol of the
sympathy between letters and the spirit of modern society. Hence we see that,
in the struggle between the Romantics and: the Classicists, which was at its
height in the early days of Austrian rule, the Liberals sided with the
Romantics and the reactionaries with the Classicists. The Romantics came to
regard literature as a weapon against despotism and a means of spreading
patriotic ideas. First and foremost among the organs of this new intellectual
tendency was the Conciliators, a review which took up the broken course of the
Caffe, and which succeeded:in living to one hundred and eighteen numbers,
despite the. suspicion, the vigilance, and the hostility of the police. The
names of its contributors are significant of its spirit; among them there were
Pellico, Eerchet, Romagnosi, Porro, and Confalonieri, all of whom risked life
and fortune in the conspiracies and rebellions of that time. Between the lines
of the literary criticisms* of the articles on art, or of the discussions on
political economy, we can decipher the visions, the wishes, the impulses of
citizens who dreamed of a free and peaceful Italy; and the dreams had a fervour
which was evident through their disguise, and aroused the suspicions of the
Government. The word romantic, says Pellico, was acknowledged to be synonymous
with Liberal, and no man dared call himself a classicist unless he were an
extremist or a spy.
The dramatic
output, which at that time was unusually abundant, partook on the whole of the
romantic and patriotic character. The taste of. that generation revealed itself
in the foreign masterpieces chosen for translation; Ferrario’s rendering of
Schiller’s Conspiracy of Fiesco and William Tell kindled afresh the desire for
independence and the hatred of despotic rule. In original drama Pellico showed
that under the veil of fiction and through, the story pf the past it was
possible to touch the wounds of the present and to illustrate the hopes of the
future. And it is probable that the moving legend of Paolo and Francesca
produced less effect on the public than the impetuous words of the former in
Act I, and his cry:
For thee, for
thee, mother of valiant sons, my Italy,
If hatred
rise to wrong thee, I will draw my sword.
Nor was
Manzoni forgetful of the condition of his country whilst composing the Adelchi
and the Conte di Carmagnola. In the latter the evils of internal strife and the
eagerness of foreigners to profit by it are set forth in the celebrated chorus
of the battle of Maclodio; and its noble flow of rebukes and exhortations,
which were inspired by the political sentiments of the author, secured for
these verses the popularity of a patriotic hymn.
In the
Adelchi the allusions to the present situation were so unmistakable that the
Censor exercised without mercy in several passages his right of suppression,
writing in the margin of the manuscript, “ For what does Signor Manzoni take
us? Does he think that we cannot perceive his meauing?” But Benedetti and
Niccolini advanced still more boldly on the same roads; the Cola di Rienzo of
the former, written between 1820 and 1821, aroused a real enthusiasm; the love
of a Colonna for the daughter of Cola was only an episode in the play; the real
subject of the tragedy was political revolt; and the inspiration of the poet
was naturally Liberal and anti-Papal in character. Hence, by an anachronism
which was not wholly illogical, and which often tended to enhance the effect,
the play is representative of the feeling of revolutionary Italy. Niccolini, a
more subtle artist, attacked the crimes and outrages of Austrian rule under a
French mask in Giovanni da Procida; and in Antonio Foscar'mi he revealed his
passion for liberty, which afterwards burst forth audaciously in Arnaldo da
Brescia, wherein he set forth how the Emperor and the Pope, acting together,
had been the cause in the past and in the present of the servitude of Italy.
Even
historical works were pervaded by this spirit of opposition to the Governments
which had been set up after the Napoleonic era. For instance Cantu, although
instructor in a Royal-Imperial College, was so free in the descriptions and the
judgments of his History of Como that the censors of Milan and of Como were
obliged to alter or suppress part of the work. He was followed by Colletta,
who, in his History of the Kingdom of Naples, openly denounced the
disappointments and betrayals of the Revolution of 1820. This work is an
indictment of the Bourbon Ferdinand I, the production of a merciless
inquisitor, who spares no pains to expose before the public all the wrongs
committed by this King and his Government. The book is in itself a historical
event, because its publication proved that, although some Italians might preach
resignation to the will of God, and submission to such princes as He may send,
yet there were others who dared to make a solemn protest, and demonstrate that
such misfortunes were not caused by Providence, but rather by the weakness of
the many, and the wickedness of a few.
Throughout
the peninsula there was circulated a literature of revolt, the sole aim of
which was to inspire men with patriotic feeling and to instigate
rebellion—lyric poems, which were really hymns of war;
stories,
which incited men to deeds of vengeance; reviews and journals which were in
fact the organs of the revolutionary spirit.
Among the
most noteworthy of such lyrical poems are the Conti Italici of Amedeo Ravina,
which, circulated in manuscript form in 1821, entailed a sentence of death for
the author, though he contrived by fortunate chances to escape the penalty.
With civic enthusiasm, which was more remarkable than his poetic inspiration,
he prayed in these songs for the union of all Italy, for the restriction of the
Papacy to the spiritual dominion, and for the security of freedom. The same
notes were sounded more skilfully by Berchet, who, having escaped from the
clutches of the Austrian Government in Milan, lived as an exile in France and
England. His Profughi di Parga, which appeared in London in 1824, and of which
thousands of manuscript or printed copies were circulated, enjoyed a success
which equalled or surpassed that of the best poems of Monti or Foscolo. The
moving and pathetic subject of this poem had been praised by Goethe, and had
tempted Byron. Such lines as these, “ No, by Heaven, we will not serve the
tyrant,” “ Perchance the day is not far distant on which all men will call each
other brother,” expressed the agony of suffering and the cry of the oppressed.
His other romantic poems aimed a direct blow against Austria. These were
collected in one volume, bearing on the frontispiece the symbol of a lamp,
which was being filled with fresh oil, and the significant motto alere Jlammam.
His fluent, sentimental, and limpid style enabled him to accomplish the
patriotic aim which he set before himself, and which was revealed by the effigy
and the motto. Clarma, one of these poems, immediately became very popular. The
heroine encourages her lover to fight as a volunteer for the redemption of
Italy, but the attempt fails. through cowardice on the part of the leaders;
thus Clarina, mourning for her exiled love, seemed to personify ill-fated Italy.
And in an almanac for 1832, which was addressed To the women of Italy, they
were reminded of the duty to follow her example: “Let the words of poor Clarina
to her betrothed dwell in your souls.” The same ideals inspire Berchet’s other
works: his Fantasie, which delighted Mazzini, his hymn, A IF armi, AW arrni...,
which celebrates Ciro Menotti’s revolt at Modena, in short, every expression of
his poetic afflatus, so that he was known to his contemporaries and to
posterity as the Italian ryrtaeus* His companion in exile was Gabriele
Rossetti, who sang of the wrongs suffered by Greece and Poland, of the French
revolt against Charles X, but, more than all, of his Italy—following on his
lyre her agonising alternations of hope and despair, of courage and depression.
And amid this goodly company may also be noted:—Tommaseo, Torti, Prati, Grossi,
Scalvini, and lastly, Alessandro Poerio and Goffredo Mameli, two heroes who
fell sword in hand, the former before Venice in 1848, the latter before Rome in
1849. Meanwhile, Brofferio, Giusti, and others, wrote satires attacking the
Governments with ridicule, which
frequently
proves a more efficient weapon than the fury of a righteous indignation. Even
Leopardi, the greatest lyric master of the day, although absorbed in struggles
and revolts more intimate and personal, was inspired at times by the prevailing
spirit of patriotic fervour; and his ode to Italy, and Bruto Minore, by
recalling to Italians their past history, threw light and glory on the duty
which lay in the present. But the poet, with his melancholy, his pessimism, his
philosophy of despair, appealed but little to a generation of quickly-kindled
enthusiasms, romantic, and greedy of hope. His merit was hardly recognised
until some years after his untimely death (1837).
Silvio
Pellico’s Mie Prigioni, for its intrinsic merit and for its popularity
throughout Europe, deserves an important place amongst the polemical prose of
this period. The strength of this book lay in its moderation. Pellico does not
attack with rancour the men who had unjustly kept him in prison for ten years,
nor does he stop to glorify the cause for which he had suffered. On the
contrary, he begins with the declaration that he had no intention of dealing
with politics, just as a lover might refuse to speak of the lady who has
wronged him. Pellico relates only the Odyssey of his sufferings and misfortunes
and in the most temperate language. But this dispassionate account of his
sorrows, which won the sympathy of all good men, constituted a formidable
attack upon his enemies and those of his country. Eveiy tear shed was a drop of
hatred stored up against the foreign tyrants; he thought only in his recital of
moving his readers to pity, and left the feeling of scorn and anger, the desire
for revolt and freedom, to mature of its own accord from the contemplation of
the terrible ten years spent in Spielberg.
There
appeared other more aggressive works on this theme, both in the field of
fiction and biography. For instance, Guerrazzi’s sensational romance, V Assedio
di Firenze, seemed an open challenge. The author said to Mazzini, “ I wrote
this book because I could not fight a battle.” The Precursore, a Liberal
newspaper, secretly published, recommended it “to all loyal Italians who would
learn to what disgrace, and to what infamous tyranny, their country had long
been subjected by the mad folly or by the avarice of vile and ambitious
foreigners.” The Precursore went on to say that the book had already inspired
such terror that the Aigus-eyed police were ransacking houses and buildings to
hunt out and destroy the copies. No less effective were the Ettore Fieramosca
and the Nicold de’ Lapi of d’Azeglio. But no prose work, possibly not even the
incendiary articles of Young Italy, exercised so powerful an influence as
Pellico’s calm narrative of his experiences. Hence, it was truly said that this
tiny volume was more harmful to Austria than a lost battle, than the work of
many revolutionary societies, or the results of many outbreaks.
Tuscany
formed an important centre of literary activity; it was, perhaps, the only one
where authors ventured to speak their minds in
public. Here
Leopold II, who had succeeded to the throne in 1824, seemed wishful to continue
the tolerant r6gmw oi\ns father, Ferdinand III. In 1819, Pietro Vieusseux, a
trader of Oneglia of Swiss descent, had settled at Florence. He, in concert
with Gino Capponi, Cosimo Ridolfi, and Niccolini, had founded a scientific and
literary society, open to all who took pleasure in free and illuminating discussion.
This literary reunion gave birth to the Antologia, a review founded by Capponi
in imitation of the English periodicals. It had a wide circulation; its
contributors and ’orrespondents were drawn from the most diverse schools, the
connecting link being the unification of Italy. Such were Raffaele
Lambruschini, the priest, Gabriele Pepe, the Carbonaro, Carlo Troya, the “
Neo-Guelf,” Niccolini, the “ Anti-Guelf,” the classical and restrained
Giordani, and Mazzini, the impetuous Radical. It was a hive of conflicting
doctrines, of varying ideals, converging towards a frontal attack upon the
dominant reaction under Austrian influence, and working together in the
generous purpose of the dissemination of culture, of striking all fetters from
the conscience, of redeeming the common country, and reestablishing its dignity
as a nation.
Philosophers
were inspired with the same fervour, not only in their actions and their
practice, but also in those of their writings which were rather of a
speculative character. Indeed in attacking the sensational philosophy which had
held sway in Italy at the time of Gioia and Romagnosi, Antonio Rosmini tried to
divert the Italians from this school of thought, which, by declaring the senses
to be the only source of truth, destroyed men’s faith in absolute justice, in
an ideal order depending on immutable principles, and hence, in the eternal
right to independence and freedom. The writing and the actions of the Abbot
Rosmini were in perfect harmony; the Jesuits were his spiritual, and the
Austrians his political, foes: suspicions and persecutions drove him from his
home in Roveredo; in 1848 he pleaded boldly and eloquently but in vain before
the Pope for the long-desired confederation of the Italian States. The priest
Vincenzo Gioberti, although in his scientific views ypposet to Rosmini, was
united with him in the love of Italy, for whom Gioberti suffered so much, and
in whose cause his writings, described in a later chapter of this volume, had
so great an influence.
Science did
not fail to play her part in the promotion of the national cause. She helped it
inc meetly, chiefly through the medium of scientific congresses. A group of
Liberals had succeeded, not without difficulty, in persuading Leopold II that
scientific congresses would increase his reputation and that of Tuscany, which
had always shown itself favourable to learning. Accordingly, in 1839, such a
congress was held under his auspices at Pisa. The circular letter of invitation
containing the programme was drawn up by Vieusseux, who was anything but a man
of science; and this participation of the founder of the Antologia, the
moderate but energetic advocate of Liberal ideas, caused
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129
men to
question the orthodoxy of the meeting. In fact, those tyrannical rulers who
were most subservient to Austria tried to frustrate the scheme; the learned men
in the Papal States were strictly forbidden to attend the congress, and a
threat of excommunication gave the good-natured Leopold ground for reflexion.
But, in spite of all these obstacles, the meeting took place. There were many
discourses, watched over by the spies of various Governments, who reported that
the most successful were those which digressed the furthest from subjects of a
scientific nature. The enthusiasm reached its height on the day of the consecration
of a monument to Galileo, when Rosini made a speech exposing the shame of
Galileo’s celebrated trial by the Inquisition. Thus a harmless meeting of
learned men, of which the ostensible aim was “the advancement of natural
science,” was transformed into a solemn manifestation of national feeling. The
example set by the Grand Duke of Tuscany was followed by other Princes, whose
ambition was equal to or greater than his own; Ferdinand II and Carlo Alberto
finally permitted similar congresses to be held, which if they did not advance
the ends of science, proved very favourable to those of politics, since they
established intercourse between the most distinguished men in the country and
provided an opportunity for the revelation and coordination of the impulses
which led to the assertion of the most sacred rights of nationality.
Moreover,
painting and sculpture, by their choice of subjects, took their part in the
great enterprise; but even more effective was music, which made a direct appeal
to the passions of the people. At that time the performance of opera proved
very disturbing to the authorities, in some cases through the intention which
governed the inspiration of the master, in others by the interpretations which
the public delighted to put upon certain innocent passages. For instance,
Gioachino Rossini was anything but a revolutionist; nevertheless his William,
Tell was found to contain revolutionary music, full of political significance,
of which he himself was quite unconscious. In the most solemn scene of this
drama, when the representatives from the three Cantons, after swearing “ in the
name of their sorrows ” to vindicate their liberty at all costs, hail the sun
as it rises over the eternal Alps with that august and terrible name upon their
lips, from the deep voices of the chorus, and from the bass chords of the
orchestra there seemed to proceed a menacing and formidable presage and an
irresistible call to deeds of prowess and of self-sacrifice. Vincenzo. Bellini,
again, had the nature of an artist with all its heedlessness and nonchalance;
for him politics had no meaning. Nevertheless his audience was so intimately
touched by his music, it acted so powerfully upon their noblest impulses, that
they endowed it with a significance which it did not in fact possess; and the
cry of the Puritans roused the pit like a stirring shout of war and victory.
The Censors and the Governments were active in forbidding the
130
[1815-46
performance
of certain plays, and in correcting the most dangerous phrases of certain
libretti; but the one measure merely irritated the public, and the other, by
its clumsy perversion of the text, provoked a contemptuous smile, or redoubled
the fervour of applause and protest. On the other hand, the note of patriotism,
which pervaded the music of Verdi, was sincere and deliberate. This was
understood by his contemporaries; and the stupendous chorus of Nabucco seemed
then and is still the most passionate appeal to a distant Fatherland. His
Erncmi, given at Venice in 1844, founded on the romantic drama of Victor Hugo,
itself the symbol of revolt for an entire school of literature, contains the
most perfect musical expression of the spirit of freedom. The men of 1848 found
in it a magnanimous rebellion against tyranny, a denunciation of violence, and
the cry of a people rising against their tyrants. In the Lombardi, who sigh for
their distant homes, and sadly call to mind the streams and meadows of their
native lands, they discovered a forecast of coming events; and in Attila, the
well-known passage in which the Roman general Aetius offers the whole world to
the leader of the Huns, provided that he may himself retain Italy, was clearly
intended to excite the multitude by the simple and universal language of
harmony.
Thus we see
that as in the life of action, so in that of thought, bold and vigorous forces
worked for the regeneration of Italy. The people, who at the opening of the
Congress of Vienna had desired only peace, were now determined, at all costs,
to free themselves from the yoke under which they lay. Mettemich had declared
that Italy was merely a geographical expression, an ill-fated phrase which
implied a still more ill-fated policy. At the beginning of 1846, everything
combined to show the author of this phrase and this policy that Italy was
something more than a word written upon a map, that it was a nation conscious
of its rights, rich, if not in material strength, in the fervour of self-sacrifice,
and certain thereby, sooner or later, to achieve its desires.
THE PAPACY
AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
Pius VII, on
his return to Rome in 1814, was greeted with demonstrations of exuberant joy.
The Romans had always held his person in loving reverence. The memory of so
many trials borne with patience and fortitude threw a halo round the mild,
noble-minded Pontiff. He was known to be animated by the best intentions; and
the future seemed bright with hope. As in the early years of the reign, the
government again devolved upon Cardinal Consalvi, Secretary of State, who
remained responsible for the home and foreign policy of the Papacy. The
Minister who influenced so powerfully the course of events, both in Church and
State, was not only a remarkable but a singularly attractive personality.
Ercole
Consalvi was bom in Rome in 1757, and was a scion of the ancient House of the
Brunacci of Pisa. At Frascati, and subsequently in Rome, Consalvi studied
jurisprudence and theology, and in 1783 began his ecclesiastical career, in
which he rose steadily. He always attributed his selection of this career to
profound conviction, and his life was without blemish; but he was never
ordained a priest It was not till he had reached the age of forty-three, when
he was made a Cardinal, that he took minor Orders. Consalvi received a good
classical education. He loved music and poetry, was the friend of Cimarosa,
travelled widely in Italy, and always remained a great favourite in the circles
of the leading Roman aristocracy. At the wish of Pius VI he exchanged in 1792
administrative for judicial work, and was appointed to the high oiHce of
Uditore to the Court of the Rota. When Rome became the rallying-point of the
French exiles, they found no warmer friend than Consalvi.
This
easy-going, somewhat worldly, manner of life came to an end in 1796, when,
after the foundation of the Cisalpine Republic, Pius VI appointed him Assessor
to the Congregation which was to reform the Papal army in agreement with its
commanders, the Austrian generals. The undertaking proved a failure. The Papal
troops were beaten, and the Court of Rome, coming to terms with the French,
agreed to the
132 Election of Pius VII.—Consalvi. [ms-isoo
fatal
articles of Tolentino, by which the Pope recognised the Cisalpine Republic and
gave up the Legations. The assassination of the French general Duphot by Papal
soldiers in 1798 led to the occupation of Rome and to the proclamation of the
Republic. Consalvi, who was held responsible for what had occurred, had to
surrender the Castle of St Angelo; and, as he scorned flight, he was made
prisoner, and taken to the frontier in the company of convicts.
After a short
stay at Naples, he joined the imprisoned Pius VI near Florence; but, the
permission to remain with him having been refused, he went on to Venice. He was
in that city during the victories of the second Coalition, at the death of the
Pope, and at the time of the Convocation of the Conclave. Consalvi owed his
nomination as Secretary to the Conclave to the influence of the Cardinal of
York, second son of the Chevalier de St George. Austria and Naples occupied the
Pontifical States; even Spain demanded Papal territory for Parma; while Naples
claimed Ponte-Corvo and Benevento. But Consalvi headed a strong opposition to
the Austrian candidate, Cardinal Mattei; and on March 14, 1800, the election of
Cardinal Chiaramonti (Pius VII) was carried. Ecclesiastical independence was
thus asserted. One of the first steps taken by the new Pope was the appointment
of Consalvi to be ProSecretary of State. Austria now refused to allow the
coronation of the Pope to take place in St Mark’s, because she would have no
part in an act which symbolised the assumption of the Temporal Power; and
Marquis Ghislieri, the Emperor’s ambassador, claimed once more the Legations
for Austria. The Pope, who persisted in his refusal and in his intention of
returning to Rome, had to choose the sea route, because he was not allowed to
pass through the Legations, which Austria demanded. Before he reached Rome,
conditions had altered. The victory of Bonaparte at Marengo on June 14 had
prompted Austria and Naples unconditionally to restore the States of the
Church. France, on the other hand, seized the Legations, and for fourteen years
remained mistress of Italy. In the month of August Consalvi was made a
Cardinal, and the affairs of the Papal State were entrusted to him.
The saintly,
pious, conciliatory Pope had great common sense, but no superior gifts of mind.
A certain irresolution made him dependent upon the advice of others. Consalvi’s
influence gave its character to his Pontificate. Their relations to each other
thenceforward were always of the most intimate character. Consalvi has been
called the soul of the Pope, the man who held the double key to his heart. The
personal sympathy of Pius VII never failed him.
His
contemporaries describe Consalvi at the time as being a tall, good-looking man,
of charming manners, lively disposition, genuine kindness of heart, great
natural dignity, and, while true to his friends, incapable of hatred. His
unusual ability, his extraordinary powers of work, and dexterity in business,
justified the confidence of the Pope.
Consalvi was
accessible to modem ideas on political questions, and therefore exposed to the
attacks of the reactionaries. But Pius VII knew well that he would uphold the
spiritual sovereignty of the Curia in its unrestricted integrity. He had acted
accordingly in Paris during the negotiations for the Concordat, and had always
maintained the claims of the Papacy to its Temporal Power. The circumstance
that he represented these principles was the true cause of his resignation in
1806, which the Pope was compelled to accept under pressure from Napoleon. But
the preceding six years of administration had sufficed to bring Consalvi into
conflict with the representatives of the established hierarchy. Although a
Papal decree had restored the priestly rale throughout the Pontifical State,
and brought into force the ordinances which had been disregarded during the
Revolution, the amnesty which, notwithstanding many restrictions, granted a
certain compensation to those who had bought national property, the taxation of
the secular clergy, and the fact that a policy of retaliation was carefully
avoided, impressed upon the Papal restoration a stamp of high statesmanship and
moderation, which the reactionaries never forgave. The hopeless financial
situation was the stumbling-block. The already impoverished people were loaded
with increased taxation; yet the State was unable to pay the creditors more
than half their due. The opposition to Consalvi was led by Cardinal Braschi;
but, notwithstanding their intrigues, Consalvi remained, after his resignation,
the confidant of the Pope up to the moment when he left Rome. He clearly saw,
however, that Pius himself could not master his opponents, to whom the
suppression of an abuse was a perilous innovation, and who objected to the most
urgent and beneficial reforms, such as free trade in com, the regulation of the
public debt, and an improved monetary system.
Six months
after the forcible removal of the Pope in July, 1809, Consalvi was summoned to
Paris, and, together with Cardinal di Pietro, compelled to travel under
military escort. Incensed by his stubborn opposition, Napoleon divested him of
the insignia of his rank and declared both his stipend and his private fortune
to be forfeited. In June, 1810, he was relegated to Reims for a period of two
years and eight months. His memoirs were written at this time. They are not insincere,
but they were jotted down under the sting of the persecution he suffered at the
hands of the Emperor, and are not consistent with his earlier estimate of
Napoleon.
It was
Consalvi who steeled the opposition of the Pope at Fontainebleau, where he
spent eleven months—from February, 1813, till the following January. Again an
escort conducted him into exile at Beziers. The defeat and downfall of
Napoleon, however, soon set him free. He actually met the Emperor at Frejus, on
the road to Elba, when he himself was returning to Italy. They did not speak;
but, when Napoleon recognised him, he remarked to the Austrian who accompanied
him: “ This
man, who never would become a priest, is more of a priest than all the others.”
Consalvi had
been absent from Rome since 1809, nor did he enter it now. He met the Pope at
Cesena and followed him to Foligno, where, “in the joy of his heart,” Pius VII
reinstated him as Secretary of State. For the moment, however, Cardinal Pacca
took his place, and Consalvi hastened back to Paris. Thence he proceeded by
London to Vienna, to represent the Pope at the Congress.
The
interregnum in Rome from January to May, 1814, between the retrocession of Rome
to the Pope and his return, had generated a series of complications, destined
to hamper the future activity of Consalvi. His opponent, Cardinal Rivarola, who
acted as Papal Legate in the absence of the Pope, inaugurated the reaction by
suppressing the French laws, with the exception of those relating to mortgages.
Cardinal Pacca adhered to this policy. He had been Nuncio at Cologne from 1786
to 1793, after that at Lisbon, and, under Pius VII, the very soul of the
opposition to Napoleon. He restored the Inquisition, which tribunal so late as
1816 passed a sentence of death at Ravenna. His most personal work, however,
was the restoration of the Society of Jesus. In the Bull of August 7,1814, Pius
VII indirectly characterised the suppression of the Order as a grievous crime.
Pacca considered himself happy to be a means of reparation, because he
reproached himself with having approved, in his youth, the Provinciates of
Pascal.
The
Congregation of the Index now proceeded against all publications of a
political character; and before long 737 accusations of heresy were received.
The supporters of the previous administration, and chiefly the priests, were
treated with uncompromising severity; many were deposed, called upon to disavow
their views, punished or expelled, and deprived of their incomes. Consalvi was
perfectly aware that the protests of the Powers assembled in Vienna, against a
policy of vengeance in Rome, were well founded. He recalled to Pacca the fact
that in 1800, in similar circumstances, he had persuaded Pius VII to grant an
amnesty, and, while safeguarding principles, to excuse and pardon individuals
in consideration of the circumstances in which they had been placed. In
bitterness of soul he asked how he was to win back the temporal possessions of
the Papacy, when a system was at work which must lead to the loss of even that
portion which was left. He partly accomplished his object, and in August, 1814,
a limited amnesty was proclaimed. Yet he remained isolated. His influence could
not save individuals; he had to apologise for his outspokenness, and promise
amendment. His fall would have been certain, could he have been replaced at the
Congress.
However,
Consalvi remained indispensable, though continuing to be misunderstood. During
the Congress of Vienna he had triumphed through methods, which he had already
outlined at Venice in 1800 in
an appeal to
the Emperor Paul of Russia. To the jealousies of the Catholic sovereigns and
their inroads on ecclesiastical territory he opposed the goodwill of the
heterodox Powers, Russia, England, and Pruss The majority of the diplomatists
at Vienna, especially the English and the Russians, pressed for constitutional
guarantees, the granting of a general amnesty, and the confirmation of the
secularisation. Papal subjects were not to be handed over “ like sheep,” and
especially the Legations were to be constitutionally governed.
Consalvi’s
opposition to this last pretension won the support of Metternich. He insisted
on the impossibility of making distinctions between Papal subjects, and argued
that a constitution drawn up for the entire Papal States would hardly suit
Austria. In consequence the proposal was dropped, and Consalvi avoided binding
promises. At the same time, however, in a report to Cardinal Pacca, he said
that he himself in 1800 had introduced that limited participation of the laity
in the government, now claimed by the Powers at Vienna, and that in his opinion
it was a matter of common decency to concede it. If, after twenty-five years of
separation, obsolete methods were to be employed in ruling the Legations, the
Papacy would be courting disaster.
Against
Consalvi’s opinion, Pacca had obtained in 1814 the condemnation of the
Freemasons and the Carbonari. The existence of secret societies spread all over
Italy was indeed a serious danger. The French at the time of the Republic had
made use of them. The example proved contagious. The Counter-revolution from
1798 to 1799 opposed the Sanfedists to the Jacobins. This secret society took
its name from the terrible bands of Cardinal Ruffo, and since his time had
existed in the States of the Church. The Sanfedists formed a kind of secret
police, whose denunciations were nominally directed against secret societies
but practically used against all inconvenient persons or views. The Sanfedists
hated Liberalism, but also Austria, Metternich, and Consalvi, who tried to
master them, but being unable to do so, had finally to tolerate them. So early
as 1814 the “ Guelfs,” and with them the idea of an independent Italy, came to
the front. It is not without cause that they were thought to have held communications
with Napoleon at Elba. But by Pacca and those who shared his views all
sovereigns and statesmen from Joseph II to Stein, the Tugendbumd in Germany,
the Protestant Bible Societies, the Liberals—everybody in fact who did not hold
their opinions—were stamped as Freemasons.
Metternich
had no such delusion, but he deemed it his interest to support it. Austria had
become the dominant Power in Italy and the one great obstacle to the
realisation of the national hopes. He needed the cooperation of the Italian
Courts, and notably that of the Curia, He came to an understanding with
Consalvi on the ground of solidarity against the Revolution. Their long,
intimate, almost affectionate
correspondence,
which stretches from 1815 to 1819, leaves somehow the impression that Mettemich
had the best of the bargain. His constant warnings to Consalvi to remain firm,
to uphold a healthy moral code, to defend principles and the sacred foundations
of society, of the throne and the altar, have a perceptible tone of command. Still,
in 1815, Consalvi refused to join the Italian League of Defence, as well as the
Holy Alliance. The Holy Alliance, he said, had no creed. Moreover the Pope was
bound to the strictest neutrality with regard to all nations, and could not
dream of asserting his rights by the sword. But in 1816 Lebzeltem reported from
Rome that Consalvi was now practically won over to the interests of Austria,
and wanted her support.
The
Motuproprio of July 6, 1816, proclaimed the programme of Consalvi for the
centralisation of government, a bureaucracy on Napoleonic lines. The feudal
rights and customs were abolished, with the exception of the game laws. 'The
baronial jurisdiction still in part survived, but was found so inconvenient and
so expensive that in nearly eveiy case it was voluntarily relinquished. The
customs, laws, and privileges of communes, towns, and provinces were also
abolished. The Papal territory, which included three million inhabitants, was
subdivided into twenty-one Legations under Cardinals, or Delegations under
Delegates. To them the Governors, who were selected from the “prelature,” were
subject, and only exercised the inferior jurisdiction. Over all were the
ordinary Courts, the Court of Appeal, and lastly the Rota Romana and the
Congregations. The councillors of each commune chose the corporation, but were
themselves chosen by the Legates, aind their appointment was ratified by the
Consulta in Rome. If a vacancy occurred, the members were to exercise the right
to complete their numbers, subject to the approval of authority. Consalvi
agreed that every province should have a council of laymen; but even these were
nominated at Rome. They had no executive power, and could only give advice on
prescribed topics. Consequently the whole bureaucratic system rested upon the
priesthood and upon the prelatura. This order or caste of laymen, wearing the
ecclesiastical garb and observing the rule of celibacy, was no longer confined
to members of noble or wealthy families. The positions in the administration
and the tribunals reserved for its members were no longer lucrative. The
priesthood looked upon it with contempt. The education of its members was as
deficient as that of the clergy; and both, having lost their property, were
subsidised by the State.
By the sale of
Church property Napoleon had succeeded in bringing the finances of the old
Papal States into order, and in reducing the National Debt from seventy-four to
thirty-three millions of scudi; and, although the Papal States had hardly any
exports, their revenue was raised from three to six millions by the improvement
of their commerce. After the Restoration, the States of the Church were charged
with part of the debt of the kingdom of Italy—though with reduced interest.
Consalvi,
moreover, had to endow both the Roman Congregations and the Cardinals, and also
to compensate for losses incurred the 1824! monasteries and 612 nunneries,
which were restored. In 1816 the deficit amounted to 1,200,000 scudi. In 1821
Austria still owed the payments due for the garrisons, which under protest of
the Pope occupied Ferrara and Comacchio. Members of the Bonaparte family
advanced the necessary funds for the reception in Rome of the Emperor Francis
in 1819. In these circumstances the chief sources of revenue, tobacco and salt,
were leased for a period of twelve years. Taxes in arrear were collected by
coercion, and others levied in advance. Expenditure was covered by fresh loans.
This method of administration led to systematic and extensive malversations and
fraud on the part of the tax-farmers. In 1817, orders for pensions or grants
bearing a forged signature of the Pope were paid from the public chest. In
1820, 11,000 criminals were in State prisons and the cost of their maintenance
was leased, with the result that they were nearly starved, and that the usurers
pocketed large profits. Conscription had been abolished, and the army numbered
7000 men. But there, also, the administration was no better. Dishonesty
developed into a system. Consalvi was perfectly aware of it. When he asked for
a serious investigation, the Minister of Finance was wont to withhold the
necessary explanations. At the same time the constant increase of taxation
added to his unpopularity.
Since
manufactures were non-existent, and commerce was confined to agricultural
products, such as hemp, wool, and cattle, Pius VII in 1801, in the interests of
agriculture, had suppressed the Annona, an institution which had prohibited the
export of com and enforced severe regulations on the home market. At first this
measure, which granted free trade in com, seemed eminently just. The
consequence, however, was that agriculture languished, because the soil passed
out of the hands of small landowners into those of large proprietors. They in
turn leased the land and controlled the market, because they were able to
discover ways of escaping the weight of communal taxation. They found it more
profitable to raise stock than to till the land. To meet the difficulty, the
Government restored the Annona, a measure promptly followed by dearness, bread
riots, and disturbances. Nevertheless, Consalvi succeeded, at the end of his
administration, in balancing the finances, but at the cost of the total neglect
of public education. The Clerical Middle Schools taught hardly anything but
Latin. The professors of the two great Universities of Rome and Bologna, and
of five smaller ones, had to use prescribed text-books. It required a special
intervention of Consalvi to obtain leave from the Censorship that Settele,
Professor of Astronomy, should be allowed to explain the system of Copernicus,
if only as a hypothesis.
After the
abolition of the Napoleonic Code, the decisions of Common Law remained in
force, modified by Canon Law and the Apostolic
138
Law.—Justice.—Brigandage.
[1815-23
Constitutions.
These contradicted each other, thus causing hopeless confusion. Consalvi called
upon Bartolucci, a legist of great repute, to work out a code of Civil Law; but
it was never sanctioned by the Congregasdorw Economica. The suggested rules of
legal procedure were never enforced; and the separation of judicial from
administrative functions was not carried out. The Cardinal Legates encroached
upon the domain of justice by arbitrary intervention. The administration had
its own special and separate jurisdiction, and the clergy appealed to episcopal
Courts, among them to the Inquisition, which condemned all offences against
religion. The Uditore Santissimo, also, independent of all tribunals, and,
under the immediate authority of the Pope, was the highest judge of Appeal in
ecclesiastical matters. The Consulta, another ecclesiastical tribunal, passed
sentences of death or hard labour for life on political criminals who had
incited the people to rebellion, even if they had done so by the mere
distribution of pamphlets, without having recourse to arms. The Roman Courts
were venal, and favouritism prevailed. Laws were unable to stop that organised
brigandage, which in the Roman mountains had even withstood the power of the
French. Entire tracts of country were in a state of war; and the brigands,
though feared, were invested with a romantic halo. In 1818 a terrible famine
broke out which, more especially in the Apennines, led the starving population
to revolt. Military measures had failed. The brigands even drew recruits from
the ranks of the Papal soldiery and police. The police itself was
untrustworthy, and, moreover, hampered by the rights of sanctuary vested in a
certain number of convents and churches.
In these
circumstances, Consalvi determined to enter into personal negotiations with the
brigands. He made a kind of treaty with tiiPm They consented to submit to one
year’s imprisonment, if the State would then guarantee them sufficient means to
begin a peaceful existence. Rome thus witnessed the extraordinary sight of the
entry of three large waggons full of brigands. Masocco, the most feared of all,
was accompanied by his wife, and the Duchess of Devonshire thought fit to
present her with her own necklace. Other bands followed the of submission and
the outlook seemed hopeful, when a terrible epilogue followed. Masocco was to
negotiate with Cesari, the leader of the last recalcitrant band, but was shot
down by his command. In order to revenge the death of his friend, Amarini
seized upon the family of Cesari and, tearing them from the hands of the
police, murdered' six women and young girls with his own hand. He then gave
himself up to justice. Cesari held out for some time, and murdered all those of
his prisoners who were Papal subjects. In the end, a Roman carabineer shot him
near the place where his family had fallen. In the early twenties travellers
were still stopped by robbers in broad daylight. When the Carboneria began to
flourish, one evil replaced another.
1814-23]
Opposition to Consalvi.—Concordats. 139
Drastic
measures had to be taken by the Government against the families of the robbers
as well as against those who harboured them, and their stronghold, Sonino, was
destroyed.
It was the
fate of Consalvi’s system of bureaucratic tutelage, that the capable and trained
officials, which it presupposed, were non-existent. On the one hand, the
reforms which he granted were not carried out; on the other, the pressure he
brought to bear was interpreted as despotic interference. The loss of
innumerable local liberties and privileges turned the aristocracy, who had
benefited by them, against Consalvi. They joined in opposition with the
Cardinals and Bishops, who complained of the curtailment of their spiritual
jurisdiction. The Cardinals who were most hostile to Consalvi were Severoli,
Somaglia, Litta, Mattei, Pacca, della Genga, and Castiglione, the last two of
whom were destined in time to wear the tiara. In 1818 Count Apponyi, the
Austrian ambassador, states unhesitatingly that the Sacred College was animated
with feelings of bitter enmity against Consalvi. It came to such a pass that at
Velletri Mattei set up a distinct administration and jurisdiction, and gave
orders that all decrees which did not suit him should be burnt by the hangman.
The Legates, Rivarola, Severoli, Somaglia, in letters and pamphlets openly
denounced the Government as hostile to religion. Pacca persecuted all those who
had held office under Napoleon; della Genga, Vicar-General of Rome, enforced
all the old penal laws against the Jews. Consalvi refrained from taxing Roman
Princes and capitalists more heavily because he had been frankly told that they
would refuse to pay. It was impossible to contend against such a sea of
difficulties. With an aged and ailing Pope, Consalvi had to be content with
half-measures so fair as internal administration was concerned.
His
diplomatic skill on the contrary was displayed to full advantage in many
successM negotiations with the Powers. The period, which has been termed the
era of the Concordats, opened in 1816, but the experience of Consalvi dated
back as far as 1801, when he was sent to Paris to negotiate the French
Concordat with the First Consul. The results of Napoleon’s policy had been that
the Catholic Church in France, deprived of its property, dependent upon the
State, hampered by the Organic Articles, and hopelessly crippled as to its
episcopal freedom, was driven towards Rome and became, what it never had been,
Ultramontane; and upon Napoleon’s fall the Concordat was at once attacked.
The first
attack was made by antagonists of Consalvi, by the Zelcmti. On May 80, 1814,
della Genga arrived in Paris as Papal ambassador to the Allied sovereigns. He
found that they had already left, and handed his instructions to the French
Government, who welcomed recriminations against the ecclesiastical policy of
Napoleon. The Papal
140 Proposals for repeal of the French Concordat.
[1814-6
grievances
were summed up, under five headings: liberty of worship and of the Press; the
Code Napoleon in its dealings with divorce, usury, etc.; the Organic Articles;
the appointment of laymen as Ministers of Public Worship. Finally the repeal of
the Concordat was recommended; “ for in order to save France from a schism, the
Pope had been forced to accept whatever could be obtained from a Government
which considered religion as a branch of politics and was secretly bent upon
its destruction.”
A few days
after this dangerous step Consalvi arrived at Paris. He made an enemy of della
Genga by explaining in bitter terms how unnecessary and even detrimental his
action had been. Forced to go on to London, he did not return to Paris until
July. He found the reaction at the helm. The Abbe de Montesquiou, as Minister
of the Interior, which then included the administration of Public Worship, and
Talleyrand, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, backed, in the name of the King,
the views of della Genga. The Concordat was assumed to have been extorted and
was to be revised before Pius VII would crown the King at Reims, a ceremony
which never took place. In order to save the personal dignity of the Pope, all
transactions which had passed between France and the Holy See since 1797 were
declared null and void, the French invasion having impeded his liberty of
action. The King promised to restore and to endow the 132 old bishoprics, if,
on his part, the Pope consented to summon the Bishops of the Concordat, the
itveques de circonstance, as Montesquiou called them, to tender their
resignation. Of the Bishops who had been deposed in 1801 and who had refused to
resign, only ten or twelve were still alive. They considered themselves to be
alone legitimate, and looked upon the others as ntrus, and upon the Pope as a
prevaricateur.
Consalvi was
horrified to hear that a Bishop, Cortois de Pressigny, was on his way to Rome
as Envoy Extraordinary. The Cardinal realised what was at stake, if the Pope
was to own to a mistake in his government of the Church. He forestalled
Pressigny by a special courier. He implored both the Pope and Pacca not to
concede the reinstatement of the deposed Bishops, except by granting fresh
canonical institutions as well as separate Bulls. Consalvi further advised that
time should be gained, and that firmness should be combined with assurances of
goodwill towards the person of the King, always well received in France. In a
letter, dated from Vienna, Consalvi wrote to Pacca that France was really
little known in Rome. As a proof of it he enclosed the text of new Organic
Articles far more stringent than those of Napoleon, which Louis XVIII, in the month
of August, had proposed to his Cabinet. However, Consalvi gave up the Concordat
in its original form, because Rome was anxious to secure the concessions of the
King. Consequently, he proposed alterations based on the Concordat of 1516, or
even an entirely new agreement. The question was still under consideration in
Rome, when the return from Elba postponed all ecclesiastical negotiations until
1816.
After the
Congress at Vienna, Consalvi, on his return to Rome, was again the official
head of the Government, but while at Vienna, and later during the negotiations
with England, his liberty of action had been checked by contrary influences. He
had only spent twenty-six days in London. They sufficed to enlist all his
sympathies for England, where the friendly attitude of Pius VII since 1809 had
not been forgotten. In Vienna the English had fought for the interests of the
Papacy. Since the days of Pitt the great problem of Catholic Emancipation
occupied the minds of politicians. Lord Castlereagh entered into a close friendship
with Consalvi. He still hoped to bring about an understanding with Rome on the
lines of the Bill which had been thrown out in 1813. The conditions of that
Bill, described in a later chapter, were submitted to Quarantotti, the
Vice-Prefect of the Propaganda. With certain limitations he accepted them in
February, 1814.
But the
influence of O’Connell was now in the ascendant. The Irish rejected all
interference in their religious concerns on the part of a Protestant King. They
declared Quarantotti’s rescript to be nothing else than the violation of the
Irish Church discipline concerning the election of Bishops. In vain Consalvi
warned the Curia not to sacrifice Emancipation, which was already anything but
popular in England, to the obstinacy of the Irish. The Pope was himself
desirous that the Irish Bishops should be brought to make concessions.
Nevertheless, the Pope did not persuade the Irish to concede anything on the
questions at issue.
Consalvi’s
next task, in 1815, concerned Russia. It had been proposed to appoint a
Metropolitan at Vilna. The Congregation in Rome refused to acquiesce, because
the powers with which he was to be endowed would have reduced the Pope to a
figure-head. When, at the same time, all other concessions were refused Consalvi
intervened. He needed the goodwill of the Emperor Alexander in temporal
matters, and won his favour by conceding him the right to propose candidates
for sees. It was done, not in so many words, but virtually, by the support
given by the Pope to the candidates of the schismatic sovereign,
notwithstanding that de Maistre, in 1816, and Consalvi, so late as 1823,
suspected the Archbishop of Mohileff of schismatic leanings. The Polish
Constitution of 1815 placed the Catholic Church under Imperial patronage. The
hierarchy was to be endowed with inalienable landed property and the Bishops
had seats in the Royal Senate.
Among the
Catholic States Spain gave the example of fierce reaction. The Nuncio Gravina
exercised a fateful influence over Ferdinand Vn, the worst sovereign restored
to power on the fall of Napoleon. His Government identified itself with the
Inquisition, and with the enforcement of orthodoxy. The Jesuits reentered
Spain, and the religious Orders again took possession of their convents. All who
had bought ecclesiastical property were compelled to make full restitution
without
compensation. The clergy of earlier days had accepted the reforms of Charles
III and also the Concordats of 1758 and 1780, which, in accordance with the old
Spanish principle, restored ecclesiastical patronage to the Crown. The Spanish
clergy now supported the extremest claims of the hierarchy. The Pope and
Consalvi, on the other hand, fully realised that, unless the impoverished State
was permitted to tax the clergy, the Catholic monarchy would soon perish. In
April, 1817, four Bulls were willingly published, empowering the reforming
Minister Garay to do so. Moreover an offer was made of an extraordinary
ecclesiastical contribution of thirty millions for the next six years, and the
use of certain other ecclesiastical revenues for State purposes. Gravina was
recalled, and succeeded by Giustiniani, a sensible man, who plainly showed his
intention of discountenancing reaction. It was, however, impossible either then
or later to break down the fanatical and ultimately useless resistance of the
clergy. It was not the fault of Consalvi that it raised a storm of
anti-clerical passion which swept over Catholic Spain, resulting in fierce
riots, civil wars, and revolutions ruinous to the country and the dynasty.
Among the
Italian Princes the pious Victor Emanuel, King of Sardinia, paid homage to the
Pope. He besought the Roman authorities to ease his conscience by a special
brief confirming the secularisations of convents and Church property, which had
occurred during the revolutionary period. The indults by which the Crown had
held the right of nominating the Bishops were not ratified; but the same rights
were granted by a new Bull. In return, the King was to restore the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction and the convents. Further he was to make important financial
concessions and prohibit the teaching of Gallican doctrines. On these bases a
Concordat was afterwards signed by Leo XII. Meanwhile a new spirit awoke in
Piedmont. A memorandum of the President of the Senate declared that the
aspirations of Rome were a danger to the State. The appointment of a Nuncio at
Turin was refused. In 1816 Consalvi complained of arbitrary appointments to
Chapters and benefices, notwithstanding all the concessions which had been
granted. So early as 1815 the future leader of the Catholic reaction, Count
Joseph de Maistre, Minister to the Court of St Petersburg, advised the King to
put himself at the head of the Italians. He warned him to observe the spirit bom
of the Revolution and to appoint men who represented it to posts in the Civil
Service and even to positions at Court. He advocated the marriage of the heir
to the throne with a Russian Princess, so as to escape from dependence on
Austria. His advice was unheeded, and Charles Albert wooed a bride in Florence.
In Tuscany,
though in a somewhat milder form, the old administration revived, which in
1786 had produced friction between the Curia and the Grand Duke, afterwards the
Emperor Leopold. His adviser, Scipione Ricci, Bishop of Prato and Pistoia, had,
on the eve of the
Revolution,
made a fruitless attempt to reform the Church on Jansenist principles. The
scheme failed, but the tradition survived. The clergy remained subject in all
temporal matters to the jurisdiction of the State, which recalled the Orders
but continued to superintend the management of their property.
Since the
days of Pius VI relations with Naples had been strained. The King refused to
send the customary tribute to St Peter, on the plea that all feudal dues had
ceased to exist. The Pope retaliated by threatening him with the wrath of God;
he refused confirmation to 86 out of 180 Bishops in the Two Sicilies when the
King showed his intention of carrying on the strife. A Concordat became an imperative
necessity, and was concluded in 1818, thanks to a personal understanding
between the Minister Medici and Consalvi, at Terracina. It was entirely in the
interest of the Curia. The King presented the candidates for the 85 bishoprics.
The Pope examined his selections and moreover exercised a considerable
influence in the appointments to minor posts. Intercourse with Rome was freed
from all constraint, and the spiritual jurisdiction of the King was
considerably limited. The ecclesiastical Courts resumed their sittings, and the
convents, in so far as endowments were still available, were restored.
Education was under the control of the Bishops. They could call upon the
Government to interfere with the dissemination of pernicious books.
Ecclesiastical property that had not been sold was restored to the Church,
which had the right of adding to its possessions. The Pope was to receive
12,000 ducats a year out of the income of the bishoprics; and the clergy were
promised a compensation for the loss of exemption from taxation. The skill of
Consalvi was met half-way by the King’s great desire to use the Church as a
support of absolutism. Many of the clauses favourable to Rome were, however,
restricted in the following years; and the apostolic Legation of the King,
which gave him certain direct powers over the Church, was maintained in Sicily
in contravention of an article of the Concordat.
In France, in
the autumn of 1815, after Richelieu had become Chief Minister, Blacas, the
confidant of the King, carried to Rome proposals for a fresh Concordat. Even
when toned down and in their ultimate form, they involved most far-reaching
concessions. The Pope was not pressed for any retractation concerning 1801, but
was simply asked to reestablish the Concordat of 1516, whereby Leo X had, in
return for considerable material benefits, transferred to the Crown the right
of ecclesiastical appointment which had belonged to the Chapters. Louis XVIII
offered in return to abolish the Organic Articles appended to the Concordat of 1801,
in so far as they were in contradiction with Canon Law and the doctrine of the
Church. He further intended to establish a large number of new bishoprics and
to endow them accordingly, either with State securities or
144
Settlement with France.—Austria.
[1816-9
settlements
on landed property. In urgent cases the Pope and the King should be empowered
to depose or transfer Bishops without their consent. Further concessions were
promised. In June, 1817, Pius VII signed the Concordat, which met nearly all
his wishes. He promulgated it to the Christian world, and in July issued Bulls
fixing the areas of the new sees. But the renewal of his protest with regard to
Avignon and the Venaissin gave rise to an exceedingly bitter feeling in France;
and the fact that this Concordat, involving as it did changes in internal
administration, required the approval of the chambers, had been ignored in Rome
and overlooked in Paris. It met there with a fierce opposition, backed by
public opinion. Bishops who saw their sees menaced appealed to Gallican
liberties, and the new delimitation of the dioceses was rejected. The Liberals
raised a cry against a return to the Middle Ages, against an attack on
religious liberty, and against tampering with the Charter. Richelieu was forced
to abandon the Concordat in the shape approved of by the King. The new scheme
contained alterations which Rome deemed inacceptable. Consalvi complained, not
without cause, that the French Government had not kept faith. It had forced the
Pope, much against his will, to cancel the Concordat of 1801, and it now
rejected a new treaty. But it was entirely owing to the moderation of Consalvi
that the French episcopate consented to a peaceful arrangement with Rome. The
Pope was brought to accept as sole compensation the gradual increase in the
number of bishoprics, to be carried into effect in accordance with
constitutional forms. In August, 1819, this temporary confirmation of the
Concordat of 1801 became definite.
The momentous
episode led to fresh complications. Metternich was greatly displeased by the
far-going concessions of the Catholic Powers to the Curia. In the Austrian
hereditary States the ecclesiastical legislation of the latter days of Maria
Teresa and Joseph II had been in practice softened, but it was still in force.
Francis I tolerated no opposition to it and ruled his Italian kingdom in the
same spirit. He found the Napoleonic Concordat of 1803 still in force in
Lombardy and upheld it in spite of the disapproval of Rome. In Venetian territory,
where Canon Law had been adopted after the fall of the Republic, he met with
opposition from the clergy, who considered the Austrian laws, especially those
relating to marriage, an encroachment on ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Nevertheless they were upheld. The Pope elected an administrator for the vacant
Patriarchate of Venice, and Consalvi warmly supported him. In 1816, however,
the Emperor installed a vicar of his own choice. He insisted on the Placetum
regium, i.e. the necessity of royal sanction for the publication of Papal or
Ecclesiastical decrees, and declared that Bishops in his dominions were not
bound to visit Rome, either for examination or for consecration. The Jesuits
and other Orders were not recalled. The catechism was taught only in the
churches; the schools were
1815-9] Attempt to establish a German national
Church. 145
controlled by
the State. Consalvi had hoped to conclude a Concordat with Austria; but he had
no chance of success. The Emperor was devout and a sincere believer, but
immovable in ecclesiastical matters. In 1816 Mettemich was instructed to daim
from Home for the Austrian Crown the right to nominate to all the episcopal
sees and high ecclesiastical posts ia the Venetian territory and in Ragusa, as
well as to subdivide the dioceses in Lombardy, in Venice, Tyrol, and the
Vorarlberg. Mettemich constantly represented to Rome that he was unable to
contend against the Febronian principles largely held by the Austrian
bureaucracy and even by the clergy. But he was himself so far from holding the
ultramontane views of his latter years that the pretensions of the Curia had
no more decided opponent. In 181*7 he went to Italy, and Consalvi anxiously
expected him in Rome. Metternich did not come. “The extraordinary compliance
which France had shown in settling the Concordat ” induced him, on the
cbtltrary, to break off all official correspondence with Consalvi. He Wrote to
the Emperor Francis, explaining how he intended to profit by the
“Consternation” caused by his nttt appearing at the Papal Court to obtain by
means of a private and confidential correspondence all the concessions claimed
by his sovereign.
In 1819,
after thus preparing the ground, he accompanied Francis to Rome. Pius Vtt
avoided all points of controversy, and expressed such moderate and reasonable
opinions that the Emperor wished he had a Bishop like the Pope to oppose the
exorbitant pretensions of the Curia. Mettemich Came to the desired
understanding with Consalvi.
Already in
1813 ecclesiastical affairs in Germany had occupied the attention of the
Congress at Vienna. Mettemich had forced Consalvi to promise not to enter upon
private negotiations With German Princes without his consent. He himself wanted
a German Concordat to be concluded at the Bundestag at Frankfort. His confidant
was his COUSin Henry von Wessenberg, the friend and Coadjutor of Dalberg, the
Prince Primate. Through Wessenberg he hoped to induce Germany to accept
principles “which are realiy burs, without our seeming to impose them.” What
Mettemich, iWiberg, We&senfeerg, and their followers strove for was a
German national Church, according to the ioctrine of Pebronius, of the
Galileans, the Emperor Joseph, and the resolutions of EmS.
It Was found
impossible in Vienna to recast' the ecclesiastical organisation of Germany.
Consalvi demanded in vain the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, the
reinstatement of the ecclesiastical electorates, and the restitution of Church
property. When his demands remained unheeded, he entered a Papal protest.
Equally little Was obtained at Frankfort. Dalberg died in 1817. His (still
unconfirmed) Coadjutor at Constance, Wessenberg, Was summoned to Rome to answer
for his conduct regarding ecclesiastical reforms. He was called upon to
retract; and, notwithstanding the intercession of the Grand Duke of
Baden and his
selection by his clergy, he was not made a Bishop, but, on the contrary, the
diocesq was suppressed. From that time Wessenberg ceased to play a part in
ecclesiastical politics. His disgrace in Rome caused the plan of a German
Concordat to be abandoned. Mettemich then proposed as a possible compromise
that separate Concordats should be drawn up on a common basis, as no single
Prince would be so blind as to make greater concessions to the Curia than the
other German sovereigns.
Bavaria was
the first to demand her own separate national Church. Since the dissolution of
the Empire the Bavarian territorial alterations with the consequent new
subdivision of bishoprics had necessitated an understanding with Rome. The
attempt, however, had repeatedly failed. From 1524 until the beginning of the
nineteenth century Bavaria had been steadily reactionary in domestic affairs,
though predisposed to a State Church. The most important purely German Catholic
State passed as being the stronghold of the Counter-reformation. It was
transformed in the days of Napoleon by a foreigner of great abilities, the
Savoyard Count Montgelas. This Voltairian statesman secularised and reformed so
ruthlessly that he lost Tyrol. At the Congress of Vienna Bavaria had
successfully laboured for the exclusion of ecclesiastical affairs from the
competence of the Diet. Montgelas wanted a Bavarian Concordat with the Papacy
after the Napoleonic example, but he overrated the decadence of Papal power and
was blind to the reviving Ultramontane feeling in the Catholic world. When, in
1814, he resumed negotiations for a Concordat, Pius VII replied to his
overtures by demanding the abolition of all Bavaria’s ecclesiastical reforms,
viz., the equal treatment of Churches, secular control of schools, and
recognition of mixed marriages. The Crown Prince, Marshal Wrede, the King’s
daughter, Caroline Augusta, who was a friend of the Jesuits and was now married
to the Emperor Francis, Mettemich, and all Church influences, combined against
Montgelas; and in February', 1817, he was suddenly dismissed.
It remained
all important for the Curia to influence the attitude of the German Protestant
Princes by exacting from Bavaria the greatest possible concessions. The plan
succeeded, owing not a little to the mismanagement of Haffelin, the Bavarian
Minister in Rome. Haffelin was a priest, who had formerly belonged to the
freethinking Illuminati, and was now created a Cardinal in recognition of his
accommodating conduct. The Zelanti of the Congregazione degli qffhri
ecclesiastici framed the Bavarian Concordat on the principle that not the
ecclesiastical laws of the country but Canon Law alone should obtain in
Bavaria. In return for the grant of two archbishoprics and six bishoprics to be
filled by the King’s nomination, Bavaria conceded the right of the Bishops to
supervise schools and morals and to demand from the State the suppression of
pernicious books; new monasteries might be founded and Canon Law was to take
precedence of Bavarian State Law. It was the most complete
1815-8] Difficulties with Bavaria.—Prussia.
147
submission
made by a modern State. At the same time the Curia received the promise that
the Concordat should become part of the Constitution of the kingdom. This was
settled in 1817, consequently before the French Concordat was, against the wish
of the Pope, brought before the French Chambers and rejected.
The Bavarian
Constitution established equality for the three religious denominations,
religious freedom and liberty of conscience, State control over education and
over the administration of Church property, taxation of all citizens. All these
provisions were contrary to Canon Law, but they already existed in the
religious edict of 1809. In 1818, the Constitution and the Concordat were
simultaneously promulgated. The treaty with Rome excited much indignation, and
the King himself repented of his concessions. As yet the Pope had not confirmed
the episcopal appointments, which the King had made only on the strength of a
Papal indult, which granted him that right for ever. Rumour spoke already of a
schism, because Catholics were forbidden by the Pope to take the unconditional
oath to the Constitution. In these circumstances Consalvi resumed the
direction of the difficult negotiations. He saved the chief clauses of the
Concordat by obtaining a statement from the King, to the effect that the
Constitutional oath referred only to civil life, not to Divine laws or Catholic
doctrine. But an edict was promulgated which “interpreted” the Concordat by
repudiating its intentions and reaffirming the previous conditions of
ecclesiastical affairs. The antagonism between spiritual and secular authority
remained latent for the moment. The Concordat, still in force in Bavaria,
secures for the Church her independence and provides for public worship and the
maintenance of the clergy at the expense of the State. The Jesuits are excluded
from the country.
Prussia, like
the whole of Protestant Germany, had been regarded since the Peace of
Westphalia as a mission country. The chiefs of the mission were the Bishops,
and, in case of the complete secularisation of a bishopric, it was governed by
an apostolic vicar. Prussia was not forced to regulate the ecclesiastical
conditions of her Catholic subjects until she had absorbed the ecclesiastical
States on the Rhine and in Westphalia. The Catholics complained that for
twenty-five years the western bishoprics had been left vacant, that the
episcopate had nearly died out, that the Catholic Church in the Prussian State
had been completely wrecked by the course of political events, so that, with
the exception of the faith itself, everything had to be entirely reconstructed.
It was fortunate that the great historian Niebuhr was appointed Prussian
Minister to the Holy See. Niebuhr occupied a singular position. He was a
sincere Christian, inclined towards mysticism. In the Catholic Church, as he
understood it, the Temporal Power was doomed. But his Conservative creed taught
him to respect what existed. He expected from Governments civil reforms; he
held that the State
148 Hanover.—The States of the Upper Rhine.
[1815-29
should leave
the Church in freedom, and should not attempt ecclesiastical reforms. He quoted
Lessing, “who had expressed his disgust at Febronius and his doings.” He knew
that the attempt to liberate the episcopate and the Church in accordance with
the ideas of Wessenberg would enlist the sympathy of very few Catholics, and be
looked upon with indifference by Protestants. On the Rhine and in Westphalia it
would only make Catholics disaffected. Niebuhr wished for adequate provision
for the support of the clergy, for Catholic schools, universities, and
seminaries for the education of priests. He claimed for the Bishops the right
to exercise ecclesiastical censure. Should the Bishops exercise this right in
an injudicious or tyrannical manner, the Church, not the State, would suffer.
Mixed marriages already formed the subject of debate with Rome. Niebuhr
proposed that marriages between Catholics should be legal in the eye of the
State, when contracted according to Canon Law, and that as regards declarations
of nullity and separation Canon Law should decide. This compromise proved a
failure. It was only after years of bitter strife and long negotiations that the
convention between Prussia and the Curia, described in a later chapter, was
arrived at. The examples of France and Bavaria had been sufficient warning
against a Concordat. The election of the Bishops was left to the Chapters, who
were enjoined by Papal brief to propose only worthy persons for the King’s
approval. The Pope gratefully accepted the endowments offered by the State, and
gave his consent to the new diocesan areas. Hardenberg’s presence in Rome
(1821) settled the remaining difficulties with Prussia.
Hanover made
Erastian claims, which caused the negotiations for a Concordat with that
kingdom to be abandoned. It was only in 1824, under Leo XII, that Consalvi’s
concessions were reluctantly accepted. The Hanoverian Government thereby kept
the right of veto on Bishops chosen for her two Catholic sees.
Consalvi and
the Pope had a worse experience in dealing with the Commission of Frankfort in
1819, which was entrusted with the Hidesiastiual affairs of the smaller German
States of the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine,. headed by Baden and
Wiirttemberg. It was proposed that the parish priests and Bishops should
present three candidates for a bishopric, of whom the sovereign should select
one. The Metropolitan was to accept him, in spite of Papal objections, if such
were considered unfounded, or if the Pope’s disapproval was not made known
within the limited time. This proposal was rejected in Rome as treasonable to
the Church. The Pope declined to invest Protestant Princes with a kind of
patronage over Catholic Churches which he had refused to Napoleon. In these
circumstances nothing was attained except a fresh distribution of the dioceses.
The five new episcopal sees were only filled Under Leo XII, 1827-9.
The influence
of Metternich, who, from 1819, became in ecclesiastical
1815-30] The Netherlands.—Switzerland.
140
matters more
friendly to the Curia, brought about in Baden a turn of events highly
favourable to Rome; the Grand Duchy accepted conditions similar to those
existing in Prussia. The conditions were offered as an ultimatum to the other
States, and finally accepted.
Through these
four treaties, with Bavaria, Prussia, Hanover, and the ecclesiastical Province
of the Upper Rhine, the Catholic Church in Germany, excluding the mission
countiy administered by the Propaganda, was reorganised and endowed. Consalvi
did not arrive at a similar result either with Switzerland or with the
Netherlands. The Pope and the Belgian Bishops in 1815 had condemned the
Constitution of the Netherlands on the ground that liberty of religious
worship and of the Press was not acceptable to Catholics. The Constitution,
however, was carried against them. The request of the Netherlands, that the
Concordat of 1801 existing in Belgium should be extended to Holland, was
refused by the Curia in 1818, on the ground that there was no reason to renew
such concessions. Negotiations which lasted for nine years ended in 1827 with
the extension of that Concordat to the Netherlands, but excluding from it the
right of the State to select Bishops, which was refused to a non-Catholic King.
At the same time, a Bull sanctioned a revision of diocesan areas. The
Government delayed the execution of the Treaty, and the Revolution of 1830
rendered it inoperative in Belgium. With the support of the Belgian Liberal
Catholics, who adopted the doctrines of Lamennais, the Catholic Church in
Belgium, after 1830, was separated from the State, but kept its privileges. The
Bishops were nominated by the Pope and chose their parish priests independently
of the Government.
The
negotiations relating to a bishopric of Luzern were wrecked by jealousies in
the Swiss Confederation and by the pretensions of oligarchical magistrates to
supervise, not only the administration of Church property, but also the education
of the clergy in the seminaries, and their correspondence with Rome. The King
of Sardinia had to overcome conscientious difficulties, before he finally
consented to meet the wishes of Geneva and to add a few parishes of the
bishopric of Chambeiy, situated in his territory, to the bishopric of Freiburg.
Every Swiss Canton legislated independently, in Church matters as in others. In
these negotiations no hierarchical pretension was in theory sacrificed to the
State. The conflicting claims tacitly survived. The Zelamti, however, brought
the serious charge against Consalvi that he was a mere opportunist, and had,
for the sake of a modm vivendi, not pressed rlgims he might have established.
The Pope was aged and infirm: the conviction of statesmen, that after him
negotiations would become still more difficult, facilitated the task of
Consalvi; and even the reactionary pontificate of Leo XII was compelled to
uphold the policy which he had inaugurated.
The era of
the Concordats was also that of the Congresses. The reactionary Powers
succeeded in subduing by military force the revolutions
in Spain,
Portugal, Naples, and Piedmont. The necessity, as Gentz put it to
Chateaubriand, of opposing the alliance of European Powers to the progress of
disorganisation and to the common danger of conspiracies, also governed
Metternich’s policy towards Rome. The position of Consalvi never proved more
difficult than during the revolution at Naples, which spread to the Papal
enclaves, Benevento and Ponte-Corvo, and threatened the Patrimony itself. The
Spanish Constitution of 1812 had been proclaimed in Naples, and had found
supporters in Rome, even among the Cardinals. The Sanfedists hoped to rid
themselves by a Counter-revolution of the system called by them the tyranny of
Consalvi. They wished to establish a constitution which recognised no other
denomination than the Roman Catholic religion. The elections were to be carried
out with religious ceremonies, and secular priests were to be eligible as
deputies. Proclamations and posters in this sense were to be seen side by side
with manifestos of the Carbonari proclaiming death to the priests and calling
for a republic. But the Austrians put the revolution down in a couple of weeks.
During this crisis, which threatened him in a twofold manner, Consalvi showed
extraordinary moderation and presence of mind.
In the States
of the Church the “sects” were so leniently treated that even murderers escaped
their just punishment. Consalvi resolutely stopped the cruel inquisitorial
methods followed by the Cardinals San Severino and Rusconi in the Romagna. He
informed Prince Metternich that order had been restored in Rome and in the
provinces. He asserted, for the Pope, the right of absolute neutrality and did
his utmost to prevent the Austrians from marching into Papal territory and
occupying Ancona; but he was unsuccessful. At Laibach and Verona the Papal
Nuncio, Cardinal Spina, upheld this policy of non-intervention, to which
Consalvi remained faithfid, even when in Spain and Portugal an anti-Roman
movement threatened schism and was supported by part of the clergy. The
convents were suppressed; some of the revenues of the Curia were curtailed and
others abolished; the Nuncio in Madrid received his passports; the Patriarchate
in Portugal was arbitrarily reduced to Metropolitan rank, and Church property
was confiscated. Nevertheless in 1823, after the French occupation of Spain,
the Curia refused to inflict ecclesiastical censures. As in 1821 with regard to
Naples, so now Consalvi unhesitatingly declared that ineffective threats would
compromise the Pope and even expose him to ridicule.
Until the
rising in Naples was put down, Pius VII refrained from renewing expressly
against the Carbonari his former condemnation of the Freemasons. When, at Troppau
in 1821, the three Powers, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, demanded of the
Italian Courts the gradual introduction of indispensable reforms, Consalvi
rejected this interference in internal affairs of the States of the Church as
incompatible with Papal
1822-4]
Deaths of Pius VII and Consalvi.
151
independence.
His own position towards his opponents would thereby have become more
difficult. He warned Mettemich that, if the Pope supported, even indirectly,
constitutional reforms in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he could not refuse
similar institutions in the States of the Church, nor could he condemn the
Spanish Constitution of 1812, which admitted no other than the Catholic
religion. Mettemich’s proposal for common action against the Revolution, and especially
for the establishing of a central committee to supervise and punish political
offences in the Italian peninsula, was rejected in 1823 at Verona, in
consequence of the combined opposition of the Papal and Tuscan Governments.
On August 21,
1823, Consalvi lost his father, friend, and master, Pius VII. Although
seriously ill himself, he attended the Pope in his last sickness. After the
customary prayers by the bedside he could not control himself, sank on his
knees, burst into tears and kissed the feet of the Pontiff. However different
the mild Pius VII, so strong in misfortune and so conciliatory in action, was
from his energetic and resolute Minister, each possessed that constancy of
purpose, kindness of heart, and devotion to duty, which left on this pontificate
a mark of grandeur, and won for its head the reverence and love of mankind.
Consalvi himself died on January 24, 1824. In his will he desired that all the
presents he had received should be sold, and the money employed to pay for the
monument of the Pope, in the church of St Peter, on which Thorwaldsen was at
work. Mettemich acknowledges that, during the most tiying moments of their long
relations, Consalvi never failed in perfect courtesy, and never betrayed a sign
of disappointment. He left this world with the sentiments of sincere piety
which had dominated his life.
Pius VII, as
well as Consalvi, was a lover of art. In the year 1822 the Bracdo Nuovo of the
Vatican Museum was opened. The excavations were continued without stint. Canova
and Thorwaldsen were favourites of the Pope. In the old convent of San Isidoro,
the German school of painters revived Christian art. Here Overbeck of Lubeck,
Pforr of Frankfort, Cornelius of Diisseldorf, Schadow, Veit, Fiihrich, and
others, led a monastic life, and lived only for art. When the brotherhood
dispersed, its members carried their tradition far and wide. There was no
literary life, but Consalvi never gave up the predilections of his youth for
classical poetry. Amongst the many foreigners who visited Rome, one of the most
distinguished was Elizabeth, Dowager-Duchess of Devonshire, a lady of great
charm and cultivation of mind, who became Consalvi’s devoted friend and ardent
admirer. Her house was the centre of the world of artists and men of letters.
The Duchess was beloved by the Romans as the benefactress of the poor, and only
survived the Cardinal by two months.
Annibale
della Genga, the new Pope of the Zelanti, was elected on
September
28,1823, against the will of Austria, and took the name of Leo XII. His
biographers relate that soon after his election, lying ill at the Quirinal, he
sent for the dying Consalvi, who, during the Conclave, had energetically
opposed his candidature. After an interview of two hours the Pope appointed
the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda, expressing his admiration for his
views, and the wish to .benefit by his advice. For this it was too late.
Cardinal della Somaglia, a man of eighty, who had coveted power for forty
years, was made Secretaiy of State. The severe, almost monastical system of Leo
XII destroyed much that Consalvi had painfully constructed.
Leo XII’s
first encyclical repudiated toleration as indifference, and censured the Bible
Societies. The secret societies were solemnly condemned in 1826. Cardinal
Rivarola, the originator of the reaction of 1814, and Legate at Ravenna,
endeavoured without legal procedure and by secret inquisitorial methods to root
out the Carboneria. In three months he condemned 508 persons. In seven cases he
pronounced sentences of death, which however were not carried out. Under the “
Precetto Politico ” 368 persons were placed under police supervision and forced
to spiritual observances. In Faenza, where it had come to open war between the
Sanfedistg and the Carbonari, Rivarola had recourse to the idea of arranging
marriages between hostile families. The people humorously called them marriages
between cats and dogs. An attempt to assassinate Rivarola, who fled to Genoa,
caused him to be replaced by the prelate Invemizzi at the head of a commission
which, by a system of paid informers, filled the prisons. Seven executions at
Ravenna and two in Rome spread terror amongst the people, who, in the
first-named city, fled into the country on the day of the executions. Invemizzi
now changed his tactics. He promised a pardon to members of the “ sects,” in'
exchange for a voluntary confession, and did not further molest the thousands
who came pouring in, but left them exposed to the suspicion and revenge of the
Sanfedists. A Spaniard, Marco y Catalan, was against his own will appointed
Governor of Rome, and even regulated worldly amusements, so that, for instance,
waltzing was forbidden. The persecution of the Jews, who were confined to the
Ghettos throughout the States of the Church, and the restriction preventing
them from buying property, induced all the rich Jews to emigrate. By means of
Motuproprios of October, 1824, and December, 1827, Leo XII abolished the organ
isation of his predecessor. The Provincial Councils were suppressed. Civil
offenders were tried by a single judge. The episcopal jurisdiction was extended
to all cases concerning ecclesiastical persons or property, blasphemy, breaches
of the commandments of the Church, or bins against the seventh Commandment. A
congregation for studies supervised the entire educational system, which was
entrusted to a great extent to the Jesuits, and paralysed initiative.
The Pope
wished to do everything by himself, and worked incessantly. He mistrusted his
officials as a class to such an extent that he instituted a Congregazione di
Vigilanza, which was to watch them and to examine the complaints made against
them. The effect was to develop a system of delation. Moreover, notwithstanding
the diminution of taxation and earnest endeavours of the Pope, the finances,
during this pontificate of five years, became more and more confused, and
Oonsalvi’s financial successes were undone. The Pope, who lived most frugally
himself, lavished money upon public works, especially upon churches and
convents, and began the rebuilding of the Basilica of St Paul without the
walls, which was destroyed by fire.
Leo XII was a
friend of ecclesiastical reform, and conferred the Cardinal’s hat on the sole
representative of such views in the Roman prelature of that time. This personage
was Giuseppe Antonio Sala, a prelate of the Dataria, who had been frequently
employed by Pius VII and Consalvi in the negotiations with France and Germany.
Sala had already outlined plans of reform under Pius VI, and at the time of the
French invasion his diary throws a lurid light on the condition of the Roman
secular clergy and of the convents. The Revolution seemed to him to be a
judgment of Heaven. “Fire and sword must be applied*” he says, “to purify the
clergy; there is no other hope.” But Sala equally hated the Jansenists, the
French, the Concordat of 1801, and regarded every attempt to adapt modem views
to the Church as an unmixed calamity. In 1800 at Venice, and again in 1815 in
Rome, he advocated ecclesiastical reforms in a Roman spirit, by strict
adherence to the decrees of Trent. At the same time he insisted on the absolute
separation between the spiritual and the temporal, terming the latter “ merely
accidental and secondary.” Sala wished to see the administration of the States
of the Church entrusted nearly exclusively to well-qualified laymen. A serious
attempt to carry out these proposals for reform was never made, but some of the
numberless measures adopted by Leo XII, and also his dislike for the prelature,
show how great the influence of Sala must in fact have been.
In matters of
foreign policy the Austrian influence now waned before the French.
Chateaubriand became French ambassador in Rome in 1828. At the same time the
Ministry of Martignac in Paris broke with the clerical reaction, and the June
Ordinances were published, which placed the small seminaries under the control
of the University, limited the number of ecclesiastical students, and prohibited
religious Orders not recognised by law, consequently also the Jesuits, from
teaching. Leo XH promulgated a Brief approving the Ordinances. In a
conversation with Chateaubriand, he reiterated that they did not injure
religious interests. He described O’Connell’s attitude as inconsiderate and
violent, and denied his assertion that a Concordat with England was pending.
Things were not ripe for that. “ Jesus Christ,”
he
added, “ never spoke of the forms of government, but simply enjoined obedience
to authority.” -
With Leo XII,
who died, hated by the people, on February 10,
1829, the attempt to force medieval conditions
upon the States of the Church did not end. Castiglione, a decrepit old man, was
elected Pope on March 31 and took the name of Pius VIII. Chateaubriand, who got
hold of the diary of a Conclavist, says that a letter of the Vicar-General of
the Jesuits—Pavani—which he thus came to know, opened his eyes. “I had thought
Pascal a calumniator, who had bequeathed us an everlasting lie. Pascal did not exaggerate.
The letter of Pavani, worthy of Escobar, deserves a place in the Provinciates.
The Society, suspected even by the Sacred College, but recently reestablished
and universally detested, nevertheless thinks itself entitled to dispose of the
tiara and to meddle in everything. Their audacity is great.” Chateaubriand,
who left Home soon after, advised the Conclave to choose a Pope suitable to the
time. In his reports he predicts the future unity of Italy and scorns the
confusion of ideas which mistook an irresistible movement for the machinations
of a handful of Jacobins. The primary cause of the decline of the Papal
Government was its financial condition. “ The taxes,” he says, “ amount to
fifty millions, and hardly leave the landowner one per cent, of his income; the
duties bring next to nothing; smuggling is universal. The Duke of Modena has
erected on his own territory a warehouse for goods subject to duty, which after
nightfall are smuggled into Bolognese territory. Italy is ripe for revolution.”
Such were his last words on the eve of the crisis of 1830.
Pius VIII and
his Secretary of State, Albani, to whom the Pope owed his election, only
governed for twenty months. Pius VIII got rid of the system of spies which his
predecessor had organised, but did not prevent Albani, who was anything but
esteemed, from strengthening the Sanfedists, and continuing irritating
political inquiries, thereby strengthening the revolutionary societies. Riots
and disorder at Cesena, Imola, Bologna, preceded the storm of 1830 in the
States of the Church. Pius VIII lived to see Catholic Emancipation in England,
and did not hesitate to recognise the July Monarchy. He died on November 30,
1830, with a last useless appeal for peace in
Italy. While the Conclave was sitting for the election of his successor, the
Roman police frustrated a plot headed by the brothers Bonaparte. With the
assistance of discontented officers, they had intended to raise the cry of “
Italy, Rome, Liberty,” and revolutionise the Eternal City. The Bonapartes fled.
On February 2,1831, Mauro Capellari, a monk and a theologian, was elected, and
took the name of Gregory XVI. He came from Belluno in the Venetian territory,
and was the author of writings defending the Papal sovereignty and
infallibility as well as the monarchical constitution of the Church. As his
Secretary of State he appointed Bemetti, who had already filled that post for a
short time under Leo XII.
On February 4
the Revolution broke out in Bologna, spreading over the Romagna, the Marches,
and even over Umbria. Papal soldiers passed over to the enemy. Hired
mercenaries perpetrated all kinds of cruelty in Rimini, Ravenna, Forli, and
Cesena. The Legate fled from Bologna, where the Italian tricolour was hoisted,
and a provisional Government appointed. The representative of the Pope,
Cardinal Benvenuti, was taken prisoner. Within a fortnight four-fifths of the
States of the Church had fallen away, and the National Congress at Bologna
openly proclaimed the object of the movement to be the unity of Italy. They
counted upon the support of France, which, however, failed completely,
Louis-Philippe having bound himself to the principle of non-intervention.
Gregory XVI demanded help from Austria, which had just suppressed the
revolution in Parma and Modena. The Austrian troops entered Bologna on March
81, and ten days afterwards the rising was suppressed.
Consalvi had
consistently rejected the interference of foreign Powers in the domestic
affairs of the Papal States. Gregory XVI had himself appealed for foreign aid
and was thus no longer able to make good any similar claim to independence. A
memorandum which was drawn up in Rome in 1831 by the ambassadors of France,
Austria, Russia, Prussia, jointly with the representative of England in
Florence, demanded an extended amnesty, laymen in the civil service, the
establishment of municipal and provincial Councils elected by the people, the
institution of a Council of State, and of a Consulta for the Finances, composed
of laymen. This was a sequel to the Motuproprio of 1816, and equally doomed to
failure. Bemetti had to pretend to accept these proposals. With the exception
of thirty-eight cases he conceded the amnesty; and on July 5 a Motuproprio of
the Pope granted a provincial and municipal representation which the Powers
considered to be sufficient. The restrictions of 1816 were adhered to. The
Government named the Councillors, Rome and the neighbourhood being excluded.
Improvements were made in the administration of justice. In the provinces the
Courts were composed of laymen, Courts of Appeal were instituted, and the
monstrous Uditore Santissimo was abolished. The Legates were still to be
ecclesiastics, but their officials were to be laymen, that is to say, members
of the prelature. However, provincial protests showed that these reforms
remained a dead letter. But the representative of England alone realised the
danger, and predicted trouble.
The
situations in the Legations very soon led to anarchy. With the exception of
Comacchio and Ferrara, the Austrians had evacuated the Papal territory in July,
1831, but in January, 1838, they were recalled by the Legate-Cardinal Albani.
Thereupon Casimir Perier, the energetic Minister of Louis-Philippe, issued a
proclamation to the inhabitants of the rebellious little seaport of Ancona,
whither he sent a French fleet. France, he said, had come to support the cause
of the people against despotism, and to resist the encroachments of Austria.
With the
support of
the Liberal Government in England* against the will of the Continental Powers,
French troops landed in Ancona, where they remained till 1838. Metternich
termed this intervention a violation of international law, Lord Palmerston
defended it, and, finally, the Papal Government itself had to submit. The
assassination of the Papal Governor of Ancona, the rallying-place of the
Liberals, induced Gregory XVI to put the town under an interdict; and the
attitude of France changed after Perier’s death, on May 16. The French troops
drove the Liberals out of the city and helped to restore the Papal authorities.
Bemetti, supported by Metternich, refused all further reforms with the
explaration that they could only be granted by a Government which was perfectly
free. For his defence the Pope counted on his 5000 mercenaries, mostly Swiss, and
on the voluntary militia which, under the name of Centurions, were employed by
Bemetti in the Romagna in preference to regular troops. These dreaded forces of
the Sanfedists, which nominally cost nothing, were maintained at the expense of
the Liberals, and exercised a reign of terror which d’Azeglio has called a
disgrace to mankind and to religion. In the exceptional tribunals, which had
been constituted, the same persons acted as accusers and judges. Tho
proceedings were secret. Repression was the policy of the Government and became
more accentuated when Gregory XVI dismissed Bemetti in 1836 and appointed the
Genoese, Lambruschini, Secretary of State. Even the Pope had to bow to the
despotic will of the new Minister.
Matters were
so far settled that at the termination of the Austrian occupation in 1838 the
Papal administration was restored in the Legations under the rule of
Cardinal-Legates, who, like Amat and Grimaldi at Ravenna and Forli, did their
utmost to lighten the burden of the system. One rising, at Viterbo, was
suppressed with inexorable severity by the Delegate Antonelli, the future
Secretary of State of Pius IX. The apparent restoration of order, which enabled
the Pope to travel through the Marches, proved delusive. In 1843 bodies of
freebooters gathered in the Romagna. Mastai, Bishop of Imola, and two
Cardinals, who happened to be with him, were very nearly taken prisoners by
Ribotti, a leader of these bands. Ribotti escaped. The severe Legate Spinola
was superseded by the still sterner Cardinal Vannicelli. In May, 1844, seven
sentenceis of death were carried out; and his rule was so inflexible that the
Cardinal-Legates Amat in Ravenna and Gizzi in Forli helped the victims of his
Courts-martial to fly, and protested against proceedings which could have no
effect in pacify ig the country. The insurgents addressed from Rimini in 1845
an appeal to the Papal Government, praying once more in moderate language for
the redress of grievances impossible to bear. They demanded a general amnesty
and a new civil and penal code, abolition of confiscation of landed property
and of sentence of death for crimes of treason, emancipation of
laymen from
ecclesiastical jurisdiction and from the Inquisition in matters of faith; the
trial of political offences by ordinary Courts; election for municipal Councils
subject to the ratification of the Pope. The municipal Councils were to
propose candidates for the provincial Councils; these in their turn to nominate
for the Council of State. But the three Assemblies were to have merely
consultative functions. The petitioners further demanded the right of financial
control, and admission to the civil service for laymen who did not belong to
the prelature. Public education, with the exception of religious instruction,
was to be removed from the control of the Bishops and clergy; the Preventive
Censure on publications was not to be abolished, only restricted. Foreign
troops were to be disbanded, and a national guard formed. Reforms, such as the
experience of well regulated States might show to be beneficial and adapted to
the spirit of the age, should be gradually introduced.
The document
was drawn up by Farini, who became-afterwards the Minister of Pius IX. On many
points it was in harmony with the Motuproprio of 1816 and the reform projects
of 1831. This statement of claims gives a truer picture than any elaborate
description of the condition of the Papal States under Gregory XVI. But we may
add that in 1846, the year of the Pope’s death, the annual deficit amounted to
900,000 scudi. The National Debt had risen by 26,000,000. The “ Protest of
Rimini ” against the blind fanatical party which had captured the Pope was
addressed in the name of the Roman population to the Princes and the people of
Europe, and was read all over Italy. Lambruschini, who once more succeeded in
suppressing the rising, disclaimed in a special pamphlet the intention of
yielding in any way to the Revolution. The secular Government remained
unchanged, committed to a policy of repression, filling the prisons, setting up
permanent Courts- martial, and, in the last resort, counting upon the support
of Austria.
The spiritual
authority of the Pontiff, however, had in this period to deal with questions in
comparison with which the interests of the threatened Temporal Power appeared
comparatively unimportant. In the early twenties of the nineteenth century
religious views within the Catholic Church took a turn which produced modem
Ultramontanism. The new tendencies stood in direct contradiction to those of
the eighteenth century, to the Jansenist movement and the Febronian ideas which
succeeded it.
Since the
rule of Fleury, Jansenism was dead in France. Individual Jansenists survived
for a long time in private life, under the sting of affliction, in several
bishoprics and universities. In Louvain, whence Jansenism had started, Quesnel
was supported. Van Espen taught there, and his disciple, Nicolas von Hontheim,
wrote under the name of Febromus. Hontheim, who was Coadjutor of Trier, and an
excellent man, endeavoured, under the influence of Gallican doctrines, to
create a
158 Febronius.—The Punctations of Ems. [i763-86
German
national ecclesiastical law. He started, in his work, De statu ecclesiae et de
legitimapotestate Roma/ni pontificis (1763), from the assumption that Papal
authority, chiefly owing to the forged Decretals, had exceeded its original
limits, had been changed into monarchical rule, and should be restored to its
original position as it existed in the eight first centuries of the Church. The
Papal monarchy should be replaced by an episcopal government. The Pope was to
keep the first place among Bishops; his Primacy was to be maintained for the
preservation of the unity of the Church. But Christ was the sole Monarch of the
Church, guiding her through the Holy Ghost, saving her from error. The infallibility
of the Church was, however, not an infallibilitas revelationis, but
directionis; and, on this basis, an understanding between Catholics and
Protestants, Hontheim’s chief object, could be arrived at. For this practical
end he recommended the instruction of the people, the convocation of a
National Council, the introduction of National Synods. An assembly of Catholic
Princes and Bishops of Germany should be called together and a Statute finally
limiting the power of the Primacy should be issued. The placetum regiurn and
the appellatio ab abusu were to be the legal barriers erected against the
encroachments of the Curia.
Febronius
was read in all Catholic countries, attacked and defended, and finally
condemned by Clement XIII in 1764. The author retracted in 1778, at the
imperious demand of Pius VI. The retractation was ambiguous; but Hontheim died
in 1790, at peace with Home. He had lived to see the four Archbishops of Trier,
Mainz, Cologne, and Salzburg draw up at the Congress of Ems, in 1786, 23
articles which, in a Febronian spirit, regulated and partly transformed the
position of the German Metropolitan Churches towards Rome. Should the Pope not
accept the “ Punctations of Ems ” within two years, a German National Council
was to be summoned, so as to assure their application.
Joseph II,
who himself desired the establishment of a national Church placing the
episcopate and the clergy under the tutelage of the State, when called upon by
the four German Archbishops to carry out the resolutions of Ems, expressed his
entire agreement, on condition, however, that the Bishops should previously be
brought to concur. This was never accomplished. The subjection to Papal control
was in reality a guarantee of independence for these Bishops and for the high
ecclesiastical dignitaries in the Empire. They were afraid of losing it, should
they be submitted to the strict rule of the Metropolitan authorities or to that
of the State, as was the case in Austria. Their opposition, and the doubtful
attitude of the Electors of Mainz and Trier, who negotiated privately with the
Curia, shattered the plan for the organisation of the German Church even before
the death of Joseph II. On the eve of the Revolution, a reform introduced by ecclesiastical
Princes who ruled in accordance with the principles of the Aufkl'arung, and of
whom not one showed intellectual superiority or dignity of life, was an
anachronism.
As Nuncio at
Cologne, Pacca had tried to obstruct in every possible way a movement which he
termed a conspiracy against the Church. He himself and his followers
indiscriminately ascribed it to the Jansenists, the Gallicans, the
Philosophers, the Freemasons. He denounced Febronius as an infamous book; he
accused Pius VI of neglecting the duties of his supreme office, because he
hesitated until 1789, before he threatened the four Archbishops with censure,
with the reservation that innovations in Church discipline should really be
intended. But it cannot be denied that Hontheim, Gerhard van Swieten, and the
priests and theologians of their school, supported many things which the
Jansenists of the days of the Abbe de Saint-Cyran and Pascal would have
emphatically condemned as the very root of the evil against which they had
raised the standard of religious reform. Nevertheless Jansenism was held
chiefly responsible for the National Church movement.
After the
eighteenth century, all the reactionary powers of the Church were arrayed
against the Jansenist and Febronian doctrines. This opposition became a system
after the Restoration had become an accomplished fact in continental Europe. It
had been preceded by the Romantic movement, an intellectual phase which made
for peace in the religious strife. The reaction of sentiment against the exclusive
and dry ideals of eighteenth century logic, the love of the past, the revival
of the science of history, were so many elements favourable to Catholicism. In
the domain of religion Romanticism checked controversy. The struggle against
unbelief inclined all Christians to place common faith above merely
denominational differences. The Breton Chateaubriand, who knew no other creed
than the Roman Catholic, nevertheless called the book which inaugurated French
Romanticism The Genius of Christianity. In the whole work there is only oue
passing allusion to the Papacy. When 25 years later Chateaubriand reiterated
his confession of faith, it sounded like a protest, which Romanticism would
have endorsed, against the aggressive attitude of an altered time: “I belong to
the general community of all mankind, who since the creation of the world have
prayed to God. Independent of all powers except Him, I am a Christian, without
ignoring my weaknesses, without thinking myself better than other men, without
being a persecutor, an inquisitor, an informer, without wishing to accuse my
brother or to calumniate my neighbour. I am not a sceptic, disguised as a
Christian, who considers religion a useful means of compulsion for the people.
I explain the Gospel, not in the interest of despotism, but as a comfort for
the sorrowing....Those who nowadays would bind the Catholic religion to a
particular form of government, and place her in opposition to science and
progress, severing her from society as it now stands, would drive nations
towards Protestantism instead of realising that this Catholic religion is the
highest order, the very essence of reason, is, in fact, light itself.”
The same
views Inspired the German Romantics. Their greatest poet, Novaliss, was a
Catholic in feeling* died a Protestant, and directed the hope of the future
towards an eternal ineffable commtinityj a living Christianity. Their greatest
convert) Friedrich Leopold Stolberg, never reviled the faith he abandoned, and
mentions Bdssuet’s eirenical Exposition de la Foi Catholique as the book
whicih decided his return to the old Church. Their greatest political writer,
Joseph Goflrfis, raised himself to the rank of a “European Power,” not ouly
because he attacked Napoleon, but because he represented the cause of nationality
and liberty against absolutism. Romanticism became hostile to the Governments,
when in Europe the Restoration became identified with the reaction.
The
Restoration required a theory strong enough to justify its existence. It was
provided before the Counter-revolution began. Its expounders were laymen who
had been driven by the excesses of the Revolution into unrelenting hostility to
modem methods of government. De Maistre, the greatest of these reactionaries,
called the Revolution diabolical; “the Counter-reVolution,” he says, “is
nothing if not Divine/’
Chronologically,
Karl Ludwig von Haller, the Swiss convert and a jurist, was one of the first
representatives of the new political philosophy. His work, The Restoration of
Political Science, was directed against tne doctrines of the Conttat Social.
According to Haller, the State is a society of persons whose individual
requirements produce general laws. These rest on the necessity for help and
protection, which can only be accorded by an authority provided with adequate
force. The sovereign is only bound by Divine and natural laws. The obedience of
the subject is limited by the reciprocal demands of order and liberty.
Opposition to authority may be legitimate, but is rarely advisable. Division of
powers, representation of the people, and “paper constitutions4’ are
discarded. State Assemblies are restricted to the right of suggestion. The
possession of power, even in republics, is hot a mere chance, or a simple fact.
It is the consequence of the government of the world, and every sovereign rules
“by the Grace of God.” The chief object of* the ecclesiastical State is not to
promote justice or well-being, but to inform doctrine. A community of the
faithful requires a Church, and a Church must have a hierarchy. Its maintenance
necessitates landed property and temporal power. In dangerous times ecumenical
Councils are recOmmended, but placed under the authority of the Head of the
Church on earth. The liberty and welfare of individuals is subordinate to doctrine.
The
publication of Haller's book in 1816 was regarded as a political event. The
Vicomte de Bonald had taught similar theories so early as 1*796. He is the
advocate of the alliance between the throne and the altar, of the religious and
monarchical sovereignty, according to the patriarchal ordinance of the family.
All cognition is dependent on
revelation.
Man has not the right to substitute his own understanding for the general
reason, which is the gift of God and the source of the traditions preserved and
handed on by the spiritual authority. Absolute government is best in the State
as well as in the Church. Its support is the nobility, which has set an example
of self-sacrifice and of strict obedience to duty, in contrast to the modem
craving for enjoyment, luxury, and gain. The maintenance of primogeniture, the
direction of education by the Church, the abolition of the French Charter, “ a
work of madness and darkness,” the indissolubility of marriage, are conditions
laid down by Bonald for the success of the Counter-revolution.
In such
theories a far more powerful mind, the Savoyard Count Joseph de Maistre,
greeted the expression of his own views. From 1802 until 1817 he represented at
the Court of St Petersburg his landless King, who did not understand him, and
left him in want. During these years he wrote Du Pape, De TJtglise Gallicane,
Les Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg, which have furnished modem Ultramontanism
with its general stock of ideas and doctrines. Already, in 1815, de Maistre
maintained that, outside his system, the defence of Christianity was
impossible. According to him the origin of political institutions is not human
but Divine. Generations, past, present, and future, form a whole. A nation is
not a chance result but a living organism. Individual reason may err, but the
general reason of mankind is infallible. It is entrusted with a treasure of
tradition, of Divine origin, which corroborates Christian truth. Sovereignty,
whatever name it may assume, comes from God, and its essence is to be not
despotic but absolute. It is based, not on human law, but on the unfathomable
will of God. Legitimate kings are His delegates and for that very reason
subject in spiritual matters to the representative of spiritual sovereignty—the
Pope. There is only one true Church, and that is the Catholic. The Pope is its
absolute and infallible head. It is not a mistake but a folly to place a
Council above a Pope, for without him all decisions are null and void; the duty
of obedience is the first duty of all. The originators of rebellion and of
revolution alike are the Protestants and their kinsmen the Jansenists, in
second line the Gallicans. Perhaps, says de Maistre, we laymen shall be able to
provide the Pope with weapons which may prove all the more useful, because they
were forged in the rebel camp. De Maistre hardly overrated his powers. He
possessed the mind and the wit of Voltaire as well as a splendid eloquence,
capable of every form of expression. He was philosophically trained, and read
Plato, Bacon, Malthus, Kant, in their own tongue, as well as the Mystics and
the Fathers of the Church. He used and misused history for his own ends, as one
who knew it well. He did not live to witness the triumph of that regenerated
religion, which he had preached, and which according to him was only another
name for the restored theocracy. His book Du Pape was the only one which he
himself published, before his death in 1821. The
mantle of the
Prophet fell from his shoulders on those of an eloquent priest, Felicite de
Lamennais, the greatest talent of the French Church since Massillon.
He too had
begun his literary career with an attack on the Gallicans, on the Jansenists,
and on the Organic Articles. In 1817, in his thirty- fourth year, he
reluctantly entered the sacred ministry. Between 1817 and 1823 there followed
the several volumes of his Essai sur VIndifference en matiere de Religion.
Indifference, according to him, is the culpable equalisation of Error and
Truth, the root of all the evil of the day. “What is truth, Monsieur l’Abbe?”
de Maistre had asked; “the only One who could have given an answer did not
choose to do so.” Lamennais retorts: “ Man has in his unstable intelligence no
infallible test for truth. He has to search for it outside himself in the
sensus communis, that is in those general postulates on which nearly all men
agree. The confidence in the authority of that judgment is not accidental or
changeable; it is innate in our nature. The question is not to prove its
infallibility. It is sufficient to appeal to the fact that such an authority
exists because it is impossible to reach beyond it. Now, all truths
indispensable to mankind have originally been revealed by God, preserved by
tradition, and safeguarded by the authority which is evolved by the general consent
of mankind. Finally, they developed into Christianity, are set before us in the
Catholic Church, and are embodied in her Head. Through the Pope alone
individual reason receives the truth. All authority, all temporal power and
sovereignty, are founded on him. He decides the problems of science, the fate
of States, he is the living tradition of mankind.” The final appeal to mankind
is the key to Lamennais’ system. When Monarchy and Papacy had failed him, he
turned to the people, to Democracy.
The struggle
lasted ten years. Even Charles X opposed the demand of Bonald, of Lamennais,
and of the posthumous works of de Maistre, that he should adapt his government
to Theocracy. At the moment when 15,000 ecclesiastical posts were vacant,
Lamennais suggested that all education should be entrusted to the clergy, and
declared the University, at the head of which was a mild and sensible Bishop,
to be a hotbed of atheism. Consequently, in 1826, nearly all the Bishops and
Archbishops of France united in defence of the rights and principles of the
Gallican Church, continually attacked and insulted by Lamennais. When the
Ministry of Martignac, with the consent of Rome, determined to close
educational establishments directed by the Jesuits or by other non-authorised
congregations, the breach between Lamennais and the Monarchy was completed.
With the work entitled Des progrtts de la Rivolution et de la guerre contre
VltgUse (1829) he openly joined the opposition. He predicted the collapse of
the existing order of things and claimed, in the name of Catholics, liberty of
the Press, of consciencc, and of education.
He did not
attempt to explain the suddenness of the change. He wrote that liberty, which
had been claimed by atheism, was henceforward to be demanded in the name of God.
He welcomed the Revolution of 1830 as the beginning of the liberation of the
Church from the tyranny of the State. Separation from the State was the
condition of salvation and the design of Providence. With the aid of the rising
generation, of Lacordaire, of Charles de Montalembert, and encouraged by the
Revolution in Belgium, and by Catholic Emancipation in England, Lamennais
founded the newspaper VAvenir. It welcomed all revolutions, those already
accomplished, and those yet to come. It advocated liberty of conscience,
revision of the Concordat, and suppression of the Budget des Cultes. The
Catholic democracy was bound to accept the entire Catholic doctrine and the
absolute power of the Pope, to whom the prerogatives of the Bishops were
unconditionally surrendered. The revised Constitution of 1830 guaranteed
freedom of education: the young collaborators of Lamennais grasped the occasion
and formed the Agence Catholique. A year had not passed before they had
exhausted the patience of the Government, which they pressed to intervene in
Poland, as well as that of the episcopate, which they continually charged with
being indifferent and devoid of principle. An episcopal petition asked in 1831
for the interference of Rome. At the same time, the proclamation of the
theories of VAvenir coincided with risings in Italy. Lacordaire, who always
remained an advocate of Italian unity, did not deny to the subjects of the Pope
the right to regulate their own destinies: “a free spot on earth,” so he wrote
in L’Avenir, “will always be found for the Pope.” Pressed by the disapproval of
the episcopate and by the interference of the Government, the contributors to
VAvenir now likewise appealed to Rome. Already, in 1820, Lamennais, addressing
himself to de Maistre, had deplored the hesitations of the Holy See, which
would not realise that the traditional methods had become inadequate, and
failed to comprehend de Maistre’s splendid defence of the Papal Power. De
Maistre, agreeing with Lamennais, answered that he felt ashamed of Catholicism,
that he based greater hopes on England than, for instance, on Austria or on
other countries, where the truth was permitted to decay. De Maistre was dead
when, in 1824, Leo XII received Lamennais at the Vatican. The idea of conferring
the Cardinalate upon him was given up, owing to distrust of his doctrine on the
part of Roman theologians.
Lamennais,
together with Lacordaire and Montalembert, returned to Rome in 1831, with a
promise of entire submission to the decision of the Pope. Gregory XVI was
reigning. Threatened by the Revo* lution, pressed by the Powers to concede
reform, supported only by foreign bayonets, he refused then and later to alter
his system of government. The supposition that he would foster an alliance
between the Church and Democracy as suggested by Lamennais was inconceivable.
Nevertheless
the Pope hesitated to pronounce judgment. Lacordaire was the first to see the
hopelessness of the cause. He left his friends, returned to France, and soon
afterwards entered the Dominican Order. On his way from Rome, at Munich, where
he was welcomed by the survivors of German Catholic Romanticism as the champion
of the Church, Lamennais received the crushing intelligence of Roman disapproval.
The Encyclical Mirari vos of the month of August, 1832, condemned liberty of
conscience, of religious worship, freedom of the Press, separation of Church
and State, “and other hateful errors— deliramenta—of those, who, possessed by
an undue love for liberty, did their utmost to undermine authority.” Not a
stone remained in its place of the edifices constructed by VAvenir. The Papacy,
whose unlimited authority de Maistre and Lamennais had proclaimed, and which
the latter sought to separate from the Governments and to place at the head of
nations, utterly failed him. It adhered to the powers that be, condemned the
Revolution in Poland in exchange for Russian intervention in favour of the
Temporal Power, and placed the gospel of democracy under a ban. Lamennais had
left Rome with the impression that it was “ la plus hideuse cloaque qui ait
jamais souille Tceil humam." He had always been a fanatic at heart, a
solitary, melancholy, and, to those who knew him well, a gentle, dreamer.
Without historical training, or a true notion of the essence of religion, in
the violent tension of subdued passion, with an erroneous view of the world,
surrounded with the pathos of splendid rhetoric, Lamennais reduced the
religious problem to a mere question of power. The theocrat of 1820 had raised
misgivings even in the mind of de Maistre, when he demanded the abdication of
the State before the one ruling Church. Lamennais, after having thrown the
monarchy overboard, attacked the entire episcopate and the traditions of ages,
out of which the French Church had grown, because they constituted an obstacle
to ecclesiastical absolutism. There remained the Pope. He called on the Pope to
place himself at the head of democracy, and to establish a new order of things
on the ruins of present institutions.
Gregory XVI
was not a man of remarkable intelligence, and his reign prepared the downfall
of the Temporal Power. But he very rightly remarked to Montalembert in 1837,
referring to Lamennais, “This Abbe wanted to give me a power” (the Pope
extended his arms) “—a power with which I should not have known what to do.”
His successor, Pius IX, arrived at a different conclusion. The Council of 1870
became, in the history of the Church, a posthumous triumph of the Lamennais of
1820.
The formation
of a Catholic party likewise dated from him. The short existence of VAvenir had
been sufficient to show the value of a Catholic combative press and
organisation in the struggle of the hour. Not one of his disciples followed him
in his breach with Rome. They
did not,
however, lay down the weapon which he had placed in their hands. Montalembert,
Lacordaire, and their friends, inaugurated the struggle for freedom of
education on the grounds of constitutional rights. They were called “ Liberal
Catholics,” because they understood how to make the requirements of the modem
State serve their purpose, and marched to victory with the watchword, “Equal
rights for all”; but their religious doctrine remained Ultramontane. Their
example was followed in Germany, when the Prussian Government in 1837 had
become involved in a quarrel with the Archbishops of Cologne and Posen
concerning mixed marriages. In the contest between State rights and
ecclesiastical law Prussia resorted to violent measures, which threatened the
religious peace of the German Catholics. Gorres, whose national aspirations
based on the mission of Prussia in Germany were shattered, passed into the
ecclesiastical camp. His Athanasius opened the attack on the ill-advised
Government, which had to give way. The “Kolner Wirrenv‘ led to
the lasting formation of a German Catholic political party. Its logical
development caused it, as had been the case in France, to accentuate Roman in
contrast to nationalist tendencies, and to support the temporal power of the
Papacy. Owing to this change, religious interests were subordinated to
political exigencies, and Catholics who under these conditions refused to join
the party were exposed to seeing their orthodoxy disputed. Long before these
results became apparent, when the Catholic cause was still upheld by a close
union among its representatives, the Papacy was confronted with another
necessity—that of coming to terms with the Italians.
The Catholic
Risorgimento became a force to be taken into account. This movement takes its
rise from Napoleon’s creation of an Italian kingdom. However incomplete the
plan may have been, it yet suggested to the Italians the idea of unity, and
foreshadowed its realisation by the grant of a constitution, a code, a civil
service, and an army. At Elba, in 1814, the idea of placing himself at the head
of an United Italian State was not uncongenial to Napoleon. It was taken up in
1815 by Murat. Pellegrino Rossi, the future Minister of Pius IX in his Liberal
days, signed on April 4,1815, as Commissioner-General of the King of Naples, a
proclamation calling on the Italians to fight for their independence. Murat’s
declaration of war against Austria, and his fall, simplified the task which
Mettemich had in view.
Through
Austrian influence, under the rule of the reinstated dynasties, Italy actually
fell under foreign domination. No one more fully realised for Italy the
consequences of the Congress of Vienna than de Maistre. In 1814 he clearly
foresaw that the division of Italian territories would necessarily lead to war.
“ Beware of the Italian spirit,” he wrote from St Petersburg to Turin. “ The
King of Sardinia must put himself at the head of the Italians. Should he become
an obstacle, the hated Austria would take his place.” De Maistre described the
House
106
The Italian Romantics.—Gioberti.
[i8i5-46
of Savoy as
greater than its dominions. He claimed Venice for it, and suggested the aid of
France, “because she never succeeded in keeping her conquests.” In these
exhortations no mention was made of the Papacy. The monarchy was warned not to
attempt the impossible, not to cling to the past, but to prepare for the
future.
The foresight
of the politician was heralded by Italian Romanticism. In addition to the
writings described in an earlier chapter, the Innl Saeri of Alessandro Manzoni,
published in 1815, may be mentioned. With the Promessi Sposi, published in
1827, the same author presented his nation and the world with a nearly
faultless masterpiece. He exalted the mission of poetry to the ideal task of
preparing the moral resurrection of a people. After struggles of doubt Manzoni
had been won back to Christianity by the writings of Port-Royal and of Pascal.
The unity of faith in Italy permitted the religious philosopher to lay almost
exclusive stress on ethics. In politics he equally disapproved of violent
measures and of conspiracies. His immense authority was opposed to Mazzini, who
supported both; and later on it weighed heavily in the scale in favour of a
united monarchical State.
In marked
contrast to the moderation of Manzoni, the Piedmontese, Vincenzo Gioberti, a
priest and philosopher, next entered the lists in 1843 with the publication of
the Primato Morale e Civile degli ItaUani, followed two years later by the
still more important Prolegomeni al Primato. Gioberti wrote in exile, at
Brussels, and his fantastic outpourings gave rise to the question whether the
author ever believed in his own dream or whether his object had been to delude
the Papacy as to the real significance of the movement. In any case, after the
appearance of the Primato the idea of Italian unity, up to then represented by
Mazzini, became embodied in Gioberti. The Primato, which this work proclaims,
is that of Italy. The Papacy, the seat of Catholicism, the guardian of
civilisation, had secured for the Italian people the first rank amongst
nations. Not by violence and revolution, but by a return to the Guelf policy of
Julius II—not by centralisation, but by a confederacy—could the unity of Italy
be obtained without foreign help. The Papacy was not an impediment to that
unity, but rather its necessary condition. The present weakness of Italy was
due not to the Governments or to the clergy, but to the decline of literature,
to the laziness and mediocrity of the higher classes. The vision of Gioberti
was the resurrection of Italy, by means of a primacy in science and in art
founded upon religion. The Pope was to be not only the head of the universal
Church, but also the head of the Italian League. He was by right the paternal
arbiter and peace-maker of Europe, the spiritual father of mankind, the
protector of the Latin race, and the heir of the Imperium.
The Jesuits
realised the danger of these views and attacked Gioberti, who replied in his
Prolegomeni, and later in the Gesuita modemo. In
1843-6] Cesare Balbo.—Massimo d Azeglio.
1G7
the
Prolegomeni he termed the suppression of the Society of Jesus just and
opportune, and accused it, though less vehemently than in 1847 and in the
Gesuita moderno, of having destroyed the ancient discipline, the hierarchical
order in the Church, and thereby wrought inextricable confusion in the minds of
men. He spoke in absolute contrast with de Maistre, who advised the Papacy to
use “its Janissaries,” because a sect, like the Freemasons, could only be
opposed by a corporation, such as the Jesuits, and because the doctrine of the
Jesuits was essentially the Catholic doctrine.
Gioberti’s
view was, curiously enough, not unsympathetic to Gregory XVI. Neither he
himself, a Camaldolese monk, nor his Secretary of State, the Bamabite monk
Lambruschini, were friends of the Jesuits. Theiner, the learned German
theologian, was commissioned by Gregory XVI to justify the suppression of the
Order, with the aid of the material contained in the Papal archives. Pellegrino
Rossi, who, in 1845, was appointed by Guizot French ambassador to the Holy See,
encountered few difficulties, when, notwithstanding the opposition of the
French Catholic party, he obtained the promise of the suppression of the
Jesuits in France. The promise was rendered nugatory by the passive resistance
of the Society itself, which rightly counted on the future victory of the
French Ultramontanes. This victory was won after the fall of Louis- Philippe,
in the days of Pius IX.
In the year
1843 another Piedmontese, Count Cesare Balbo, attempted to deal with similar
questions. The Speranze d"1 Italia were dedicated to
Gioberti, but the sober-minded political thinker banished the Primato into the
realm of dreams. Balbo’s chief problem was how the liberation of Italy from
foreign rule was to be effected. The twofold position of the Popes and their
consequent relations to Catholic Christendom disqualified them to lead a
movement, whose object was independence. For its realisation Balbo counted on
political eventualities. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the ambitious
plans of Russia, pointed to an Austrian mission in the near East, and
compensation on the Danube for the provinces lost in Italy. Until such an
occasion arose, Balbo recommended a Lombard Federation, headed by Piedmont. He
discountenanced revolutionary methods or appeals for foreign assistance. He
advocated a moderate policy, and directed the efforts of his countrymen to the
elevation of the moral standard, an increase of culture, and an improvement of
internal conditions.
Massimo
d’Azeglio, Manzoni’s son-in-law, in his Ultimi casi di Romagna, which appeared
in 1846, spoke with reverence of Catholicism and of its head, but ruthlessly
exposed all the consequences of Papal misrule, principally in the Romagna. He
showed the arrogance and incapacity of the Delegates, the arbitrariness of the
administration, the chaotic proceedings of the Courts of law, and the impotence
of the supreme authority in Rome. D’Azeglio speaks as an eyewitness,
like the
Bolognese Marco Minghetti, who corroborates his facts. The Precetto Politico di
Prima Classe was in force against all those who were not actually condemned,
but merely suspected. Whoever came under this edict of police was not allowed
to leave his residence, had to be at home at certain hours, to report himself once
a fortnight to the police inspector, to go to confession every month, and show
his certificate of confession to the police. Finally, he had to submit once a
year to three days of spiritual exercises in a convent selected by his Bishop.
Whoever did not keep these rules was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude.
This Precetto Politico caused the condemnation on one occasion, in the Romagna
alone, of 229 persons.
In 1832 was
published a plan of reform, drawn up by the most learned priest in Italy, the Catholic
philosopher and founder of an Order, Antonio Rosmini. Some of the ideas of Sala
can be traced in Rosmini’s Cinque Piaghe della Santa Chiesa His proposals of
reform are an energetic protest against the worldliness of the Church and the
decay of the priestly ideal. Sala had advocated the separation of the spiritual
from the temporal domain. Rosmini recommended the participation of the laity in
the elections of Bishops and parish priests, reform of the education of the
clergy, and, if not a total separation between Church and State, at least the
greatest possible independence for the Church, and renunciation of earthly
advantages. By acknowledging the constitutional system in an Italian
Confederation, Rosmini still thought it possible to preserve the Temporal Power
and to secure the primacy for the Pope amongst the Italian Princes.
Fully
recognising that his system was crumbling away, and that a younger generation
would have to deal with altered conditions, Gregory XVI died on July 1, 1846.
The ardent longing of Rosmini and of his friends for reform in Church and
State, the national aspirations of the Italian patriots for unity, liberty, and
independence, the hopes of the world, centred on the new wearer of the Tiara.
An
astonishingly short Conclave, the shortest held for three hundred years,
resulted in the election of the Bishop of Imola, Cardinal Count Giovanni Maria
Mastai-Ferretti, who ascended the Chair of St Peter as Pius IX. He was only
fifty-four years of age, and known to be pious, kind-hearted, and of a bright,
genial disposition. It was rumoured that he was a student of the works of
Gioberti, Balbo, and d’ Azeglio. The most tragical pontificate of modem times
opened with a generous amnesty. It was welcomed with boundless hope, and
Italians cherished the belief that the dream of the Middle Ages was realised,
and that at last they witnessed the advent of H Papa Angelico.
GREECE AND
THE BALKAN PENINSULA.
The Treaty of Bucharest, concluded on May
28,1812, between the Russian Emperor and the Ottoman Sultan, marks an important
epoch in the development of what was to become known, a few years later, as the
Eastern Question. By this instrument the Russian frontier was advanced to the
Pruth and to the northern, or Kilia, branch of the Danube. More significant
still, the claim of Russia to interfere between the Sultan and his Christian
subjects, foreshadowed in the Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji of 1774, received a
new sanction in the fifth article, which confirmed “ the contracts and
conventions which had been counted among the privileges of Moldavia,” and in
the eighth article, which stipulated for certain concessions to the insurgent
Servians. Whatever the views of the Powers interested in setting bounds to the
southward advance of Russia, the times were not propitious for any active
protest against an arrangement which, for years to come, was to make Moldavia
and Wallachia practically Russian provinces, and set the seal on claims which,
sooner or later, would lead to further encroachments of the Orthodox empire on
the Turkish power.
The Eastern
Question, during the next fateful years, was obscured by the vaster issues
raised by the titanic struggle which ended in the downfall of Napoleon. The
Emperor Alexander I, moreover, had been placed by the outcome of the Moscow
campaign in the van of united Europe; and, whatever the suspicions that might
be entertained of his ultimate designs in the East, the supreme necessity of
maintaining an unbroken front against the common revolutionary enemy served for
many years to prevent these suspicions from finding open expression. The perils
involved in the probable break-up of the Ottoman empire were, indeed, fully
appreciated by statesmen. For Great Britain, anxious for the security of her
Mediterranean power and of the trade-routes to India, the integrity of that
empire had long been a political axiom; and Napoleon’s dreams of Eastern
conquest, which at Tilsit he had shared with Alexander, had, in spite of the
vast spaces dividing the Tsar’s frontiers from those of the British flag,
already begun to inspire in
English
statesmen that fear of Russian designs upon India which was to become the main
inspiration of the policy of Great Britain towards the Muscovite empire.
Austria too, formerly the protagonist of Europe against the Turk, had changed
her attitude under the menace of Russia’s advance upon her flank. Nothing but
her weakness would have suffered her to tolerate the virtual annexation of the
Danubian principalities, which not only placed in the Tsar’s keeping the key to
the great waterway by which German commerce found its way to the Black Sea,
but was regarded as only the first stage in an advance which would carry the
Orthodox armies to the shores of the Bosphorus, absorbing the Slav population
of the Balkan peninsula, and threatening with dissolution, if only by the force
of racial and religious attraction, the loosely-knit monarchy of the Habsburgs.
Nowhere was Mettemich’s policy of propping up mouldering institutions more
necessary to Austria than in the Ottoman empire.
Apart even
from the menace of Russia, the prospect of maintaining the integrity of Turkey
seemed remote enough, and every sign pointed to its impending dissolution.
Unlike the barbarian invaders of the Western empire, the Ottomans had never
been absorbed in, or succeeded in absorbing, the peoples they had conquered;
and their rule in Europe had continued to be what it was in the beginning, that
of an alien invader encamped upon foreign soil. Moreover, between conquerors
and conquered there were no avenues of sympathy, for between them lay the
impenetrable barrier of creed. Islam was the code of the Ottoman State; but
within this code there was no place for the unbeliever; and the conqueror of
Constantinople had found in the Orthodox Church a convenient machinery for
governing the mass of the subject populations whom his arms had failed to
convert. Two theocracies, mutually contemptuous and exclusive, were thus
established within the State; and the rival religions became the symbols of
conflicting interests and ideals in every relation of life. To the Mussulman,
his creed was the source and justification of his conscious preeminence; to the
Greek, Orthodoxy was the palladium of his national existence, and, since the
shadow of the advance of Holy Russia had fallen upon the Ottoman empire, the
sheet-anchor of his hopes and ambitions. Moreover, though this Christian State
within the State was endowed with extensive privileges, it possessed, as
against Islam, no rights. The Patriarch of Constantinople, as the responsible
organ of the Sultan for the government of the Orthodox Church both in spiritual
and temporal matters, exercised a wider power than he had enjoyed under the
Byzantine Caesars; but his relation to the Sultan was, none the less, that of a
slave. The same was true, in various degrees, of every Christian raiyah. From
the contemptuous tolerance of his conquerors he had obtained a greater measure
of liberty than that enjoyed by dissidents in any other country in Europe.
Catholics in Ireland and Protestants in Austria might envy
171
him his
privileges. He was free to exercise his religion, to educate himself as he
pleased, to accumulate wealth; however humble his origin, in a system which
accounted nothing of birth, he could hold high office in the Government, become
dragoman to the Porte, or voyvode of a province, and be addressed by the Sultan
himself as “ Illustrious Prince.” Yet he remained essentially a slave, liable
at any moment, by some caprice of greed or suspicion on the part of his master,
to be hurled from wealth and power into penury or death.
A system so
inherently bad could fail to be fatal only under very peculiar conditions. So
long as a succession of great Sultans wielded the sword of the Prophet and led
the hosts of Islam to ever fresh conquests, it had worked well enough. The
Christian population were well content to be free of the burden of military
service; and the blood-tax (haratch), with which, each year, they bought the
right to exist, supplied the Sultans with the sinews of war. There could be no
question of serious disaffection within the Khalif’s empire, when outside it
the Christian Powers could barely hold their own against his arms. But it is
essential to the health of a dominion based upon a militant religion that it
should advance. Victory is the evidence of its Divine sanction; and the moment
it begins to recoil the very qualities of fanaticism which gave it strength may
prove a source of weakness. The eighteenth century witnessed the rapid
crumbling of the Ottoman Power, and the partial ruin revealed the faulty
foundation on which it was and is based. The blight of Byzantium had fallen
upon the house of Othman; the Commanders of the Faithful no longer themselves
rode at the head of their armies; and to the masterful rulers of the type of
Mohammad II and Suleiman the Magnificent had succeeded a feeble race, recluses
of the harem, the puppets and victims of their own slaves. This atrophy of the
central power suffered a system to grow up which proved too strong for the
efforts of the few Sultans who had the strength of mind and the will to attempt
to arrest the process of decay. The Janissaries, once the mainstay of the
Sultan’s power at home and of his expeditions abroad, had learned their
strength, and played at Constantinople the part of the Praetorians at Rome. As
a military force they had become useless; but, when the reforming Sultan, Selim
III (1789-1807), attempted to introduce European discipline and drill, they
rose in insurrection, held him a prisoner in his palace, and, to prevent his
rescue by the ordinary troops, murdered him.
While the
Sultan was thus held powerless in his capital, plentiful opportunity was given
for the play of individual ambitions among his vicegerents in the provinces.
The centralised and effective autocracy, which has been rendered possible in
modem Turkey by the telegraph and railways, had never existed in the Ottoman
government. The Governors of provinces were left undisturbed, so long as they
furnished with tolerable regularity the tribute due in money or in kind, and an
172
Rise of Pashas to independence.
occasional
sackful of heads as evidence of their loyal zeal. The vast spaces of the empire
made any effective control impossible; and such complaints as penetrated from
the outlying comers of the empire to the Palace could easily be met by
offending Pashas with bribes judiciously distributed. It thus became easy for
unquiet and ambitious spirits to go far towards carving out for themselves
within the empire principalities, and even empires, recognising but a nominal
subjection to' the Sultan and threatening, should the Porte endeavour to assert
its sovereignty, to make their independence effective, and so produce the
dreaded disruption of the Ottoman Power from within. In 1804, Pasvan Oglu,
Pasha of Widdin, had risen in revolt, and the Janissaries settled about
Belgrade had joined him. The Porte, in desperation, had armed the Servian
rayahs. Turks, Albanians, and Serbs combined had crushed the Mussulman revolt;
but the Servians in their turn now used the occasion to strike, under the
swineherd Kara George, for their own independence. In spite of the concessions
granted in the Treaty of Bucharest, which satisfied neither party, the
hostilities dragged on, and only ended in 1817 with the grant of autonomous
government to Servia. Meanwhile, Ali, Pasha of Janina, who had helped the
Sultan against Pasvan Oglu, was busy building up, by intrigue, by bribes, by
violence, the power which, on the eve of the revolution in Greece, had all but
made him arbiter of the fate of the whole Balkan peninsula; and in Egypt
Mehemet Ali was laying the foundations of the power which ultimately enabled
him to measure his strength successfully against the Commander of the Faithful,
and, for a time, to rule supreme over an empire which stretched from the Soudan
to the Taurus Mountains.
Among the
solvent forces which threatened the stability of the Ottoman empire, however,
the more or less successful efforts of ambitious Pashas to take advantage of
the weakness of the central authority were not the most important. More
significant were the first stirrings of the racial movement, which, in the east
of Europe especially, was destined to play so large a part in the historic
drama of the coming age. The Greeks of the Morea, urged on by the promises of
Russian agents, had risen in 1774, only to find themselves abandoned to the
fury of the Mussulmans when it suited the policy of the Empress Catharine to
make peace with the Porte. But the new spirit, of which this abortive rising
had been the expression, survived and developed, encouraged by the very improvement
in the general condition of the Greek population which resulted from the
relaxation of the tyranny of the central power. In their village communities,
which the Turks had suffered to survive, the Greeks had the elements of the
vigorous local life which suited their genius ; in the Orthodox Church they
possessed the organisation necessary to bind them together in the sense of a
common nationality. Long before the outbreak of the insurrection the wealthy
island communities of the Aegean and the Adriatic, though nominally forming
part of the
Ottoman
empire, had enjoyed a practical independence tempered only by the obligation to
send to Constantinople an annual tribute in money and in sailors to man the
imperial navy. Their armed trading-brigs—- carrying from 20 to 30 guns, and
some nearly as large as frigates—many of which, since the Treaty of Kutchuk
Kainardji, had sailed under the Russian ensign in order to secure the
privileges conceded in the Straits and the Black Sea, were destined to play a
decisive part in the struggle for independence.
In the Morea
and on the mainland there was indeed no such practical autonomy as in the
islands; but here too the weakness of the administration had suffered a spirit
of independence to grow up which asserted itself in the only way open to
it—brigandage. In the wild society of the Balkan peninsula public opinion, so
far as it could be said to exist, had nothing but admiration for robbery under
arms, which among the Orthodox rayahs was surrounded by a religious and
patriotic halo when directed against the Mussulman oppressors. Thief (Jclepht)
and hero (palikar) became in popular parlance all but interchangeable terms;
and the barbarous exploits of famous bandits were celebrated by the peasants in
a thousand songs and legends. Nor had the attitude of the Ottoman Government
tended to discourage this point of view. The difficulty of maintaining order
suggested to the Sublime Porte the expedient of setting a thief to catch a
thief; and it was only necessary for a brigand chief to become sufficiently
powerful and wealthy to ensure his being made a Pasha, if a Mussulman, or, if a
Christian, to be taken into the pay of the Government as a captain of the
militia (armatoli) established to police the mountain districts. The famous Ali
of Janina himself, who lived to be courted by Napoleon and patronised by the
British Government, began his strange career as an outlaw and a robber; and of
the wild leaders, who afterwards adorned and disgraced the national revolt of
the Greeks, the greater number had been trained in his service.
Into this
savage and unquiet society had early been borne echoes of the revolutionary
turmoil in France. Ali Pasha, a tricolour cockade tacked to his turban,
babbling of Liberty and Fraternity to a commissioner of the French Republic,
while keeping an eye on the Ionian Islands, was indeed no more serious than Ali
drinking to the health of the Theotokos, with an eye on the dominion of Greece.
But Janina was not the only road by which ideas from the outside world
penetrated into the fastnesses of Hellas. On the educated Greeks of the
Dispersion the influence of the Revolution was profound; and it gave a new
stimulus to the efforts already being made to preserve and reconstruct the
glorious traditions which the main body of the race had all but lost. The
national problem was, moreover, not as yet complicated by those sectional
jealousies which have since made the Macedonian Question the despair of Europe.
Whatever the elements which in the course of ages
174
The Hellenic movement: its literary
side.
had gone to
make up the population of Greece, the Orthodox Church had absorbed them into
herself and made them the inheritors, if not of Hellas, at least of the Empire
of Byzantium. In the Danubian principalities, it is true, the oppressions of
the Greek hospodars and their agents had made the name of Greek stink in the
nostrils of the Rouman peasantry; but in the south of the peninsula Bulgar,
Kutzo-Vlach, and Orthodox Albanian, had not yet learned the virtue of racial,
as distinct from religious, hate; and, Greeks by creed, they felt themselves
also Greeks by nationality. Rhigas, whose stirring revolutionary songs did so
much to rouse in Greece the passion of revolt, and whose execution in 1794 made
him the proto-martyr of the new Hellenic nationality, was a Vlach who had found
his inspiration in Paris.
Like so many
subsequent revolutionary agitations, the Hellenic movement, which culminated in
an armed national uprising, received its first impulse from a propaganda purely
linguistic and literary. To the enthusiasts of the Greek revival the first step
towards gathering up the broken threads of the national tradition seemed to be
to make the modem Greeks familiar with the great monuments of their heroic
past. The Church preserved for them the memory of the Orthodox empire; but a
new force was necessary to carry the national imagination back, behind “the grandeur
that was Rome” to “the glory that was Greece,” and substitute for the national
style of Romans (Roumaioi) the forgotten name of Hellenes. But the Greek
language mirrored very accurately the heterogeneous constitution of the Greek
race. The Hellenic foundation survived, but overlaid with elements representing
each succeeding wave of barbarism which had swept over and left its jetsam on
the soil of Greece. To the peasant of the Morea, as to the townsman of Athens,
the Greek of the literary masterpieces of antiquity was an unknown tongue; and,
if this is no longer the case, the change is due to the conscious linguistic
revolution which is for ever associated with the name of Adamantios Korais. He
too, like Rhigas, had studied at Paris; and he made it his life’s mission to
interpret to his fellow-countrymen the Hellenic literature which he had there
learned to love and admire. IVhat Luther’s Bible did for Germany, the English
Bible for England, the Welsh Bible for Wales, that Korais did for modem Greece
by his translations of the Classics into a language which was, as it were, a
compromise between the patois still used in ordinary conversation and the
stately language of the originals. His success proved once for all that, where
rivalry of races is in question, literary monuments are factors not to be
ignored by far-seeing statesmen. The effort was grotesque enough when, with the
name of Hellenes, the pupils of Ali of Janina assumed the style and affected
the attributes of Homer’s heroes; but the fiction appealed to the imagination
of a Europe which knew only, and knew familiarly, the Greece of Plato and of
Pericles. It gave an impetus to the wave of Philhellenism which did so much to
1812-5] Turkey, Russia, and the Congress of
Vienna. 175
solve the
practical question of the liberation of Greece from Ottoman misgovemment; and
it supplied to the infant State, bom after so much travail, a language and a
tradition which linked it consciously with an inspiring past.
Of the extent
and importance of this racial and religious movement inside the Ottoman empire
European statesmen, until the eve of the War of Independence, had little idea.
There was, however, in the situation revealed between the Peace of Bucharest
and the opening of the Congress of Vienna enough to alarm those interested in
avoiding a renewed rupture between Russia and Turkey, and to suggest to them
the expediency of bringing the integrity of the Ottoman empire under the
guarantee of the treaties established by the Congress. That this was not
accomplished was due, in the first instance, to the obstinate pride of the
Porte itself. The privileges granted to the Servians under the Treaty of 1812
had been left, perhaps purposely, vague and ill-defined; the Ottoman Government
interpreted them according to its own ideas; and Russia complained, with
reason, that the continued oppressions of the Turkish officials constituted a
breach of the treaty. But this was not all. By two secret articles annexed to
the Treaty of Bucharest, Russia, in exchange for the demolition of the forts at
Kilia and Ismailia on the Danube, was to obtain permanent possession of the
road from the Black Sea to Tiflis through the valley of the Phasis, the use of
which had been granted to her by the Porte in order to facilitate the Russian
operations in the war with Persia. These articles the Sultan had refused to
ratify; and the relations of the two countries had come to be fixed by the
public treaty only. Russia, however, refused to evacuate the territory in
question, and not only laid claim to almost all the highlands between the
Caspian and the Black Sea acquired by conquest or by concessions from chiefs
claiming sovereignty, but aimed at acquiring the lowlands of the Black Sea
littoral, which Turkey asserted to be hers by long possession and undoubted
right. As Sir Robert Liston pointed out, the crisis need never have arisen; for
Russia might well have evacuated a position which she could always take again
should occasion arise. Unfortunately the Sultan had backed his demand with a
threat of war; Russia, refusing to be bullied, had replied by extending her
pretensions; and at the period of the Congress of Vienna matters had reached a
deadlock. In vain the British Government urged upon the Porte that the European
guarantee of the integrity of Turkey must depend upon the settlement of these
outstanding questions, “ since it is impossible to guarantee the possession of
a territory the limits of which are not fixed.” It was proposed that the
matters at issue should be settled by the joint intervention of Austria,
France, and Great Britain. To this the Emperor Alexander gave a provisional
assent; but the Sultan remained obdurate; and, in the hurry of the close of the
Congress, after Napoleon’s return from Elba, the whole question was
176
Hetairia Philike.—Ali of Janina.
[l814
shelved. The
relations between Russia and the Ottoman empire were thus left in a state of
tension, which before long, during the Greek revolt, was to produce effects
justifying the fears of those who now sought to end it.
Between the
Congress of Vienna and the outbreak of the Greek revolt, the Eastern Question
was obscured for the world of diplomacy by the more absorbing problem of
preserving western Europe from any fresh outburst of the suppressed
revolutionary forces. Meanwhile the sectional elements of Greek disaffection
were being gathered and organised in the great armed secret society, the
Hetairia Philike, founded at Odessa in 1814, against which Mettemich in vain
warned the Ottoman Government; in Egypt Mehemet Ali, taught the value of
western armaments by his experience in the Napoleonic wars, was gradually
building up his power; and Ali of Janina, adding, by force or by fraud,
pashalik to pashalik, was preparing, in his extreme old age, for the
master-stroke which should sever the bond connecting him with the Sultan, and
establish him as an independent sea-power on the Mediterranean. The times were
obviously not unfavourable for such a design. Ali, with characteristic
instinct, had backed the winning side, and contributed in his own sphere to the
ruin of Napoleon’s power. He now proceeded to exploit the gratitude of the
Powers, and of Great Britain especially, for his own ends. In the course of the
war with France he had succeeded in gaining possession of most of the towns on
the Adriatic coast of Albania, still forming part of the Venetian territory.
Voniza, Prevesa, and Butrinto had in turn fallen to him; and in 1814 he was
busy building forts along the coast, some of which were a menace to any Power
holding the Ionian Islands. Of the former Venetian possessions on the coast,
the little town of Parga alone, with its excellent harbour, had so far defied
his power. Early in 1814 he had laid siege to it, and, in March, had succeeded
in bribing the commandant, a Greek in French service, to surrender it to him,
when the inhabitants rose, expelled the French garrison, and handed over the
place to the British, who continued to hold it. The fate of the place was now
bound up with the destiny of the Ionian Islands. In a memorandum written in
December, 1814, Colonel (afterwards Sir Richard) Church pointed out to Lord
Castlereagh the importance to Great Britain of retaining her grasp on these
islands. The armed Greek trading-ships would, he argued, transfer themselves to
the Ionian Islands, if these were placed under the British ensign, and would
thus increase the British sea-power in the Mediterranean. At the same time, by
garrisoning the islands England could prevent a flank attack by France or
Russia upon the Ottoman empire. Further, if the towns captured by Ali Pasha on
the coast of the mainland were taken from him and, with Parga, placed under the
British flag, the door would always be open for British entry into the Balkan
peninsula in case of need.
Unfortunately
for the reputation of the British Government, this
advice was
only followed in part. By the Convention, signed at Paris on November 5,1815,
between Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, the Ionian Islands were
indeed placed, not under British sovereignty— since both the Emperor Alexander
and the English general who had taken over the islands had promised them “a
free and independent government”—but under British “protection,” which, as
Capodistrias suggested, “should be so arranged that Great Britain would have
virtual if not nominal sovereignty.” The fate of Parga, however, was different.
So early as September, 1814, Ali had written to Lord Castlereagh claiming it on
the ground of the guarantee given in 1802, and had followed this up by
despatching to England a mission fortified by a letter from the British
ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Robert Liston, in which he called to the
memory of Ministers the Pasha’s “supereminent qualities” and his services
against the French. The position was a difficult one. The town had been freely
delivered by the Pargiots to the British, with a view to preserving them from
the very man who now claimed its delivery on the ground of a guarantee solemnly
given. The choice lay between maintaining for ever a British garrison in a
place which seemed to Ministers of a value quite incommensurate with the risk
of complications to which it was likely to give rise, and surrendering a
population which had placed itself confidently under British protection to a
ruler who, in spite of his “ supereminent qualities,” was notoriously an
unscrupulous ruffian. The latter course was adopted, on the plea that in
occupying the town the English had made no promise of doing so permanently; the
Pargiots were offered an asylum in the islands, and, by a Convention signed by
the British and Turkish commissioners on May 17, 1817, the last citadel of
Greek independence was handed over to Ali Pasha; although this Convention, as
well as that of November 5, 1815, was not ratified by the Sultan until April
24, 1819.
The “Lion of
Janina” was now at the height of his power; the wild hill-tribes of Albania and
Greece were subdued by the bloody justice of a tyrant who would allow no
robbery but his own. For many years the Porte, gratified by the more regular
inflow of tribute from Albania and by the bribes which Ali knew how to place at
critical moments, had shut its eyes to the menace of the Pasha’s growing power.
This, however, became at length so obvious that his enemies at Court needed but
a suitable pretext for rousing the Sultan to action. This was afforded in 1820
by the unsuccessful attempt of Ali to procure the assassination of his enemy
Pachobey, a member of the Sultan’s household. A decree of deposition was now
issued against the sacrilegious Ali, who had dared “to fire shots in
Constantinople, the residence of the Khalif, and the centre of security ”; and
the bulk of the Ottoman forces, under Kurshid Pasha, were despatched to enforce
it. For two years the intrepid Ali held his own, though betrayed by the vassals
whose
allegiance he had maintained by terror alone, and even by his own sons, whose
heads were none the less destined to fall to the Sultan’s vengeance. At last,in
the spring of 1822, the old “Lion,” trapped in his island castle of Janina and
still, in spite of the outbreak of the Greek revolt, surrounded by Kurshid’s
hosts, was forced to sue for terms. He received the measure he had so often
dealt to others. Kurshid granted him an interview, received him graciously, and
dismissed him with the most friendly assurances. As he left the tent he was
stabbed in the back; his head was cut off and sent to Constantinople.
Meanwhile, to
the Hetairists, the preoccupation of the Ottoman forces in Albania presented
the best possible opportunity for executing the plans which had been long
maturing. The organisation of the revolt being ready, it only remained to find
a leader. The first to be approached was Capodistrias, who refused on the
ground that the times were not propitious for such a movement. In any case he
may well have thought that, as Foreign Minister to the Emperor Alexander, he
could best serve the Greek cause by remaining where he was. The leadership
rejected by Capodistrias was accepted by Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, son of a
former hospodar of Wallachia and member of an old Phanariot family which
boasted its descent from the Imperial Comneni. The prince, who had fought with
distinction in the war against Napoleon and had been a popular figure during
the gaieties of the Congress of Vienna, was an officer in the Russian service
and aide- de-camp to the Tsar. This alone would have suggested to the world the
powerful backing of Russia; and, when the prince, accompanied by other Greek
officers in the Russian service, crossed the Pruth into Moldavia on March 6,
1821, he issued a proclamation in which, while calling on the people to rise
against the Ottoman tyranny, he specifically stated that he had the support of
“ a Great Power.”
It is this
claim alone which gives to the Greek rising in the Principalities any importance
in history. For the rest, Ypsilanti’s enterprise was futile alike in its avowed
aim, in its execution, and in the scene he had selected for its base. The
restoration of the Greek empire of the East was not likely to appeal to Russia;
the summons to the Vlach peasantry to rise in such a cause was unlikely to find
any response among a people who hated the Greeks worse than the Turks, since
they had for many generations been their immediate task-masters; and, lastly,
the incompetence of Ypsilanti himself ruined any chances which, in view of the
usual unpreparedness of the Ottoman Government, a rapid advance might have
given him. Instead of pressing forward boldly to Bucharest and occupying the
line of the Danube before the Turks could gather an armament, he loitered at
Jassy, gratifying his vanity and offending his followers by playing the
monarch, while alienating the sympathy of all right-thinking men by his
criminal weakness in condoning the hideous massacres of inoffensive Mussulmans
at Galatz, Jassy,
179
and
elsewhere, by which the Greek cause was disgraced. As for the promised support
of Russia, on which he had expressed such confident reliance, he was soon
undeceived. Mettemich at Laibach had little difficulty in persuading the Emperor
Alexander, repenting of his earlier encouragement of Liberalism, that Ypsilanti
and his followers were but revolutionists of the usual dangerous type; and a
letter, signed by Capodistrias, was despatched to the Greek leader, upbraiding
him for his misuse of the Tsar’s name, and ordering him at once to lay down his
arms. He would have been well advised to obey. Instead, he declared that the
Tsar’s public disavowal of him was but a stratagem to preserve the peace of
Europe, and that he had been secretly assured of Russian support.
The pretence
did not save him. Dissensions broke out between the Greeks and those Vlach
boyars who had joined, them. The Ottoman forces meanwhile pressed on into the
Principalities, nowhere meeting with effective resistance, until, on June 19,
1821, the crushing defeat of the main Greek force at Dragashan ended the revolt
in Wallachia. Ypsilanti himself, on a false pretext, deserted his followers and
fled across the Austrian frontier, to be kept a close prisoner for seven years
by a Government which had little sympathy with revolutionary leaders. In
Moldavia the rising was quelled with equal ease. When it was clear that no aid
was to be expected from Russia, the boyars deposed the hospodar Michael Sutzo,
who had supported Ypsilanti; and he escaped across the frontier. The Turks
entered Jassy on June 25; and the Greeks who still remained together retired to
the Pruth. Here, at Skaleni, in a camp hastily entrenched, they made their last
stand, displaying a courage against overwhelming odds which did much to
retrieve the disgrace and folly which had characterised the movement as a
whole. With the crushing of this forlorn hope, the rising in the north came to
an end, and together with it the dream of reestablishing the Greek empire of the
East.
To Mettemich
the Tsar’s public disavowal of sympathy with the Greek insurgents, and the
subsequent collapse of Ypsilanti’s movement, seemed to remove all immediate
peril of dangerous complications in eastern Europe. To the diplomatic world the
revolt in the Morea, which had come to a head at the beginning of April, 1821,
appeared a matter of comparative unimportance, which might well be allowed to
bum itself out “beyond the pale of civilisation.” It was not long, however,
before what had seemed at first but another local rising of the rayahs against
Turkish misgovemment, began to assume a character and proportions which filled
the European chanceries with apprehension. Archbishop Germanos raised the
standard of the Cross at Patras on April 2, 1821; and not many weeks had passed
before the world began to realise how essentially the insurrection in southern
Greece differed from that which had failed so egregiously in the
Principalities. The Hetavria, in fact, had never approved of Ypsilanti’s
misdirected enterprise; and its agents had been active in stirring up a general
insurrection
in those parts of the empire where, as yet, no conscious divisions of race and
of interests separated a population united in common hatred of the infidel and
the oppressor. The rising in the Principalities was a class movement, which
would in any case have broken on the stubborn hostility of the population it
pretended to emancipate; the rising in the Morea was the general upheaval of a
race against alien rule—the first of those nationalist revolutions which,
during the nineteenth century, were to transform the map of Europe. What gave
to the war of Greek independence its peculiar character of ferocity was,
that—as usual in the East—race was confounded with religion, and that to the
hatred of the oppressed for the oppressor was added that of the true believer
for the infidel.
Though the
apostles of Greek independence had long been agitating in the Morea and the
islands, the rising was not the outcome of any carefully devised plan; nor,
when it broke out, was there any organisation prepared to direct it. It began
in isolated outrages on Ottoman officials and massacres of small bands of
Albanian Mussulman mercenaries, which culminated in April in a general
insurrection of the Christian population and the promiscuous slaughter of all
Mussulmans. Within six weeks of the outbreak of the revolt not a Mohammadan was
left in all the Morea, save the remnant who had succeeded in escaping into the
fortified towns. These, too, as one by one the strong places were starved into
submission, were massacred with every aggravation of cruelty and treachery. The
first phase of the rising culminated in the storming of Tripolitza, the capital
of the Vilayet, followed by the butchery in cold blood of 2000 Mussulman
prisoners without distinction of age or sex. By the close of the year, with the
exception of some half-dozen fortresses closely invested by wild hordes of
brigands and peasants, the whole Vilayet of the Morea had passed from the
obedience of the Sultan, and the insurrection had spread beyond the Isthmus of
Corinth, throughout continental Greece, and over the mountain passes into
Thessaly and Macedonia.
The details
of the war that followed, however much they appealed to the romantic spirit of
the age, are of very subordinate interest in the history of Europe; and it must
suffice to notice the general character of the struggle, reserving for more
particular mention those events which more especially influenced the attitude
of the European Powers towards it. Broadly, the war may be divided into three
periods: the first (1821-4), during which the Greeks, with the assistance of
volunteers from western Europe, were pitted against the Ottoman Government
alone; the second, from March, 1824, when the disciplined forces of Mehemet Ali
of Egypt were thrown into the scale against the insurgents; the third, from the
effective intervention of the European Powers, in the autumn of 1827, to the
close. For many months the war was no more than a chaotic struggle between
hostile hordes of barbarians.
The few
educated Phanariot Greeks, like Demetrios Ypsilanti or Prince Mavrocordato, who
at the first news of the outbreak had hastened to place themselves at the head
of the national cause, proved quite incompetent as leaders in irregular warfare
and powerless to control the barbarous spirit of cruelty which they deplored.
Their well-meant efforts to provide the nascent Hellenic State with a Liberal
Constitution on the most approved western model were not more successful; and
the real leaders of the people during the earlier stages of the war were the
brigand chiefs and the primates and demogeronts whose traditional local
authority saved the structure of Greek society from dissolving into utter
anarchy.
Two main
factors contributed to the success of the Greeks. The detention of the flower
of the Ottoman forces, under Kurshid Pasha, the ablest of the Sultan’s
generals, before Ali’s island stronghold of Janina, enabled the revolt to make
uninterrupted headway during the first critical months. The revolt of the
islands, by cutting off from the Ottoman Government its only reserves of good
seamen, assured to the insurgents the command of the sea. In size of ships and
weight of metal the Turks were superior; but, when their line-of-battle ships
at last put to sea, manned by motley and untrained crews of Algerine pirates,
Genoese mercenaries, and Constantinopolitan quay-porters, they fell an easy
prey to the swift-sailing brigs and fire-ships of the Greeks. “ The Greeks,”
wrote Wellington, “have the superiority at sea; and those who have this
superiority must be successful.” This truth was abundantly illustrated in the
course of the war. The great expedition of Ali, Pasha of Drama, which in the
summer of 1823 threatened to crush the insurrection in the Morea, was forced to
retire owing to the failure of the Ottoman fleet to come to its support, and,
taken at a disadvantage in the defile of Devemaki, was exterminated on August
6. The heroic defence of Missolonghi (May 7, 1825—April 22, 1826), was rendered
possible only by the fact that the Greek admiral Miaoulis could enter the
lagoons and throw supplies into the town. The appearance in the summer of 1824
of the well-equipped fleet of Mehemet Ali of Egypt changed the fortune of the war
at sea, just as, in the following year, Ibrahim’s disciplined troops turned it
on land. Against the barbaric hordes of Dramali or of Reshid, the Greek
lelephts and peasants had more than held their own; they were powerless against
the modem armament and modem tactics of the Egyptian leader. From the moment
of Ibrahim’s landing in the Morea it was realised that, if the Greeks were to
be saved from practical extermination, they must oppose western methods to
western methods; which meant, in effect, that those of the European Powers
which desired their preservation must intervene.
The attitude
of the Powers at the outset of the revolt has already been described. So long
as it was merely a question of an internal revolt against the Ottoman
Government, none of them was disposed
182
Sympathy of Europe.
Byron.
[i82i-4
to suggest an
intervention which would have carried with it incalculable consequences and
placed in jeopardy the whole international structure so painfully established
by the European Alliance. But the rapid march of events soon stultified the
policy of aloofness which had triumphed at Verona. The hopes of Metternich were
dashed by the initial triumphs of the insurgents, and the policy of leaving the
revolt to bum itself out “ beyond the pale of civilisation ” was frustrated by
the refusal of the western peoples to follow the lead of their Governments. In
Europe at large the news of the “ resurrection of Greece ” had been received
with an outburst of unbounded enthusiasm, which grew with each new victory of
the insurgent arms.
Everything in
the temper and conditions of the times tended to encourage this Philhellenic
ardour. Of the actual conditions obtaining in the Levant the western world was
then even more completely ignorant than now; but all Christendom sympathised
with this revolt of Christians against infidel oppression; continental
Liberals, gagged by Mettemich’s police, found a voice for their own grievances
in championing the cause of a nation struggling to be free; and the cultured
classes, educated almost exclusively in the lore of classical antiquity, forgot
the long centuries of corruption and degradation, and saw in the rough peasants
of the Morea and mariners of the islands only the descendants of Leonidas and
Odysseus. Philhellenic societies, of which the members were drawn from all
classes, sprang up all over western Europe; and within a few months of the
outbreak of the revolt money and volunteers were pouring in to the assistance
of the Greeks. Veterans of Napoleon’s disbanded armies, like Colonel Fabvier,
English officers, like Colonel Thomas Gordon and Sir Richard Church, brought to
the insurgents the invaluable aid of their military experience. In the autumn
of 1823 Byron, the most celebrated and romantic figure of the age, himself came,
prepared to give his life for the cause which he had already illustrated by his
genius. In spite of the ostentatious neutrality of the Powers, the Reis Effendi
could justly complain that the Ottoman Government was fighting not the Greeks
only, but all Europe.
For this fact
the Porte was itself largely to blame. The news of the massacre of Mussulmans
in the Morea was received in Constantinople with one of those outbursts of
blood-lust, inspired at once by panic and by fanaticism, to which the usually easy-natured
Turks are liable. A wild cry for retaliation went up; and Sultan Mahmud, though
a man of moderate and comparatively enlightened views, allowed himself to be
carried away by a paroxysm of rage into cruelties which were as impolitic as
they were horrible. Though preparations for suppressing the rising were hurried
on with feverish haste, nothing was ready; and the Sultan thought to strike
terror into the insurgents by an pvnmplR which none could fail to understand.
By the law of the Ottoman empire the Patriarch of Constantinople was
responsible for the good
behaviour of
his flock. By the Sultan’s orders, then, on the morning of Easter Eve (April
22,1821) the venerable Gregorios was seized, immediately after the morning
Eucharist, and, with two of his Bishops, all three in their sacerdotal
vestments, hanged before the gate of the patriarchal palace. The bodies, after
remaining for a few days, were cut down, dragged by a Jewish rabble through the
streets, and thrown into the Bosphorus. The effect of this outrage was immense.
Even the Emperor Francis was roused to protest against this ignominious doing
to death of a Christian prelate; while Mettemich deplored the barbarous folly
which had introduced a new and more perilous element of discord into a situation
already sufficiently delicate. In Russia public indignation knew no bounds. The
body of Gregorios had been picked up by a passing Greek merchant-vessel and
carried to Odessa, where it was buried with the honours of a martyr; and
throughout Russia a cry arose for a crusade against the infidel, to avenge the
head of the Orthodox Church and purge the metropolitan see of Orthodox
Christendom of the pollution of the Mussulman occupation. For a moment
Alexander wavered, but the news found him, not in Russia, but at Laibach, where
Mettemich was at hand to persuade him that the revolt in Greece was but the
work of the same “ sects ” whose evil machinations it was his glorious mission
to have frustrated in other parts of Europe, and to point out that a war with
Turkey would imperil the whole fabric of that Confederation of Europe which it
had been the Tsar’s life-mission to build up. This reasoning was sufficient to
convince the Emperor, who had no desire for war; his will prevailed over that
of his people; and the immediate peril was over-past.
The
situation, however, quite apart from the continued successes of the Greeks,
remained extremely critical. Though peace was preserved, Russia replied to the
gage of defiance flung down by the execution of the Patriarch by withdrawing
her representative from Constantinople and concentrating 100,000 men on the
frontiers of the Principalities. Diplomatic relations, she declared, could not
be resumed until Turkey had satisfied her just demands in respect of
outstanding grievances, and given guarantees for the cessation of further
outrages on the Christian population, placed, by treaty, under the protection
of the Orthodox Tsar. The Emperor Alexander, indeed, maintained that the
withdrawal of his Minister made for peace; for, had he remained, he would have
had to report the outrages passing under his eyes. Moreover, the Porte in a
moment of temper might have put him into the Seven Towers. “ This proves,”
wrote Lebzeltem to Mettemich on September 16, “that the Emperor does not know
how narrowly the Minister escaped this fate, and those who do know are careful
not to tell him.” As for Alexander’s personal attitude, Lebzeltem reported him
as saying: “I have no ambition; my Empire is already too big for me—I am not
bloodthirsty, everyone knows it—and this war would not be to Russia’s
interests.”
The whole
energies of the Powers interested in the maintenance of
184 Attitude
of other Powers. Canning. [1821-2
the status
quo in the East were now directed to restoring diplomatic relations between
Russia and Turkey and so removing the peril of war. In this matter Mettemich
and Castlereagh, since Troppau poles apart in their general policy, found
themselves once more united. The conferences at Hanover, in October, which to
the world seemed but one more conspiracy against popular liberties, were
devoted to the discussion of the attitude of the two Powers towards the Turkish
crisis, and the policy determined upon was perfectly simple and
straightforward. Austria and Great Britain agreed to bring pressure to bear
upon the Porte to remove the just causes of grievance which Russia had against
it, by satisfying those of her claims which were based upon undoubted treaty
stipulations, and by guaranteeing to the Christian rayahs a tolerable measure
of civil and political rights. To the success of this policy two obstacles
presented themselves : the stubborn pride of the Ottoman Government, and the
Greek sympathies of Capodistrias, who was “trying to serve one master and two
causes,” and using “Russian power for Greek ends.” Capodistrias was, however,
since Laibach, a diminishing quantity; and Mettemich left no stone unturned in
order to complete the overthrow of his influence. Before the assembling of the
Congress of Verona, the Austrian Minister was free from a dangerous rival who
latterly had only maintained his office by his “ suppleness ” and “ the want of
a man to take his place.”
The death of
Castlereagh made no alteration in the policy of Great Britain towards the
Eastern Question ; for George Canning took up the matter where his predecessor
had dropped it and developed it on the lines which he had laid down. In a
despatch of September 27,1822, to the Duke of Wellington at Verona he made his
at-titude perfectly clear. British action in the Greek Question must be decided
according to the general.course of British policy since the conclusion of the
war. “Our object in common with our allies has been to maintain peace, aware
that a new war, in whatever quarter it might be kindled, might presently
involve all Europe in its flames. Our object, as with respect to ourselves, has
been to avoid all interference in the internal concerns of any nation—an
interference not authorised in our case, by the positive rights or obligations
of Treaty, nor justified, as we think (except when a Treaty, or some very
special circumstances may authorise it) by the principles of International
Law.” The Turkish Question had a double aspect. In the struggle between the
Porte and its Greek subjects England “ had neither the right to interfere nor
the means of effectual interference”; and, whatever her sympathies, she was
bound to respect in the case of Turkey that national independence which she
demanded that others should respect in herself. In the outstanding issues between
Russia and Turkey on the other hand, it was the duty and the right of England
to mediate; though “the rights which treaties give, treaties must be held to
limit.”
Apart from
the old standing grievance of the non-execution of the secret clauses of the Treaty
of Bucharest, the main causes of complaint which Russia had against the Porte
were two. Though the northern revolt had been completely suppressed, the
Principalities were still— contrary to distinct treaty arrangements with
Russia—occupied and devastated by Turkish troops; and, equally contrary to the
letter of existing treaties, certain Greek brigs sailing under the Russian flag
having been seized in the Dardanelles, the Porte had claimed the right to
search all ships passing the Straits. To persuade the Porte to yield on these
points became the immediate object of Great Britain and Austria alike; and at
Constantinople their representatives worked assiduously to this end. But, in
the first half of the year 1822, the events of the war were hardly calculated
to produce a yielding temper in the Ottoman Government. On the eve of the
Congress of Verona, indeed, it seemed as though the Eastern Question would be
settled for the time by the swift collapse of the revolt. On April 22 the
hideous reprisals of the Ottomans culminated in the awful massacre of Scio, by
which the most flourishing community of the Greek arcl.'pelago was wiped out of
existence; and a few months later the unopposed march of the Pasha of Drama
into the Morea promised to place insurgent Greece at the mercy of the Sultan.
The news of the massacre of Scio, as was natural, roused intense feeling in
England; and public opinion was loud in favour of intervention to rescue the
Greeks from the annihilation which seemed to be impending. Canning, though his
evident desire “to take the part of the Greeks ” excited the anxiety of his
colleagues in the Cabinet, set his face resolutely against this agitation. He
denied that Great Britain was under any obligation, or possessed the right, to
interfere. As for demanding from the Porte guarantees for good government, by
whose sanction were these guarantees to be made effective? If by that of
Russia, the war, which it had been the main object of the Powers to avoid,
would become a certainty; if by that of the European Alliance, either its
dignity would be compromised in the event of the Ottoman Government refusing
to accept its dictation, or a war would result “of which no human foresight
could anticipate the issue ”—a dilemma which has been ever since the essence of
the Near Eastern Question.
The situation
was again profoundly modified by the events of the autumn and winter of 1822.
The disastrous retreat of the Pasha of Drama had left the Greeks masters of the
Morea, and in December Naupliafell; while, in western Hellas, the stubborn
defence of the Suliots had saved the Greeks from the destruction threatened by
the parallel march planned by Kurshid. When Omar Vrioni, his lieutenant, at
last marched southward, the army of Dramali was already destroyed; Petrobey,
chief of the Maina, was able to hurry to the assistance of the defenders of
Missolonghi with a thousand men; and on January 23,
1823, after
an unsuccessful assault, the Ottoman commander raised the siege of the town and
retired northwards. While the Greeks, in spite of their suicidal dissensions,
were thus retrieving their cause on land, they had also once more gained the
command of the sea: a result mainly due to the terror inspired by the Greek
fire-ships, ever since, 011 the evening of June 18, in revenge for the massacre
of Scio, Kanaris had destroyed the flag-ship of the Turkish admiral with three
thousand souls on board. With the Ottoman generals defeated and counselless,
and the Ottoman fleet, demoralised and helpless, lying for shelter under the guns
of the Dardanelles, it was clear that the Turks were not masters of the
situation, nor were likely soon to become so. The situation was, in fact,
exactly that contemplated in the instructions of Castlereagh at Verona for the
eventual interference of Great Britain—a situation parallel in many particulars
with that created in the West by the revolt of the Spanish Colonies. The
recognition of the independence of the South American States became necessary,
owing to the need for regularising the great trade which had sprung up between
them and Great Britain during the revolutionary period, and which was seriously
hampered by the pirates who, owing no allegiance to any responsible Government,
took advantage of the obsolete colonial laws of old Spain to prey upon the
commerce of all nations. The case was similar in the Aegean and the Adriatic.
The maritime Greeks, nominally subject to the Sultan, turned more and more to
frank piracy, and, all Turkish vessels having been swept from the sea, carried
into Nauplia as prizes of war the traders of all nations impartially. Since it
was useless to make the Ottoman Government responsible for a state of things
which they were powerless to control, it became necessary to fix the
responsibility on the de facto Government of Greece. On March 25, 1823,
accordingly, the British Government formally recognised the Greeks as
belligerents. “The recognition of the belligerent character of the Greeks,”
wrote Canning, “ was necessitated by the impossibility of treating as pirates a
population of a million souls, and of bringing within the bounds of civilised
war a contest which had been marked at the outset on both sides by disgusting
barbarities.”
This
language, which in fact implied no more than what appeared on the surface,
seemed to the statesmen of the Alliance to veil a threat of most sinister
import to the European system. A year before, Prince Lieven had reported to the
Tsar his impression that Canning was “ more insular than European.” This
opinion, which Canning himself would doubtless have considered a compliment,
seemed now confirmed by a step which appeared to advertise the intention of
Great Britain to act in an international question not only independently of her
allies, but in a sense diametrically opposed to what, in their opinion, formed
the fundamental principles of their union. Her attitude at Troppau, at Laibach,
and at Verona, had been one of protest; but the protest had
not as yet
been followed by active opposition. Now, for the first time, she had cast her
aegis over a revolutionary movement, and by doing so apparently ranged herself
among the forces hostile to the ideals of the Grand Alliance. Mettemich, who
had hitherto steadily opposed any concerted intervention in the affairs of
Turkey, now changed his attitude in face of the apparent danger of an isolated
intervention of England, and made approaches to Russia with a view to joint
action. He found the Emperor Alexander in a mood to respond to these advances.
He had always been, he said, in favour of joint action. So early as the
beginning of 1822 Prince Lieven, in a conversation with Lord Londonderry, had
discussed the question of a common protocol to be presented to the Porte,
demanding the fulfilment of Russia’s rights “ authorised by treaties and by the
right of protection which these concede over the Greeks.” Londonderry had
refused to be a party to any instrument demanding from the Sultan a guarantee
of better administration of the Christian provinces, on the ground that this
would have been to recognise the right of Russia to interfere in the internal
affairs of Turkey. England, he said, had no common rights, and therefore could
take no common measures, with Russia, and in any case could never sign a
document containing the words “ Christian provinces under the protection of his
Imperial Majesty.” In view of this refusal, the recognition of the Greek flag
seemed to Alexander to argue the intention of Great Britain to arrogate to
herself alone that right of protection which she had denied to Russia, and to
take advantage of the Tsar’s obligations to the European Alliance to oust him
from his legitimate influence in the near East.
In these
circumstances, Russia and Austria, hitherto estranged by their conflicting
interests in the Eastern Question, once more drew together. In October, 1823,
the Emperors Francis and Alexander met at Czernovitz, where the whole question
of an eventual intervention of the European Concert was discussed. That such an
intervention would, sooner or later, be inevitable was now admitted. It was
more difficult to decide what form it should take and on what principle it
should be based. The unexpected persistence of the Greeks had ruined
Mettemich’s plan of isolating the war, which Canning had now brought “ within
the pale of civilisation ”; it was no longer possible to treat the insurgents
as commonplace rebels against legitimate authority. The dilemma was indeed a
formidable one. To help the Sultan to crush his rebellious vassals was
obviously impossible, even had Alexander been himself out of sympathy with the
sentiment of his people ; to side with the insurgents against the Ottoman
Government would have been to give the lie to every principle on which the
European system had hitherto been based. Canning wrote exultingly of the
diplomatic “bog” in which the statesmen of the Alliance were floundering, and
from which there was no escape.
The
conflicting interests in the Eastern Question which were destined
to resolve
the great Alliance into its elements were indeed not slow in revealing themselves.
The Emperor Alexander was growing restive under the insulting persistence of
the Ottoman Government in refusing to redress the universally admitted wrongs
of Russia; his mind, though he still clung to the idea of European solidarity,
was tending more and more in the direction of the traditional policy of the
Tsars; and the war-party at St Petersburg, which had languished since the
dismissal of Capodistrias, was once more in the ascendant. Alexander learned,
indeed, at Czemovitz that the Turks had given way on some of the more
important matters in dispute—the evacuation of the principalities, and the free
navigation of the Straits; and in response to these concessions he sent
Minciaky to Constantinople, as his agent to watch over the carrying out of the
new treaties. The question which lay nearest to the heart of the Russian
people, however,—that of the guarantees of good government for the Orthodox
rayahs—remained unsettled; and it was intimated to the Porte that the,
reestablishment of full diplomatic relations must depend upon the satisfaction
of still further claims. The meaning of this vague demand was revealed before
the Tsar left Czemovitz. He there made the informal suggestion that a
Conference of the Powers should be summoned to St Petersburg to arrange for a
concerted intervention in the Turkish Question, on the basis of the erection
of Greece and the islands of the Archipelago into three autonomous
principalities, under Ottoman suzerainty, and guaranteed by the European
Concert. The proposal was formally repeated in a Russian circular note of
January, 1824, in which it was pointed out that “the efforts of the Imperial
Government to bring about a collective intervention were the best proof of its
disinterestedness.”
Neither
Mettemich nor Canning was greatly impressed by this argument. Austria could not
contemplate with equanimity the establishment in the south of the Balkan
peninsula of semi-independent principalities, on the model of Moldavia and
Wallachia, subject, if not to the formal protection, at least to the
preponderant influence, of Russia. Metternich’s sensational counter-move was to
propose the erection of Greece into a sovereign and independent State. As for
Canning, he objected to Great Britain becoiring a party to a conference, only
that she might serve “as a buffer between the colliding interests of Russia and
Austria.” Concerted intervention seemed to him impossible, in view of the
utterly irreconcilable objects of the parties to it; and, were this
intervention based, as Alexander desired, on the principles of the Holy
Alliance, the logical outcome would be that Russia would claim to march into
Turkey as Austria had marched into Naples, as the mandatary of Europe—the very
issue which it had been the study of Austria as well as of England to avoid.
Great Britain would be stronger, and her action more effectual, were she to
remain outside any combination.
I824-5] Conference of St Petersburg.
189
By the time
the Conference met, in June, 1824, Canning had somewhat modified his views. If
both parties to the struggle in Turkey were willing to submit to its decisions,
the Conference might prove serviceable as a board of arbitration whose verdict
would be backed by the august sanction of the Concert, though all idea of an
ultimate appeal to force must be rigidly excluded. With this idea Sir Charles
Bagot was allowed to attend the opening meetings of the Conference, and in July
Stratford Canning was sent on a mission to St Petersburg. It was soon apparent,
however, that the conditions essential for a peaceful intervention did not
exist. The Ottoman Government protested against any intervention of the Powers
in its affairs; the Greeks refused to be bound by the decisions of a Conference
which would in all probability suggest a settlement falling far short of their
aims. In those circumstances, Canning, in November, finally decided to take no
further share in the common deliberations; and, when the discussion of the
Russian circular of January, 1824, was entered upon, Bagot withdrew from the sittings.
The seal was thus set upon the breach between Great Britain and the European
Alliance; and the Emperor Alexander declared that all negotiations on the
Eastern Question with the British Government were closed.
The condition
of things which Canning had foreseen now arose. England being removed, Austria
and Russia were brought face to face; and it was soon clear that their
interests were in sharp antagonism. Metternich, who early in 1825 had visited
Paris and won over Charles X to his views, absolutely refused to consider the
Russian proposal for a series of semi-independent Greek States. For Austria, he
maintained, there were only two possible alternatives—the complete subjection
or the complete independence of Greece. Russia, on the other hand, objected
equally strongly to setting up an independent Christian State, which might
develop into a peril to her own influence. Under these circumstances the
Conferences could but issue in a lame conclusion. On March IS, 1825, it was
resolved to present a joint note to the Porte, offering the mediation of the
Powers in the Greek Question. Since this offer was purely benevolent, and
backed by no suggestion of coercion, it was, as might have been expected,
indignantly refused. The new turn taken by the fortunes of the war in 1825 had,
indeed, not tended to weaken the stubborn resolution of the Sultan. His own
undisciplined troops having proved unequal to the task of crushing the
insurgents, Mahmud had humbled himself reluctantly and with misgiving to ask
aid of his powerful vassal Mehemet Ali of Egypt, who had responded by sending a
disciplined army under his son Ibrahim, escorted by a powerful and
well-equipped fleet, for the conquest of Greece. The insubordination of his
captains prevented Miaoulis from taking the Mussulman armada at a disadvantage
before it could reach its point of concentration; and Ibrahim reached Suda Bay
in Crete without
190 Ibrahim in the Morea-Canning approaches
Russia. [1824-5
mishap at the
close of 1824. On February 24, 1825, he landed at Modon in the Morea.
From this
moment the fortunes of the insurgents seemed desperate. The Greek bands
everywhere broke and fled before the onset of disciplined troops; and the
Egyptian commander, who was to prove his military capacity in more arduous enterprises,
set to work with systematic ruthlessness to reduce the country to submission.
The horrors of the earlier period of the war paled before those of its latest
phase; and even those who had been left cold by the tales of massacre committed
by barbarians on one side or the other were roused to protest by a policy which
seemed to aim at the extermination of an entire population, and the
colonisation of a European countiy, hallowed by glorious associations, with
Mussulman negroes and feUakeen. All Europe watched with breathless interest the
defence of the little town of Misso- longhi, behind the mud ramparts of which
the forlorn hope of Greece seemed to be making a last heroic stand against the
flood of barbarism.
It was under
these conditions that the long silence between the Russian and British
Governments in the affairs of the East was at last broken. ' Canning took the
initiative. His cousin Stratford Canning (Lord Stratford de Redcliffe) was
commissioned, on taking up his post as ambassador at St Petersburg in the
summer of 1825, to suggest a joint intervention of the Powers, but still with
the stipulation that no coercion should be used against the Porte. Russia,
however, would listen to no proposal for intervention unless combined with a
willingness to use force, if necessary; she would be no party to any repetition
of the futile joint representations to the Porte which had effected so little
in the past; and declared that “intervention, once begun, must continue till
its end is gained.” The position thus defined, the Russian Government withdrew
into its former attitude of mysterious reticence; but Prince Lieven, the Tsar’s
ambassador to the Court of St James’, was instructed to listen to any
“confidential communications ” which Canning might make on the subject, and to
draw him on by hinting that, if Great Britain finally refused to consider the
eventual necessity of using force, Russia would be prepared to settle the
question alone. This veiled threat, following on the ominous silence of the
Russian Emperor, had its effect. Canning admitted that Russia and Great Britain
were the only Powers from whom a settlement of the Eastern Question could be
expected, since Austria’s attitude towards the Court of St Petersburg had been
“ foolish and disloyal,” and Prussia was too unimportant to be considered in
the matter. “ Mr Canning and I,” reported Lieven, “ are on the path of
confidences. The time has come to act.”
The
confidences were interrupted by the death of the Emperor Alexander, which took
place at Taganrog on December 24, 1825; but Canning, now fully persuaded that
the road to a satisfactory solution lay in a separate understanding with
Russia, determined to open
negotiations
with the new Emperor. In January, 1826, accordingly, the Duke of Wellington was
sent as special envoy to St Petersburg, to congratulate Nicholas I on his
accession, and at the same time to come to an understanding as to common action
in the affairs of the Ottoman empire. For such a mission the Duke was specially
adapted. His great reputation, and his known sympathy with the European system,
made him a persona grata at the Russian Court; while the changed situation in
the relations of the Powers obviated any danger of his running counter to
Canning’s policy. “The Duke of Wellington,” wrote Canning, “ would not have
done for any purpose of mine a twelvemonth ago. No more would confidence in
Russia. But now—the ultra system being dissolved, by the carrying of every
point which they opposed—the elements of that system have become useable for
good purposes. I hope to save Greece through the agency of the Russian name
upon the fears of Turkey without a war.” The instructions of Wellington were to
offer to the Tsar the mediation of Great Britain between Russia and Turkey on
the one hand, and between Turkey and the Greeks on the other. At the same time,
if a Conference of the Powers were suggested, he was to stave it off “ by
multiplying conditions.”
The Emperor
Nicholas was, indeed, as little inclined as Canning to submit the Eastern
Question to the continental Allies, by whom he conceived that Alexander had
been badly treated; and he was now, as on subsequent and more fateful
occasions, anxious to settle the matter by a separate understanding with Great
Britain. The mutual sympathy between Nicholas and Wellington, whose qualities
were well calculated to draw them together, facilitated the negotiations; and
on April 4,
1826, was signed the Protocol jpf St
Petersburg, the first formal step in the establishment of an independent
Greece. According to this instrument Great Britain was empowered to offer to
the Ottoman Government a settlement of the Greek Question based on the
establishment of Greece as a vassal and tributary State. Russia promised her
cooperation “in any case”; but by Article III it was stipulated that, should
the Porte reject the proffered mediation, the signatory Powers should take the
earliest opportunity, either separately or in common, of establishing a
reconciliation on the basis of the Protocol.
The changed
attitude of the British Government involved in the signature of this instrument
was due largely to the well-founded dread of isolated action on the part of
Russia. On the other hand, Canning justified an intervention to which he had
refused to be a party, so long as it was repudiated by both sides to the
quarrel, by the new attitude of the Greeks, who, cowed by Ibrahim’s successes,
had sought the “ good offices” of Great Britain and had even suggested placing
themselves under her protection. The terms embodied in the Protocol were
substantially those agreed upon at a conference between Stratford Canning and
192 Revolt of the Janissaries.—Treaty of
Akkerman. [i826
certain of
the Greek leaders, held on the island of Perivolakia in January. In spite,
however, of the apparent cordiality of the Anglo-Rutian entente, causes of
friction were not long in showing themselves. The Emperor Nicholas, though
prepared to act in concert with Great Britain in the Greek Question, was fully
determined to retain in his own hands the settlement of the specific grievances
of Russia against the Porte. While Wellington was yet at St Petersburg, and
during the negotiations which led up to the April Protocol, Minciaky, the
Russian agent at Constantinople, was directed to present an ultimatum to the
Ottoman Government demanding the evacuation of the Principalities by the
Turkish troops, the release of certain Servian deputies, and the immediate
despatch to the frontier of plenipotentiaries for the purpose of arranging a
final settlement. The ultimatum was despatched on March 17,1826; and in a
circular note of the 16th the Russian Government justified its action to the
Powers. The ultimatum, it urged, concerned the affairs of Russia alone. Russia
would be grateful if the Powers would press the Porte to make concessions, but
asked no more than strict neutrality in case of war. As to Greece, the Emperor
would know how to enforce on the Turks respect for the dictates of humanity and
European peace.
The
impression made upon the British Government by this action was naturally not
altogether favourable. It was felt that Wellington had to a certain extent
allowed himself to be hoodwinked; and that, under cover of friendly
negotiations with a view to joint intervention, Russia had taken the first step
towards that isolated action which it was the aim of British policy to
forestall. The premature publication of the Protocol of April 4, which it had
been intended to keep secret, increased the risk of war. Sultan Mahmud, not
unnaturally, resented the intrusion of fresh demands before he had time to
consider those already presented, and saw in them one more proof that Russia
desired to drive him to extremities. His immediate answer was to hurry on the
military reforms which he hoped would put him in a position to bid defiance to
the Tsar’s threats. The measures he took to achieve his ends, however, recoiled
upon himself. The Janissaries, whose traditional privileges were threatened by
the Sultan’s plans, rose in revolt on June 15; and, though Mahmud, with the aid
of his Anatolian troops, was able to crush the insurrection and to exterminate
the turbulent Praetorians who had so long tyrannised over his predecessors, the
immediate result was so seriously to weaken his available forces that he was
compelled to come to terms with Russia. On October 7 was signed at Akkerman a
treaty conceding all the demands of Russia with regard to the Principalities,
the navigation of the Straits, and the cession of certain Circassian
fortresses. Full diplomatic relations between St Petersburg and Constantinople
were now resumed, and the dreaded war was again postponed.
Meanwhile the
Protocol had not resulted in any effective action.
Canning
resented the haste with which its terms had been communicated to the other
Powers, as tending to revive “ the principle of an unasked authoritative
interference of the Alliance,” with which this, “ a corporate movement in a
particular case,” had nothing to do. The Emperor Nicholas, on the other hand,
noted the apparent reluctance of Great Britain to take action, and began to
suspect that her motives had been solely to prevent any isolated action of
Russia. Canning, indeed, wished to hold the Protocol in reserve, and to use it
only in the event of the Porte rejecting the separate mediation of England. The
stubborn spirit of Sultan Mahmud soon made it clear that no mediation unsupported
by a threat of force would have any chance of success. In view of the continued
Turkish successes against the insurgents, it was indeed hardly reasonable to
expect any other attitude; and Russia continued to urge the necessity for
enforcing the terms of the Protocol. In June Prince Lieven was instructed to
point out the notorious plan of Ibrahim for exterminating the Greeks of the
Morea, and to ask whether the British Government had represented to the Porte
the intention of Russia and England to unite in preventing this. The attitude
of the British Ministers in face of this direct appeal seemed to justify the
suspicions of Russia. Wellington, denying that the intention to depopulate the
Morea had been proved, declared that the object of the Protocol had been purely
pacific, and that Great Britain had never departed from her firm objection to
the coercion of Turkey.
A long
correspondence between the several chanceries followed. Mettemich, who had
stigmatised the Protocol as a “ feeble and ridiculous production,” and regarded
Canning’s whole policy in the Eastern Question as fatal to the peace of Europe,
based as this was upon the sanctity of treaties, was obdurate; and Prussia
faithfully supported his views. Charles X, on the other hand, in his capacity
of “ Most Christian King,” was favourable to an armed intervention, which
savoured of a crusade. By the end of August Canning, still to a certain degree
actuated by dread of isolated action on the part of Russia, ventured a step
forward. On September 4 he addressed a note to the Russian Government suggesting
that Great Britain should point out to the Sultan that “ the sentiments of
humanity and the interests of commerce ” made it necessary for the two Powers
to insist on his accepting their mediation on the basis of the Protocol and
suggesting, in the event of his refusal, to withdraw the British and Russian
representatives from Constantinople, to establish diplomatic agents in Greece,
and, possibly, to recognise the independence of the Morea and the islands. To
this note the Tsar replied by a general acquiescence, but suggested that,
before threatening a breach of diplomatic relations, the two Powers should
demand the establishment of an armistice, so as to prevent the extermination of
the Christian population. The particular claims of Russia had been satisfied
by the Treaty of Akkerman; and the Russian Government was anxious not to renew
the
194: Conference of London.-The Porte rejects mediation.
[i826-7
crisis, if
this could be avoided without sacrificing the cause of the Greeks. Only in the
event of the armistice being refused were the Powers to take any coercive
measures; and, as to their nature, on September £9 Lieven was instructed to
point out to Canning that the plan, suggested by himself, of isolating Ibrahim
in the Morea by intercepting succours from Egypt- would be the easiest way of
convincing the Porte without a declaration of war. This could be done by a
union of the fleets of the Powers .willing to share in the pacification of
Greece.
Common action
was delayed by the hope of still bringing into line, on the basis of the
Protocol, all the Powers interested in the Eastern Question. But the
Conference, opened in London in the spring of 1827, only emphasised their
irreconcilable differences. Mettemich protested as energetically as ever
against any coercion of Turkey, and repudiated “mediation” at the request of
“rebels”; Prussia, as usual, followed obediently in his wake; and the two
Powers which alone seemed to i emain faithful to the principles of Troppau
withdrew from the Conference.
The question
of. the conversion of the Protocol into a formal treaty, suggested so early as
January by France, was now seriously taken up. Russia was prepared to adopt
this course, on condition that the ultimate appeal was to be to force. “ We are
invited,” wrote Count Nesselrode, “ to sanction a principle. We invite the
recognition of its consequences.” “ It is part of their civil and religious system
that Orientals never act save in obedience to absolute necessity,” Prince
Lieven had written on January 21,1827, at the same time pointing out that the
Porte was perfectly able to distinguish between a mere “ demonstration ” and a
serious business. This was a proposition the truth of which a rich experience
has since brought home to all the Powers. But Canning was by no means willing
to break with the traditional British policy, and still objected to making the
rejection of mediation by the Porte a casus belli', and, on April 4, the
Protocol was presented to the Sultan by the British and Russian ambassadors.
The result was what the Russian Government had expected. The Porte indignantly
rejected the proffered mediation as an impertinent interference in the affairs
of Turkey and as irreconcilable with the precepts of the Koran. Canning now
realised that the only way to hold Russia to the Spirit of the Protocol, and to
prevent her from declaring war on her own account, was to forestall her by
agreeing to apply coercive measures. This resolution accentuated the crisis in
the Cabinet produced by the illness of Lord Liverpool and the succession of
Canning to the premiership. In April, Wellington, who was opposed to the
conversion of the Protocol into a treaty, had refused a place in the new
Government, and he was now in open opposition to the policy of Russia, and to
any coercion of Turkey. This attitude was to produce its effect later; for the
present the Tory Cabinet was embarked on a course opposed to the Tory
traditioh.
On July
6,1827, the Protocol of St Petersburg was converted into the Treaty of London;
Austria and Prussia refused to sign; and the final settlement of the Greek
Question was thus left to Great Britain, Russia, and France. By the ostensible
articles of the new treaty the three signatory Powers engaged to procure the
autonomy of Greece, under the suzerainty of the Sultan, without breaking off
friendly relations with the Porte. By additional secret articles, however,
suggested by Canning, it was agreed that, in the event of the Ottoman
Government refusing the mediation of the Powers, commercial relations by means
of Consuls should be established with the Greeks; that an armistice should be
proposed to both sides; and that this should be enforced by all the means that
might “suggest themselves to the prudence” of the High Contracting Parties. In
general it was held that a “ pacific ” blockade of Ibrahim in the Morea, as
already proposed, would be the readiest way of bringing him to terms; and instructions
to this effect were sent to the admirals of the allied Powers in Levantine
waters, to whom necessarily a wide discretion was left.
On August 16
the ambassadors of the three Powers presented a joint note to the Porte,
demanding the immediate arrangement of an armistice with the Greeks, and
threatening, in case of refusal, to take in common the measures necessary to
enforce it. The Porte, as usual, met a dangerous situation by an attempt to
procrastinate; and Metternich, encouraged by the death of Canning on August 8,
still hoped to retrieve the situation. He was encouraged also by the language
of the Emperor Nicholas, who, while consenting to sign the Treaty of London,
had expressed his deep regret at having to do so without two of his brother coven
igns of the Holy Alliance, for which he still proclaimed his heart-felt
attachment, and protested his abhorrence of the Greeks as “subjects in open
revolt against their legitimate sovereign.” In Mettemich’s view the impending
catastrophe might yet be averted, if the Porte would consent to accept the good
offices of Austria, and explain to the intervening Powers that it was the
method, and not the substance, of their proposals that it resented. The
Austrian note embodying these proposals was presented at Constantinople on
October 20. It was too late. That very afternoon the dilatory threads of
diplomat^ had been rudely tom, and the fate of Greece decided, in the Bay of
Navarino.
The events
leading up to the battle of Navarino demand a somewhat more detailed treatment
than the other episodes of the war, since they produced a more immediate,
profound, and lasting effect upon the general diplomatic situation. The terms
of the Treaty of London had been communicated to the British and French
admirals at Smyrna on August 11, 1827. They were empowered to propose an
armistice to both combatants and to make it effective, by peaceful means if
possible, by force if necessary. Admiral Codrington sailed at once for Nauplia,
where he
found the Greek Government, as was to be expected, only too glad to accept the
armistice. By the Turks, however, it was rejected with scorn; preparations were
hurried on for reducing the two island strongholds of Hydra and Spezzia; while
at the same time an Egyptian fleet of ninety-two sail left Alexandria and
succeeded, on September 7, in joining the Ottoman squadron in the harbour of
Navarino. Codring- ton arrived five days later, and informed the Ottoman
admiral that any attempt on his part to leave the bay would be resisted by
force. The British squadron was soon joined by the French, under Admiral de
Rigny, and the two admirals now communicated the terms of the Treaty of London
to Ibrahim. The Pasha replied that he could do nothing without the commands of
the Sultan, but, pending the arrival of instructions from Constantinople,
undertook that none of his ships should leave the bay. Upon this the allied
squadron withdrew, leaving a couple of guardships to watch the Ottoman fleet.
The situation
was now sufficiently critical; for the Greeks, having placed themselves in the
right by accepting the armistice which the Turks had refused, were free to
continue hostilities. They took full advantage of their opportunity; and, on
September 23, a Greek flotilla, under Captain Hastings, attacked and destroyed
a Turkish squadron lying off* Salona, To Ibrahim this seemed a gross breach of
the Convention ; and he sailed out of the Bay of Navarino to avenge the
disaster. Warned by the guardships, Codrington intercepted the Turkish squadron
and turned it back. On reaching Navarino, Ibrahim found his instructions
awaiting him; they were, to defy the Powers and remain where he was. The crews
of the allied fleets watched the columns of smoke from the burning villages,
which were the signals of his defiance.
The allied
fleet had, meanwhile, been completed by the arrival of the Russian squadron;
and the three admirals held a council of war at which it was decided to present
an ultimatum to Ibrahim demanding fresh securities, the return home of the
Ottoman and Egyptian fleets, the cessation of hostilities, and the evacuation
of the Morea. The answer was evasive; and Codrington, the senior admiral in
command, decided to make a demonstration by sailing into the Bay of Navarino.
On the morning of October 20, accordingly, the allied fleets entered the bay,
unmolested by the Turkish forts, and cast anchor opposite that of the Ottomans.
No battle had been intended, though the ships were cleared for action ; but the
refusal of the Turks to move some fire-ships which threatened the allied line
led to an altercation; shots were exchanged, and the battle soon became
general. By nightfall the Mussulman armada had ceased to exist.
Judged by its
immediate and ultimate consequences, Navarino may be considered one of the
decisive battles of history. Ibrahim, indeed, though his cause was now
hopeless, still remained firm in his defiance.
“ For
Europe,” however, as Mettemich wrote, “ the event of October 20 began a new
era.” Russia had, indeed, already proposed that, in view of the continued
obstinacy of the Porte, the three Powers should proceed to “vigorous measures”
for restoring order in Greece. In a despatch of September 26, Nesselrode
instructed Lieven to sound the British Government on this point. The Powers
were to offer their mediation for the last time, and, in the event of a fresh
refusal, to withdraw their ambassadors from Constantinople. Russia would then
occupy the Danubian Principalities until the Porte should submit. In the; event
of Great Britain raising difficulties, the Russian Government was prepared to
act alone under Article III of the Protocol of St Petersburg. As to “the
ultimate destiny of Turkish territory in case of the fall of the Ottoman
empire,” Lieven might discuss this with British Ministers, but was not to raise
it. This despatch showed a singular want of appreciation of the change produced
in the British Cabinet by the death of Canning., The new Ministers had always
disliked the Treaty of July 6; they had no intention of pressing its provisions
to their logical conclusion. Lieven did not judge it expedient even to mention
the suggested Russian occupation of the Principalities, still less to hint at
the greater question of the destiny of Turkey. The British Government objected
even to an effective blockade of the Greek coast, and were supported in this by
France; the most that Lieven could obtain was a direction to the admirals “to
police the waters of the Levant so far as concerns the Ottoman flag.” This
being the temper of the British Cabinet, it is easy to realise the sensation
caused when the news reached London that Codrington, without waiting for
instructions, had shattered the Ottoman sea-power. The panic was not allayed by
the attitude of Russia. The Emperor Nicholas, not unnaturally, regarded the common
victory of Navarino as a proof of the unity of the three Powers. He now
proposed, in a despatch signed by Nesselrode on December 5, to follow up the
blow by himself marching into the Principalities, while the Maritime Powers
were to force the Dardanelles and impose the Treaty of London on the Sultan by
threatening Constantinople itself.
It is
possible that a strong Minister like Canning would have bowed to the logic of
events and realised that, for the moment at least, Navarino had hopelessly
broken the traditional policy of Great Britain towards Turkey. But Goderich was
now Prime Minister, Dudley Foreign Secretary; and from neither could any but
half-measures be expected. Moreover, though the Tsar declared that in occupying
the Principalities he had in view no permanent annexation, the mood of both
France and England was one of unconquerable suspicion. In vain the Imperial
word was fortified on December 12 by the signature on behalf of all three
Powers of a Protocol declaring that, should war result, none of them would seek
to derive from it any exclusive benefit,
198 The Porte repudiates the Treaty of Akkerman.
[1827-S
whether
commercial or territorial. The British Government clung to the delusion that
war might yet be prevented, and entrenched itself behind the fiction that
nothing had occurred hopelessly to compromise the • raditional friendship
between Great Britain and the Sultail. In the King’s Speech at the opening of
Parliament, January 29, 1828, the battle of Navarino was referred to as an “untoward
event,” which it was hoped would not disturb the harmonious relations
subsisting between His Majesty’s Government and the Sultan! The folly of any
such hope was soon patent to all the world. The somewhat shamefaced
explanations of the Powers were met by the Porte with a vigorous protest
against this “revolting outrage” on a friendly Power in time of peace, and a
demand for compensation and an apology. These were refused, even by Great
Britain, which threw the blame on the Turks, as having been the aggressors in
attacking a fleet entering a friendly harbour in time of peace. Further
negotiations did nothing to improve the situation; the breach was obviously
irreparable; and the ambassadors of the three allied Powers withdrew from
Constantinople.
The wrath of
Sultan Mahmud, hitherto with difficulty restrained, now burst forth with
unmeasured violence. On December 20 he issued a solemn hatti-sherif denouncing
the cruelty and treachery of the Christian Powers and calling the faithful to a
holy war against the infidel. Russia especially was singled out for
denunciation; and the recently concluded Treaty of Akkerman was declared null
and void. This was the opportunity and the excuse for which the Emperor
Nicholas had long waited. However much the other Powers might dread and dislike
the isolated intervention of Russia, the formal repudiation by the Ottoman
Government of obligations so recently contracted made it impossible to resent
such intervention. Navarino had, in fact, placed the diplomatic situation, and
to all appearances the military situation, completely under the Tsar’s control.
And this state of affairs the Russian Foreign Office was at little pains to
disguise. The repeated declarations of the Emperor Nicholas that he aimed at no
permanent conquests, and the “ sterile ” self-denying Protocol of December 12,
might or might not serve to allay the anxieties of the Powers; but, if they
should refuse to allow the Tsar “to merge his special grievances in the general
cause,” Count Nesselrode roundly declared in a despatch of December 26, that he
would act “ selon ses convenances et ses interets.""
The wisest
course for the British Government, in these circumstances, would probably have
been to yield to the logic of events and make the best of a bad situation by
joining with Russia in following up the victory of Navarino, and so preventing
her isolated action. This course was actually urged by France. But, at the
beginning of January, 1828, Goderich was succeeded in the premiership by
Wellington; the new Cabinet was opposed to Canning’s policy in the Eastern
Question; and
Wellington
refused to take any action calculated to imperil the integrity of the Ottoman
dominions. He would adhere to the Treaty of London only on condition that its
provisions should be carried out by peaceful means. When, on January 6, a
Russian despatch announced the Emperor’s intention of occupying the
Principalities during the March following, with or without the consent of Great
Britain, the British Government, after some weeks’ delay, replied by a formal
protest against a course which would entail the downfall of Turkey and the
outbreak of a European war. At the same time Wellington outlined a scheme for
the settlement of the Greek Question, based on the maintenance of effective
Ottoman control over Greece.
Meanwhile the
diplomatic situation was becoming more and more strained. The Emperor Nicholas
declared that he would not recede one step, and that, if England persisted in
her indifference to the interests of her ally, Russia would consider herself
free from her engagements under the Treaty of July; and Prince Lieven enquired
sarcastically whether the British Cabinet considered the hatti-sherif ordering
a general massacre * an act of internal administration.” But, though it was
clear that war could no longer be prevented, all the Powers were equally
interested in avoiding a general conflagration. Within the British Cabinet
itself voices were raised in favour of concession; and Russia was by no means
anxious to take a line which would have isolated her in face of a hostile
Europe. To the newer school of Russian statesmen, moreover, the traditional
policy of Peter the Great and Catharine had begun to appear of doubtfiil
wisdom, and the maintenance of Turkey as a weak State under Russian influence
of more solid advantage than the break-up of the Ottoman empire* with all the
unknown and perilous issues that this might involve. The despatch of February
14, in which Count Nesselrode announced to the Powers Russia’s intention of
declaring war, was studiously conciliatory in tone. The insolent attitude of
the Porte had left the Tsar no other alternative ; but Russia, while making war
for the redress of her just grievances, invited the Powers to take advantage of
this to carry out the provisions of the Treaty of London, which she would, in
any case, make the basis of her ultimate action. At the same time, in order to
disarm the suspicions of the Maritime Powers, the Tsar declared that he would
respect the Treaty of June 19,1801, regarding neutrals, which had been solemnly
annulled by Alexander I in 1809;1 and Count Heyden, the Russian
admiral in the Mediterranean, was instructed to exercise his belligerent rights
“provisionally and moderately,” and, in the event of the London Conferences
issuing in a plan in favour of Greece, to join his squadron with those of the
other Powers. Thus the Treaty of London had become the instrument • for
producing the very situation it had been devised to prevent. Great Britain
could not, in the circumstances, deny the right of Russia to make war; and
Russia, so long as she adhered to the Treaty, had
200 Capodistrias, President.—Conference in
London. [i828
not
to fear the intervention of the other Powers. The most that Wellington could do
was to protest that the refusal of the Allies to cooperate with Russia would
not justify her in breaking away from the Treaty and settling the Eastern
Question “ selon ses convenances et ses interits.” ,
The Russian
army crossed the Pruth on May 6, 1828; but the war that followed was by no means
the “military promenade” that all Europe expected to witness. The unexpected
vitality of the apparently moribund Turkish empire, and the superlative
fighting, qualities of the Turkish troops, were once more proved; and it was
only after two hardly fought campaigns that General Diebitsch was able to
dictate terms to the Ottoman Government at Adrianople.
Meanwhile the
Emperor Nicholas continued his efforts to settle the Greek Question in concert
with the other Powers. Wellington, however, was irreconcilable. His policy in
the Eastern Question was directed wholly to the preservation of the Turkish
Power; and Greece, under the Presidency of Capodistrias1, elected by
the national assembly in March,
1827, seemed in danger of becoming a Russian
outpost set on the flank of Turkey. The British Government refused the Tsar’s
invitation to follow his example in making a loan to the Greek President; and
in June Huskisson, who had been throughout favourable to the Russian view, left
the Cabinet, while Dudley was replaced by Aberdeen. For the moment Great
Britain seemed to be committed to a complete reversal of Canning’s policy in
the Greek Question.
On June 15
the Tsar made a further advance by renouncing altogether his character as a
belligerent in the Mediterranean. It was not, however, the conciliatory
attitude of Russia, but the unexpected reverses of her arms which stirred the
Powers to further action, by giving them the hope of settling the Greek
Question in the sense least unfavourable to their views, and so forestalling
the effects of the ultimate victory of Russia. Wellington, moreover, believed
that, were the affairs of Greece once settled, Russia would gladly make peace.
The
plenipotentiaries of the three Powers had reassembled in London; and the
proposal of the French Government, anxious to cover its waning reputation at
home by military prestige abroad, to intervene actively in order to secure the
evacuation of the Morea, was accepted by Wellington as the most effective
counter-move to the Russian declaration of war. He only stipulated that Great
Britain should not be required to take any active part in coercing her old
ally. Russia, for her part, saw no serious objection to a course which would
form a most valuable diversion on the flank of her enemy. On July 19, 1828,
1
Count Capo d'Istria, after his election to the Presidency, dropped his title
and assumed this Hellenised form of his territorial name. Following a common,
though not universal, practice, we have adopted throughout this History the
style by which he was perhaps most widely known.
accordingly,
was signed the Protocol of London, by which the armed intervention of France
was authorised and its objects defined.
On August 80
a French expeditionary force, of 14,000 men under General Maison, reached
Petalidi in the Gulf of Corinth, only to find that their purpose had been
forestalled by the politic impetuosity of Sir Edward Codrington. Mehemet Ali
had, in fact, for some time been only waiting for an excuse to retire from a
situation of which he realised the ever growing danger; and, when a British
squadron appeared off Alexandria, he readily responded to the ultimatum of the
British admiral by signing, on August 9, a convention arranging for an exchange
of prisoners and the immediate evacuation of the Morea. Ibrahim himself met the
French general with the news; a review of the Turkish troops was held in his
honour, on the eve of their embarkation; and the task of the French troops
resolved itself into making roads and keeping order in the Morea, pending the
settlement of its fate by the Powers.
The
diplomatic situation meanwhile was being rapidly modified by the developments
of the war. In view of the unforeseen difficulties of the campaign of 1828, the
neutrality of the Mediterranean, which deprived the Russian arms of the main
advantage won at Navarino, became intolerable to the Russian Government; and,
in October, the Emperor decided to proclaim the blockade of the Dardanelles.
This was greeted in England with a great outcry, not only as a gross breach of
faith, but as a serious menace to British commerce. Relations between the
Cabinets of London and St Petersburg became increasingly strained; and a breach
was only prevented by the anxiety of Russia to preserve the Triple Alliance,
though now “ only nominal,” until she should have triumphed over her
difficulties. While protesting, therefore, against any separate action of
France and Great Britain in the Greek Question, she expressed her continued
willingness to act in concert with them if the Cabinets “could agree on a
common course—and keep to it.” The reproach implied in the latter phrase was
not wholly unjustified; for the policy of the British Government was, in fact,
shifting nervously with every change of circumstance. The widening rift in the
Triple Alliance had brought Mettemich once more into the field; and
correspondence passed between Vienna and London. The Austrian Chancellor was
now thoroughly awake to the fact that the time was past for mere protests
against any alteration of the status quo, and renewed the proposal, originally
advanced merely as a move in the diplomatic game, for the independence of
Greece—a solution which, he maintained, would be more satisfactory, not only to
Europe but to the Ottoman Government, than the creation of a vassal State,
since it would obviate the risk of the constant interference of the Powers in
the affairs of Turkey. Nothing, however, but the force of circumstances could
coerce Wellington into a course which he believed would imperil the ancient
relations of amity between Great Britain and the Porte. If he moved in the
direction of
202 Progress towards settlement. Treaty of
Adrianople. [1828-9
the
emancipation of Greece, it was against his will, and because the logic of
events was too strong for him. That something must be* done was abundantly
clear. The first definite step in the recognition of Greek independence had
been taken when, on November 16, 1828, the Conference of London signed a
Protocol placing the Morea, with the adjacent islands of the Cyclades, under
the guarantee of the Powers. Events in Greece itself soon compelled a further
measure of concession. In the autumn and winter of 1828-9, General Church had,
in the face of enormous difficulties, caused mainly by the indifferent
character of his undisciplined forces, succeeded in clearing western Hellas,
north of the Gulf of Corinth, of the Turks. In these circumstances a further
Protocol of the London Conference, signed on March 22,1829, extended the
frontier to the line of Arta-Volo, including in the country guaranteed by the
Powers a large part of Continental Greece, together with the important island
of Euboea. Greece, under this instrument, was still to be a tributary State,
but autonomous, and governed by a Prince selected by the Powers.
This settlement,
which was very far from satisfying the Greeks, had only been accepted by the
British Government with reluctance, and for fear of a worse thing. To Prince
Lieven Wellington explained with great candour that, in signing the Protocol,
Great Britain had only had in mind to settle the Greek Question “ before the
end of your war,” in order to remove one of the greatest obstacles to peace.
Against this view, however, which assumed that the Russian war and the Greek
cause were absolutely distinct, Russia protested vigorously, claiming the
right, under Article III of the Protocol of St Petersburg, to act “separately.”
At the same time, she undertook not to exact from the Porte anything more than
the terms of the Protocol of March 22.
Circumstances
soon placed her in a position to carry out her views. While the Powers were
still hesitating and negotiating, the war in the Balkan Peninsula came to a
sudden and dramatic end. This result was due entirely to the audacious genius
of the Russian commander. In the summer of 1829 Diebitsch with some 13,000 men
had pressed on over the Balkans, leaving in his rear the unbroken armies of the
Grand Vizier and the Pasha of Skutari. This apparently rash strategy was
successful. With his rear to the Black Sea, of which Russia held the command,
his communications were assured; while the mountains lay between him and the
Turks at Shumla, who were powerless to harm him. Constantinople lay at his
mercy; and the Porte, bowing to the inevitable, signed with him, on September
14, the Treaty of Adrianople. In this, true to his promise, the Russian Emperor
stipulated for no territorial increase in Europe. The cession of Anapi and
Poti, however, marked a fresh stage in the Russian advance in Asia, which it
was feared would end by giving her control of the Euphrates Valley route to
India. In addition to this, the Danubian Principalities were created
practically independent
1829-30] Question of the
boundaries of Greece.
203
States; the
treaty rights of Russia in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles were once more
confirmed; and, last but not least, the terms of the Protocol signed by the
Powers in conference at London on March 22 were embodied in the Treaty.
The news of
this outcome of the war was received in London with consternation. In
Wellington’s opinion, if the Treaty were allowed to stand, Turkey would cease
for all practical purposes to exist. The Principalities had virtually been
annexed to Russia “during her good pleasure ”; the abrogation of the Ottoman
right of search in the Straits cut at the root of Turkish sovereign
independence; by the Russian advance in Asia the position of Persia,
indispensable to the security of the British rule in India, was threatened; by
the inclusion of the terms of the March Protocol Russia would reap whatever advantage
was to be gained by the recognition of Greek independence. It was this latter
fact, together with the belief that the integrity of Turkey was already doomed,
that led the British Government yet another step forward in the emancipation of
Greece. If Greece was to be taken from the effective control of the Sultan, it
was better that she should be created an independent State, than a vassal
principality like the Danubian States, looking to Russia for the protection of
its interests. Metternich again urged this view very strongly; and, though
Wellington still hesitated, Aberdeen, in January, 1830, supported it as the
solution that “all Europe” expected. In the previous October both Wellington
and Aberdeen had suggested that the new Greek State should be placed under the
guarantee of the Treaty of Vienna, and Wellington subsequently proposed to
extend this guarantee to Turkey as well. This was, in the circumstances, not
likely to appeal to the Russian Government; and, in order to prevent Russia
from being placed in antagonism to the united opinion of Europe, the Emperor
Nicholas consented to cooperate with the other Powers in a settlement of the
Greek Question which seemed to deprive him of the advantage gained at
Adrianople. The sacrifice was, indeed, more apparent than real; for
Capodistrias, in the name of Greece, had indignantly rejected the terms of the
Protocol of March 22, which gave but the shadow of independence. Accordingly,
on February 3, 1830, a new Protocol was signed in London embodying the terms
which, in the altered circumstances, the British Government was prepared to
allow. In only one respect were these more generous than those which the Greeks
had indignantly rejected. The new State was to be independent, under Leopold of
Coburg as “Sovereign Prince”; but its frontiers were to be more contracted even
than those defined by the March Protocol, and only a fragment of Greece was to
be restored to liberty. It was clear that, in recommending this settlement, it
was the intention of the British Government to leave the new State at the mercy
of the Porte. Capodistrias rejected it, as he had rejected that of March 22;
and Prince Leopold, refusing to accept a task, which
under this
Protocol he declared would be impossible, resigned his candidature.
Nor were
those the only circumstances that forced the Powers to further concessions. In
July the affairs of Greece were overshadowed by the revolution which hurled
Charles X from the throne of France; and the new and anxious problems thus
raised made any settlement of the Eastern Question for the time being better
than none. The main obstacle to a generous settlement had, moreover, been
removed by the fall of the Tory Government in November, 1830. Palmerston, who
succeeded Wellington, had always been in favour of fixing the frontier of the
new State at the line of Arta-Volo. On September 26,
1831, accordingly, a Protocol was signed
establishing this as the northern boundary of Greece; and, at the same time,
the sovereignty was offered to Otto, second son of King Louis of Bavaria. The
King accepted the offer for his son, a lad of seventeen, on condition that he
should be King, and not merely sovereign prince, of Greece, and that the Powers
should guarantee a loan sufficient to enable him to carry on the government.
These terms were agreed to; and, on May 13, 1832, the treaty was signed, but
was antedated May 7 at the request of the British Government, which on that day
had suffered defeat in the House of Lords on the Reform Bill and resigned. Thus
a new Christian kingdom was added to the States system of Europe, and was
placed, not under the guarantee of the general Concert, but under that of the
three signatory Powers, Great Britain, France, and Russia. Since the
assassination of Capodistrias (October, 1831) the country had been plunged in
anarchy, and the establishment of a recognised government was imperatively
needed. On January 28, 1833, Otto, first King of Greece, landed at Nauplia, to
attempt the impossible task of restoring, with the aid of Bavarian officials
and Bavarian mercenaries, law and order among a race of brigands and herdsmen.
(1815-45.)
The course of the Peninsular War from
June, 1818, described in a previous volume, produced a change 'in Napoleon’s
attitude towards Ferdinand, with whom he started negotiations which led to the
Treaty of ValeiKjay (December 11). By this treaty Ferdinand recovered the Crown
of Spain, and undertook that the British troops should not remain in the
country after the withdrawal of the French. But the Regency still existing in
Spain and the Council of State both refused to acknowledge this treaty, on the
ground of the decree passed by the Cortes on January 1, 1811, to the effect
that no engagements should be valid which might be made by Ferdinand during his
captivity. The Cortes, which were sitting at the time in Madrid, ratified this
decision by their decree of February 2, 1814, forbidding the recognition of
Ferdinand as King until he should swear to the Constitution. But Napoleon
disregarded the disavowal of the treaty by the Spanish authorities, and,
seeking in that moment of supreme trial to diminish his international
difficulties, set Ferdinand free to return to Spain (March 7). Ferdinand
hastened to do so; and on the 22nd, while the Allies were still struggling
against the French troops in Catalonia, he entered Spain. By his words, which
were studiously vague, and by his acts, he showed at once that he did not
intend to respect the system established in Spain during his absence.
Disobeying the Cortes, he changed the route fixed for him by them, travelling
first to Saragossa and thence to Valencia (April 16). A few days earlier (on
the 12th), a group of sixty-nine deputies had presented to him an address
suggesting the restoration of the ancien regime. This was just what the King,
desired; and, secure of the support of many soldiers and officials, he signed
on May 4, in Valencia, a proclamation declaring “ null and of no effect” the
Constitution and the decrees of the Cortes. This act, which was not made public
for some days, was followed by the unexpected arrest in Madrid, on the night of
the 11th, of all the Liberal deputies.
Thus began
the persecutions which marked the reaction. At the beginning of 1815 this
reaction was complete; and, in view of all the
circumstances,
it must be admitted that it was logical and inevitable. The Constitution of
1812—notwithstanding the sincere belief of some patriots, such as the learned
Martinez Marina, that it was only the restoration of the ancient Spanish Cortes
and of a Liberal system which had preceded absolutism—meant, in fact, a
complete change in political organisation. Its doctrines sprang on the one hand
from the ideas which had formed the programme of the “ philanthropic ”
ministers in the eighteenth century, especially during the reigns of Ferdinand
VI and Charles III, and, on the other hand, from the powerful influence of the
French Revolution, and also from the influence of the United States system,
which made itself felt through the deputies from the Colonies. From these
sources the Constitution of 1812 emerged as an ultra-Liberal code, some of
whose chapters (namely III and IV of tit. II) are literal translations of
passages in the French Constitution of 1791; while in other points, such as the
separation of powers, it reflects doctrines of English origin. Its leading
principles were—the declaration of the Rights of Man; the sovereignty of the
nation; limited hereditary monarchy, the King being chief of the executive,
controlled by the Constitution and, in some of his functions, by the Cortes;
the Cortes, set up as a national institution with legislative sovereignty;
personal inviolability of the deputies; power to reform the Constitution;
elective municipalities; universal incidence of taxation, the exemptions of the
privileged classes being abolished; and other points of less immediate
importance. To these must be added further reforms made by the Cortes, such as
the abolition of the Inquisition1—although religious offences were
henceforth punishable in the Bishops’ and the Civil Courts; the abolition of
feudal jurisdiction, of seigniorial rights, and vassalage, and of the proofs of
nobility required from those who wished to enter a military Order or to hold
other posts of honour; equality of rights among Spaniards and Americans; the
restriction of the number of rdigious communities; and the law abolishing
entails.
But the
reforming party which had achieved these reforms in the Cortes of Cadiz
represented only a minority—doubtless the most intelligent and cultivated part
of the population, but still only a minority. Against it were the feelings and
interests not only of the royal family— attacked in its privileges and deeply
wounded in its pride by these new political principles—but also of many of the nobility
and clergy, who had been injured in their interests and alarmed by the reforms
passed in the Cortes and by the tone of the philosophic ideas of many Liberal
members; although the Constitution declared that the Catholic religion was, and
always should be, the sole religion of the Spanish nation. These national
elements of opposition were aided by that general European movement of reaction
against the spirit of the French Revolution which followed the victory of the
Allies over Napoleon. Thus upon Ferdinand’s return to Spain the backward step
was inevitable; even if the King had been hampered by scruples, he would have
been driven
to it by the
majority of his subjects and by the influence of the other sovereigns.
But the
personal character of Ferdinand and the blindness of the absolutists drove the
[reaction to extremes. Louis XVIII and the emigres did not venture to restore
completely the ancien regime, though they had stronger reason to do so.
Ferdinand did more than restore his own absolute power; he went back to a
system which undid even the reforms of the eighteenth century (as for example
in the decree of May 29, 1815, permitting the return of the Jesuits), and he
stained the reaction with ferocious persecutions. This was largely due to the
character of the King, rancorous, cruel, disloyal, ungrateful, and
unscrupulous, as he had already shown himself in the conspiracies against his
father and Godoy and during his residence in France. But from the national
point of view it was a great error to break so completely with the group of
reformers. Although these were a minority within the country, they represented
a genuine opinion, held by men of culture and intelligence, who would have
provided the best element of administration under a king equal to his mission—men
who, however mistaken in the actual occasion of their reforms, represented
something which it was madness to expunge entirely from the national life. -
These were also the men who had largely helped to organise the resistance
against Napoleon, defending the throne for the King during his captivity in
France. By merely carrying out what he had promised in his proclamation of May
4, 1814, the convocation of Cortes “ to establish firmly and legally whatever
the good of my people requires,” by remembering that in the same document he
had declared “ that never in ancient Spain were her kings despots nor did her
good laws and constitutions allow it”—he would have saved the country many
convulsions. Since the Liberals were sincere monarchists, and the Moderates, as
afterwards appeared, were numerous among them, the new monarchy might thus have
been peacefully and firmly established. But Ferdinand preferred to indulge his
own and others’ rancour, refusing to acknowledge anything that had been done in
his absence, and throwing himself into the arms of men generally incapable and
blinded by political passion.
Persecution,
however, did not at first go so far as in the second reaction in 1824. It is
true that the clergy and the violent absolutists committed excesses against the
Liberals in many places, for example in Majorca, which had been an important
centre of refugees from the Peninsula during the war of independence. But not
much blood was shed,.notwithstanding the petitions of the extremists* who, in
one of their periodicals, the Atalaya, urged that “all the imprisoned Liberals
should
be
at once hanged and afterwards the cases
against them stated.”
This
moderation was partly due to the intervention of Wellington.
But, if no
one was put to death, other penalties fell upon the supporters of the
Constitution. Almost all the deputies who still
remained in
Cadiz were arrested, their houses searched, and their papers seized.
Domiciliary visits were general. Every book of a Liberal flavour was destroyed
and also every copy of the Constitution. The most absurd pretexts sufficed to
condemn the suspected. The trials of the deputies were dropped after some
delay, because the ordinary Courts found no ground for the sentences desired by
the absolutists. Displeased at this, the King himself assumed jurisdiction in
these cases and decided them by a Royal Order of December 17,1815, containing
the list of the accused and their respective penalties, with the command that “
on that same night they should be taken from the prisons and conveyed forthwith
to their respective destinations, so that in the morning the people of Madrid
may find the thing accomplished.” By virtue of this decision the most eminent
members of the Cadiz Cortes who had failed to escape abroad were sent, some to
the African fortresses, others to castles, monasteries, or abbeys in Spain,
there to suffer sentences, amounting in some cases to eight years’
imprisonment, with prohibition to receive any visit and exclusion for life from
Madrid and the royal residences. Although Ferdinand had promised Napoleon to
respect the ajrancesados, these also were victims of the political reaction,
being exiled from Spain or banished to a distance of twenty leagues from the
capital with their families, to remain under the observation of the
authorities. In consequence of this, many officers remained abroad for several
years, in France or elsewhere.
The political
system established by the King was purely absolutist. The system of Ministers
instituted by the Cortes was replaced by the previously existing
Secretaryships, subject to the will of the King and to the authority of the
Royal Council and Chamber of Castile. This body and also the other Councils,
notably those of the Indies, of the Treasury, and of the Religious Orders, were
restored in the same form which they had possessed in 1805 according to the
laws of the Novisima Recopilacion. But this system of functionaries and offices
was no more than a show, for behind them stood another power, the inner group
or camarilla which the King had formed of his intimate adherents, among them
the notorious Escoiquiz, the Nuncio Gravina, the parvenu Duke of Alagon,
besides one Chamorro, formerly a water-carrier—a sort of jester whose
buffooneries amused the King—Ugarte, formerly a porter, and others of that
stamp. This cammilla had much influence in affairs, but not so much as to
master the King’s will. Although Ferdinand was certainly ignorant of the
instructions given by Charles I to his son Philip II, he practised, the jealous
watchfulness which is advised in them, using the camarilla against the
Secretaries and each member of the camarilla jgainst all the rest: thus all
watched each other, and the King was kept informed of the doings and intentions
of all. Accordingly the dismissals of Secretaries were so numerous that from
1814 to 1820 more than thirty were deprived of office by the caprice or
suspicion of
1815-8]
209
the King or
the intrigues of colleagues. Dismissal was generally accompanied by exile or imprisonment;
and Ferdinand, who sometimes affected a blunt candour, used to explain that
some had been removed as “ shortsighted,” others as “ long-handed,” or “
incapable,” or “ too clever,” remarks which were often very true. With the
members of the camarilla he acted siir arly; thus even Ugarte, one of the most
favoured, was imprisoned for some time in thz akaz&r of Segovia, and the
Canon Ostolaza, a fierce persecutor of the Liberals, was confined in 1818 in
the monastery of Batuecas. But while they enjoyed the royal favour the
Secretaries and the creatures of Ferdinand trafficked freely in offices and
public affairs, nor was the King untouched by the extreme political corruption
of the period. One of the most scandalous examples of this corruption was the
purchase from the Tsar of five ships of the line and three frigates^ almost all
of which proved useless, notwithstanding their enormous cost of 54,400,000
jpesetas (over two millions sterling). The persons chiefly involved in this
affair were the King himself, Ugarte, the Russian ambassador Taticheff, and
Eguia, Minister of War.
The results
of this Government were seen in a depressed and poverty- stricken country,
commerce and industry ruined, the public service neglected, the Treasury
bankrupt, the army and navy unpaid and starving, and the naval forces almost
reduced to the King’s pleasure-boats on the Tagus and the pool of the Retiro.
The only relief offered for the extreme indigence of many naval officers, of
whom one died of starvation at Ferrol, was permission granted to them to
support themselves by fishing (February 12, 1815). Meantime the King’s
personal guards were munificently paid and loaded with favours. The situation
was temporarily relieved by the appointment of Garay as Secretary of the Treasury
(December, 1816). The annual deficit then exceeded 116 million pesetas (between
four and five millions sterling), excluding the interest on the debt. Garay
presented a scheme which was completed by later decrees, fixing the revenue at
714 millions and substituting for the innumerable existing taxes a direct
contribution valued at 250 millions, preserving, besides, various monopolies
and the dues levied on goods entering the towns. To increase the new
contribution, he abolished the exceptions or immunities enjoyed by some regions
and by certain classes, especially the clergy; and he made arrangements for the
gradual reduction of the debt. The King, who was wasteful and extravagant,
welcomed this reform for the sake of the increase of revenue; and the Pope
agreed to an annual contribution of thirty millions from the clergy, besides
other taxes on ecclesiastical revenues. But the protests of the people against
the single contribution, the disappointment of the King whose treasury gained
less than he had expected, the intrigues of the clergy against the new impost,
and perhaps other causes connected with the scandal of the Russian ships,
brought about the fall of Garay (1818)} his plans were undone and the finances
returned to their former confusion.
210 Liberal conspiracies and insurrections.
[lsu-s
While Garay
was thus attempting financial reform, some slight relaxation of the general
system of oppression took place towards the end of . the period. This change
was partly due to the Queen, Isabel of Braganza, Ferdinand’s second wife,
married in 1816. \lthough a decree of April 25,1815, had forbidden the
publication of any periodical except the Gazette and the Diario de Madrid, some
non-political periodicals were now tolerated. Among them the CrSnica Cienit/lca
y Literaria deserves special mention; it was edited by the semi-Liberal Jose
Joaquin de Mora, who together with Alcala Galiano carried on iii its pages a
controversy in favour of classicism and against the Spanish drama of the
seventeenth century, which their adversary Bohl de Faber, a follower of
Schlegel, wished to restore to public favour* This controversy was the first
episode in the literary conflicts which were to end after some years with the
victory of Romanticism. In fact, the dramas of Calderdn, Lope, Tirso, and the
rest, had never ceased to be represented in Madrid, even during the prevalence
of neo-classical taste in the eighteenth century: and, at the very time when
Bohl was defending them, the great actor Mdiquez included them in his repertory,
side by side with works of different quality translated from the French. While
the intellectual repression was thus somewhat relaxed, primary schools were
established in Madrid; the public relief of distress was extended; the
picture-gallery founded by King Joseph was reorganised; and Madrid was
embellished by some considerable public works.
But this
partial relief did not suffice to cover the many defects of the Government,
still less to satisfy the aspirations of the partisans of the Constitution or doceanistas,
as they were called. To most men of Liberal ideas the Constitution of 1812 was
an object of idolatry, sustained by the sentimentalism and enthusiastic
idealism of the period. They believed public welfare and national prosperity to
be impossible ipart from the Code of Cadiz. This belief (which was shared by
many foreigners, among whom were some English), together with the desire of
vengeance inevitably roused by Ferdinand’s persecutions, produced repeated
insurrections which aimed at overthrowing absolutism. All the leaders were
military officers: Espoz y Mina in 1814; Porlier in 1815; Richard, who
attempted to assassinate the King, in 1816; Lacy in 1817, All these attempts
failed, and most of the leaders with their associates suffered death. Except in
the case of Richard, all these conspiracies and risings aimed merely at
restoring the Constitution under the rule of Ferdinand, preserving the
strictest allegiance to monarchy, notwithstanding the odious character of the
King. Nevertheless, according to AlcaM Galiano and other contemporaries, the
Spaniards were beginning to feel contempt for Ferdinand. AlcaM Galiano, whose
knowledge of men was very wide, wrote in 1818 that even among vigorous
opponents of the fallen Constitution he observed disgust at the state of
things; “ respect for the royal person,” he adds, “ had diminished.”
The military
character of the insurrections and the predominance of military leaders is
explained by the fact that among the general population, little affected by
Liberal ideas, it was impossible to find a sufficient number of armed adherents
to effect a revolution, while military discipline made of the soldiery a docile
instrument, and the officers, men of considerable cultivation, much affected by
French ideas, and indignant at the persecutions and at the official neglect of
the army, furnished ready material for revolutionary action. Later these
conditions were modified by personal struggles and by the ambitions of
commanders, which prolonged, as will presently appear, the era of those
military insurrections which form so large a part of the history of Spain
almost throughout the century. Meantime the organisation of the National
Militia, by arming the bourgeoisie and the people, introduced a new civilian
element into the revolutionary party.
The failure
of all the movements from 1814 to 1820 increased in every case the severity of
Ferdinand towards all who were suspected of Liberalism, and produced fresh
victims. Even men like Escoiquiz and the famous guerrillero “El Empecinado”
were banished for addressing to the King some observations on the inefficacy of
a system of terror and on the need of attracting the more advanced group by
means of reforms. Thus opinion was being prepared for new explosions, which
were soon to introduce a second constitutional period.
The excesses
of the reaction in Spain disgusted not only Spaniards but also the sovereigns
and Governments of the Great Powers. Louis XVIII clearly showed this disgust by
refusing the aid of the Spanish troops sent by Ferdinand under Castanos after
Napoleon’s escape from Elba, while accepting the aid of other nations in the
campaign of 1815. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the obstinacy of Spain
incurred a rebuff, deserved by the King, but not by the Spanish people, which
had taken its full share in the overthrow of Napoleon’s power and in a war
which had roused the enthusiasm of all Europe. The claims of the Spanish
representative, a diplomatist of moderate capacity named Gomez Labrador, were
disregarded; Spain refused to sign the Final Act, and was not invited to join
the Holy Alliance. In return Ferdinand refused to recognise or accede to the
decisions of the Coalition of 1815.
But, if the
Spanish monarchy was neglected abroad, at home in the Court of Madrid the Powers
contended for influence over the Government and strove to guide its policy or
win advantages. Great Britain and Russia were conspicuous in this effort
through the persistent intrigues of their ambassadors, Henry Wellesley and
Count Taticheff. Russia favoured a moderate policy, partly from expediency,
since an extreme system, by driving Spaniards to the brink of revolution, was
dangerous to Europe; partly because the Tsar Alexander was still in that phase
of semi-Liberal romanticism which he afterwards abandoned. The British
Government and ambassador at that time supported
212 British and Russian influence at Madrid.
[isi5-8
absolutism;
but on the other hand they were displeased with Ferdinand for his ingratitude
towards Wellington and disregard of Wellington’s prudent counsels, and for his
vexatious measures against British commerce and even against British subjects
living in the Peninsula, These motives of dissatisfaction, together with the
strong Liberal feeling existing in England, produced vigorous attacks from the
Opposition in Parliament upon Ferdinand and his councillors. These attacks
injured English influence in Madrid for the time, and Taticheff contrived to
obtain the supremacy, partly by means of Queen Isabel, whose desire for
moderation he supported. Thus came about the slight respite of two years
(1816-8), which began with the elevation to power of Jose Leon y Pizarro, a man
of sound intelligence and political experience, who was expected to give a more
humane and Liberal turn to the Government, and which ended with the fall of
Garay. To recover favour, Great Britain supported the claims of the Bourbon
family in Italy, and obtained at last the Treaty of June, 1817, which secured
the reversion of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla to the Infanta Marie-Louise,
formerly Queen of Etruria, and her male descendants. The insurrection of the
American Colonies offered a fresh opportunity to Great Britain to gain
influence over Spain. ,The open assistance lent by her to the insurgents as
well as her influence in Portugal, which through her Colony of Brazil
represented a powerful factor in the Trans-Atlantic political problem,
convinced the Spanish Government of the need of closer relations with Great
Britain; and at last, after a fruitless effort made with the support of Russia
in the permanent: Commission of the Allied Powers, it attained this end by the
Treaty of September 17, 1817, which opened to Great Britain the commerce of the
Indies and prepared the way for the abolition of the slave-trade. But this did
not destroy at the time the influence of Taticheff in the Court, and
'.’specially in the camarilla, some of whose members were guided by him, nor
did it prevent the intervention of other Russian politicians in Spanish policy.
Among these
was Prince Galitzin, an amateur of literature and art and intimate with the
writers of the time, who resided in Madrid as a secret and busy agent of
Russia. Among his friends was Mora, editor of the Cr&nka Cientffica, who
was induced by Galitzin to aid him in drawing up a memorial upon the
political, military, moral, and economic state of Spain, persuading him that it
was to be presented to Capodistrias, with a view to obtaining the support of
the Tsar in pending questions. Mora, induced by the intrigues of Galitzin, succeeded
in bringing into the affair the Secretary of Justice, the illiterate Lozano de
Torres, to whom he proposed a mission to the Courts of foreign Powers and an
interview with Capodistrias. This mission was to be entrusted to Mora himself,
in order to ascertain exactly what truth there was in rumours of conspiracies
and plots against the Spanish State, rumours of which the inept Spanish
diplomacy seemed totally ignorant. The
proposal
having been accepted by the King, Mora started secretly on April 20,1819, for
Italy, where according to Galitzin he was to meet Capodistrias and show him the
memorial. The interview with the Russian Minister did not take place; but on
his journey through Spain, Italy, and France, Mora became convinced that the
Government of Ferdinand was discredited in the opinion of Europe, and that
everywhere conspiracies were aiming at a Spanish revolution, chiefly supported
by American agents from the Spanish Colonies and from the United States, who
hoped thus to aid the emancipation of Spanish America, and also by the
Freemasons and the King of Sardinia himself. One of those who informed Mora of
these movements was Godoy, who was then in Rome, his naturalisation in Austria
being opposed by Ferdinand through the ambassador Cevallos. By the advice of
Mora, given on the strength of the revelations made in his despatches,
Ferdinand made one of his frequent changes of Secretaries; but he refused to
establish or subsidise in Madrid a political periodical which might
counterbalance the polemics tarried on by the English Press. Other advice given
by Mora was also neglected; and when this improvised diplomatist urge! the King
to disarm the conspirators by granting a Constitutional Charter on the lines of
the French Charte, and also an amnesty to the Liberals and proscribed
afrancesados, he was recalled from his mission and returned in disappointment
to Madrid at the very time when Capodistrias was writing to him from
Paris—perhaps not with serious intentions—inviting him to an interview in the
French capital. Meantime the United States Minister, George Erving, was
pressing upon the Spanish Government the cession of the Floridas, which was
finally accomplished by the Treaty of 1819, ratified on October 20, 1820. In
return Erving professed complete neutrality with regard to the Colonies,
although it was well known that frequent help was sent from the United States
to the insurgents, and that the American Freemasons boldly supported the
movement with the knowledge and connivance of the Federal Government.
According to
Mora’s communications agents from North and South America swarmed throughout
Europe, with centres of action and vigilance established in Lisbon and in
London to observe the movements of troops destined for America and to prepare
for the outbreak of an insurrection on the eve of their departure: by these
means, apart from the effects upon Spain herself, the struggle in the Colonies
would be closed. The Italian Carbonari were in communication with the Lodges of
Philadelphia, and, in concert with William Shalderque, the United States agent
in Leghorn, had despatched one of their number, the agitator Sertini, from
Genoa to Barcelona. Shalderque had correspondents in several parts of the
Peninsula, through whom he distributed money to prepare the Revolution; Rumours
of this American gold were current in Cadiz at the end of 1819 and beginning of
1820; and some Americans afterwards boasted of having thus contributed to the
revolution.
These rumours were recalled many years afterwards by the anonymous author of
the History of Fernando F//(1842); but, although Mora’s information may have
been partly true, it should be noted that Alcal£ Galiano—who, like most
converts, is very candid in his memoirs —absolutely denies that the conspiracy
received such support, and dwells upon the indigence of the Cadiz conspirators,
who, at the end of 1819, succeeded with great trouble in collecting through the
contributions of some Cadiz merchants about 4000 dollars; a sum quite
insufficient to suborn officers and soldiers. The fact is, that whatever
interest the Americans may have had in raising hindrances in Spain against the
reinforcement of the Spanish forces in America, there existed in the Peninsula
sufficient elements for the support of more or less serious revolutionary
action without external aid or incitement.
The
revolutionary movement gathered force gradually, as in other countries. We have
already said that the majority of the intellectual element, although a minority
of the whole population, had more or less pronounced Liberal tendencies,
leaning either towards the doceanistas or the afrancesados. The intellectuals
were joined by many men of the middle class, especially merchants, some nobles
and ecclesiastics, and many officers of the army. The list of the conspirators
and Freemasons of that time, and the names of those who after the triumph
formed the juntas and municipalities in Madrid and the other capitals, clearly
prove that in every class, and particularly in the bourgeoisie, Liberal ideas
claimed adherents. Even among those who had recognised the absolutist
Government of 1814, and those who occupied public posts, partisans were to be
found not perhaps of the Constitution of 1812, but at least of a moderate
constitutionalism, or of a more Liberal monarchy. In Cadiz the chief part of
the population favoured these ideas, doubtless owing to the influence of the
Cortes which had sat in that city. In some regions, as in Asturias, the most
prominent men, and almost all the patriots who in 1808 had org^r ,ed resistance
to the French, joined the Liberal movement, although afterwards many of them
changed sides, becoming excessively Conservative. The general feeling of the
young men was the same. Notwithstanding the vigilance of the authorities, the
books of the Encyclopedists and the abundant political literature, not yet
adequately studied, which had sprung from the discussions of 1810-3, passed
from hand to hand, as well as pamphlets and poems more or less seditious and
inflammatory, in which young men secretly vented their aspirations for a vague
liberty, all the more eagerly desired because not clearly defined. The refugees
of 1814, chiefly living in England, carried on thence a persistent campaign
(described in Mora’s despatches) against the absolutism of Ferdinand and his
camarilla, with the support of the English Liberal Press, which always by some
means found entrance into Spain. The officers, who had, been made prisoners in
the War of Independence and had returned to Spain, constituted, as has been
said, a considerable
Liberal
element, influenced as they were by French ideas; and some of them, as Riego
and San Miguel, were members of foreign secret societies* such as that of the
Freemasons.
Freemasonry
had existed in Spain from the middle of the eighteenth century. The
persecutions of 1814 and the propaganda of the returning refugees greatly
increased its range, first in dependence upon centres established in other
countries, but afterwards with a separate organisation. Not all the Masons
were revolutionists, but all aided one another; and under the shadow of the
Lodges the Radical elements steadily worked for revolution and drew in fresh
adherents, some of them convinced partisans, others hardly understanding to
what they were committing themselves. AlcaK Galiano says that in 1817 Spanish
freemasonry on the whole “was not yet determined to act vigorously and directly
against the Government,” although most of the malcontents and converts to
Liberalism were becoming Masons. In the insurrection of Lacy, which was supported
by the Murcian Lodge, not all the conspirators were Masons; and the Cadiz Lodge
hesitated before approving the conduct of the Lodge of Algeciras, which had
welcomed the fugitives from Catalonia. But in 1819 matters took a more decided
political turn. The Andalusian Masons, especially those of Cadiz and Seville,
who had wide ramifications in the garrisons and in the army which was being
assembled at Cadiz to be embarked for America, decided under the influence of
some enthusiasts to push on the revolution. Among the civilians, two young men
took the lead in the conspiracy, AlcaK Galiano, son of the brave sailor killed
at Trafalgar, and Mendizabal, who was employed in the provisioning of the
troops, a man then obscure but afterwards a leading figure in Spanish politics.
Notwithstanding
the insignificance and timidity of those who ostensibly ruled the masonic
society of Cadiz, matters were actively pushed on through the enthusiasm of a
few men and the illusory hopes entertained by the military members of large
monetary contributions and powerful aid from the Sovereign Chapter sitting in
Cadiz. Among the armed forces the movement was much aided by the repugnance
generally felt in the army and navy against embarking for America. This
repugnance, which is not uncommon in colonial wars and can be paralleled in the
modem history of several countries, was justified in this case by the
mismanagement of the expedition and such scandals as that of the purchase of
Russian ships, which were destined for America. It was also believed that the
movement would be directed by General O’Donell, Conde de La Bisbal, an Irishman
by birth, commander of the expeditionary army, whose ambiguous conduct and
decided tolerance towards the conspirators seemed to show a disposition to
revolt. But, when all was ready for the outbreak, La Bisbal—whether upon his
own initiative or upon the persuasion of Sarsfield, the second in
command—arrested the commander’s of battalions at Puerto de Santa Maria
(Cadiz—July).
This blow
upset for the moment the plans of the revolutionists; but, contrary to
expectation, it was not followed by regular prosecutions, nor did it prevent
the reunion of the conspirators and the renewal of their efforts. These efforts
at last won the adhesion ef, two, officers, Colonel Quiroga, who was appointed
military leader of the insurrection, and Rafael del Riego, commander of the
regiment of Asturias.
On January
1,1820, the day previously fixed by these leaders, Riego, with the force under
his command, proclaimed in the town of Cabezas de San Juan the Constitution of
1812; thereby acting againslt the plans of the civilian leaders of the
movement, who, according to Alcalri, Galiano, were far from desiring merely the
restoration of a political code which some of them regarded as defective. On
the night of Januaiy 1, Riego entered Arcos and seized the person of
GeneralConde de Calderon. He was there joined by the battalion of Seville,
whose second in command, Francisco Osorio^ had revolted on the same day,
Quiroga, who had been prevented by a storm of rain from leaving the barracks on
the date fixed, started on January 2 and took possession of the town of San
Fernando, where the Minister of Marine was made prisoner. This easy victory
might have been followed by a march into Cadiz, but for the hesitation and
blundering of Quiroga, who let slip his opportunity. Thus the military
authorities had time to prepare for defence; and, although the conspirators
within the city attempted without success to win over the scanty garrison, while
Riego on his side led his troops into Puerto de Santa Maria and seized the
arsenal of Carraca, yet the revolution stood still for many days and was
threatened with complete failure. An expedition led by Riego to M&laga and
Cordoba, to inspirit the soldiers and win the adhesion of other places, proved
fruitless, as well as an attempt made in Cadiz by agreement with some royalist
officers (March 10). Fortunately for the constitutional cause, the hesitation
which had prevailed throughout Spain upon the first news of Riego’s
prtmunJdamiento was ended on February 21 by the revolt of Corunna; an example
quickly followed by all Galicia, Asturias, Saragossa, Barcelona, and Pampeluna.
La Bisbal himself, who was in Madrid at the time and had be^n commissioned by the
Government to crush the constitutionalists, revolted at Ocana, perhaps because
he was now assured that the revolution would succeed.
All these
events filled the Court with fear and the Liberals of Madrid with hope. It
seems inexplicable that from January 1 to February 21, on which date Corunna
seconded the movement of Cabezas de San Juan, the Government remained inactive,
or merely attempted some feeble nieasures against the insurgents. From
December, 1819, when the central authorities apparently discovered that an
attempt was being made to renew the movement which had been checked by La
Bisbal and Sarsfield in July, it was evident that, instead of vigorously
crushing the symptoms of rebellion, they were attempting to thwart it by timid
reforms. They
began by announcing a new penal code and the mitigation of processes and
penalties in the case of political prisoners. This trifling promise satisfied
no one, and nothing more was heard of it; but on March 4, the gathering force
of the revolution being now evident, a royal decree commanded that the Council
of State should be reorganised and that the Council and the Judges should
consult the King “ as to what they thought expedient for the good government of
the monarchy.” On the 6th an order appeared announcing the convocation of the
Cortes; and finally on the 7th, by advice of General Ballesteros, an
extraordinary Gazette declared that the Cortes would meet at once, and that the
King “in accordance with the general will of the people had decided to swear adhesion
to the Constitution of 1812.” Thus, almost without bloodshed, the revolution of
1820 triumphed.
According to
an eye-witness, Mesonero Romanos, this Gazette produced indescribable relief
among the more cultivated and wealthy part of the population of Madrid,
grandees and titles of Castile, military officers of every rank, rich
proprietors, bankers and all the commercial classes, lawyers, physicians,
literary and scientific men. Mesonero states that in the expressions of
rejoicing the lower classes took no share, being generally, as has been said,
not very favourable to constitutionalism, either from ignorance of its meaning
or from the weight of the long tradition of absolutism. The intellectual
character of the movement, partly aristocratic, partly bourgeois, appeared in
the spontaneous meeting held on the same day in the town-hall by people of the
classes already mentioned, when the new municipality of Madrid was appointed by
acclamation. In Cadiz, where the news of the decree of March 7, followed by an
order that the troops should swear to the Constitution, had suddenly changed
the position of the insurgents, the revolution still had a distinctly military
character; and it was evident that the leaders, especially Riego, intended to
make the most of the credit of having started the revolution and to establish a
rival power which should balance the civil power now being organised in Madrid.
Riego and Quiroga sent emissaries to the King, to congratulate him on having
sworn to the Constitution and to offer him the submission of the “Liberating
Army.” Both were raised to the grade of general, an honour which Riego was
unwilling to accept, partly from real disinterestedness—a trait which in his
childish, impulsive, and sentimental character was compatible with the ambition
which sometimes turned his head—partly because he resented the grant of the
same reward to Quiroga and to two other officers whom he thought less deserving
than himself. But if some cleavage thus began to appear between the two forces,
civil and military, which had risen from the revolution, no difference of
opinion appeared in the spirit of generosity which at first marked the victory
of the constitutionalists; In fact, not Only was no excess committed against
the supporters of absolutism; but,
although the
deputies who in 1814 had urged the King to restore absolutism were arrested,
the majority of the Cortes, which met in 1820, desired that they should not be
brought to trial; and accordingly they were set at liberty. The King took the
oath on March 9; and on the 10th a royal proclamation appeared containing a
phrase afterwards famous:—“Let us advance frankly, myself leading the way,
along the constitutional path.” We shall presently see how far the frankness of
Ferdinand went.
All the proscribed
persons and refugees of 1814 naturally returned to Spain; and some of the most
eminent—Argiielles, Canga Argiielles, and others—were included in the first
constitutional Government. The Cortes having been summoned, there was an
interregnum of four months during which the administration was conducted in a
strange fashion, being divided between the Ministry and the provincial
revolutionary juntas, which did not disperse, one of them continuing to sit
even in the capital of the monarchy.. Side by side with these authorities,
which had a certain official character and continued the tradition of 1810-2,
another power presently arose which in an unofficial and irregular manner
profoundly influenced public affairs—the power of the clubs or “patriotic societies”
formed upon French models. Some of these were begotten by the enthusiasm of
youth, others were formed with the reasonable hope of instructing and guiding
public opinion; but all were swayed as a rule by the most impetuous radicalism.
The most famous societies of Madrid were that of the Cafe Lorencini, entitled
“The Patriotic Society of the Friends of Liberty,” that of the Cafe Gran Cruz
de Malta, and that of the “Friends of Order,” commonly known as La Fontana de
Oro, because it met in the basement of the inn so named. In this last the
leading orator was AlcaM Galiano, who had left Cadiz for Madrid. A
characteristic mark of these societies—not indeed confined to them, for it
pervaded the political life of the time— was the abuse of rhetoric which inflamed
men’s minds and won rapid popular triumphs. Oratory was supported by a
formidable stream of patriotic and topical verse, and by music which provided a
setting for political hymns and songs. Two of these had an extraordinary vogue:
the hymn of Biego, whose authorship was disputed among several claimants, the
fact being that there were several hymns, of which one prevailed and became for
half a century the Liberal anthem; and, secondly, the Tragala, so called from
its refrain (Swallow it) which referred to the Constitution of 1812.
Prominent in
the Liberalism of that time was the National Militia, which thenceforth played
a large part in politics. The Code of 1812, which created this force, directed
that it was to be formed in each province “of the inhabitants of the province
in proportion to its population and condition,” not serving continuously but
only “when circumstances required.” In the principal cities a number of nobles
voluntarily
joined this
militia in 1820 side by side with the bourgeoisie-, Mesonero mentions the names
of more than sixteen ancient and illustrious houses on the roll of the Madrid
militia.
On July 9 the
Cortes were opened, meeting in a single Chamber like the Cortes of 1810. Their
composition was fairly homogeneous, with a predominance of moderate Liberals
and men of cultivation and social weight, professors, writers, magistrates,
noted students of science, as Lagasca, Azaola, Ciscar, and others. Many
deputies of 1812 were now reelected, among them the group of Liberal priests which
included Martinez Marina, Munoz Torrero, Villanueva, Ruiz del Padron, Martell,
and others.
Although the
deputies did not all equally reverence the Constitution of 1812, some even
desiring its reform or complete alteration, the opinion of the majority established
as the symbol of the Liberal cause the Code of Cadiz; its integrity was the
fundamental doctrine upon which the Cortes based their labours. In accordance
with a precedent of 1812 it was ordered (April 24) that the text of the
Constitution should be explained in the primary schools. The Cortes sat until
November 9, and passed many important measures, among them the abolition of
entails and of the settlement of estates, the suppression of many religious
Orders, the abolition of pecuniary subsidies to the Papal See, the regulation
of the patriotic societies with a view to prevent excesses, and the punishment
of the priests who were conspiring against the constitutional Government. The
Cortes of 1820, as well as the succeeding Cortes of this period, have been
blamed as anti-clerical. Such was, in fact, their character; and in view of the
political situation this was natural, for the greater part of the clergy were
anti-constitutional. Their sympathy with absolutism had been proved in the
reaction of 1814, which, in spite of Garay’s unsuccessful opposition, committed
the error of ratifying the exemption from taxes of the clergy, who now
selfishly aimed at escaping from public burdens even more completely than in
the time of Philip II. Finally, the absolutist traditions of the Church in past
centuries and, ibove all, the great struggles of the civil tribunals with the
Church in the eighteenth century, together with the strong and long-existing
national sentiment, which demanded a reduction of the number of ecclesiastics,
formed a powerful intellectual inheritance for the politicians of the time.
Among the results were, besides the already mentioned laws, the suppression of
the Jesuits, the prohibition for the future of religious vows, the confiscation
of the property of the suppressed communities, and the obligation of the
clergy, both regular and secular, to military service. It is notable that the
confiscation was supported by such moderate Liberals as Martinez de La Rosa,
Toreno, and one Bishop (Castrillo). Among the clergy themselves, there was a
minority of reformers in ecclesiastical matters, represented by learned men
like Archbishop Amat, Villanueva, and others, whose books formed the
doctrinal
basis of this policy. The ideas expressed by Villanueva in his Letters to Roque
Leal were so well received that the Government named him Ambassador in Rome;
but the Vatican refused to receive him. This episode, together with other
causes, produced the rupture of relations with the Curia, which was declared on
January 23, 1823, when the Nuncio received his passports.
Notwithstanding
all their labours, the Cortes of 1820 satisfied nobody. The Radicals found them
too moderate and cautious in reform; the Moderates, and much more those who saw
nothing but danger in the revolution, found them too violent, especially, in
ecclesiastical matters. The latent division between the Liberals of 1812 and
those of 1820 now distinctly showed itself. The former were inclined to
moderation, aiming at a firm establishment of the Constitution, even at the
cost of some modification of its character. The latter, thorough
revolutionaries, although only in some points really more radical than the
Constitution tsolf, claimed to be the only true Liberals; and with the help of
the patriotic societies and the personal influence of Riego, they obtained some
concessions which were insufficient to satisfy them, and, in fact, rather
deepened the dissensions. Thus, in the very year when the revolution triumphed,
the Liberal forces were not only divided but embittered, and weakened for any
combined action or resistance.
A notable
event gave the signal for rupture. The Ministers and the Moderates had from the
beginning viewed with apprehension the attitude of the troops which had
revolted in Andalusia. The continued maintenance of that army was also a
financial burden which the Government thought superfluous, since, the oath to
the Constitution having been; taken throughout Spain, a military
force for its defence seemed unnecessary. But the new Liberals, especially the
friends of Riego, considered that the dissolution of that force would be not
only a slur upon the officers who had started the revolution, but also a
positive imprudence, for it was known that the Constitution had many enemies;
and events afterwards proved that those who took this view did not exaggerate
the danger. On the other hand the independent attitude of Riego, which became
more pronounced every day, and the plans for armed resistance formed by some
extremists in Madrid and by the majority in Cadiz supported by the Lodges,
seemed to justify disbandment; and the Government persisted in its intention.
Riego was secrecly summoned to Madrid to discuss the matter. The surprise was
great in Madrid when Riego, travelling incognito, unexpectedly arrived on
August 31. He did not observe the discretion demanded by his position, but
showed his intemperance and vanity in his conferences with the Ministers, at
the pompous reception prepared for him by his partisans, at the banquet . given
in his honour by La Fontana* and at the function in the Teatro del Principe
which he attended after the banquet. There was a disturbance; and the
Government in growing, alarm banished Riego and
some other
officers to Asturias in order to cut the matter short. This act of energy
produced a sedition, which was promptly suppressed. La Fontana closed its
sittings, the exiled officers departed, and the “■Liberating Army” was
disbanded without offering resistance.
But there was
a definite divergence between the two Liberal groups. The partisans of Riego
expelled the friends of the Government from the Lodges; and a new masonic
centre was established, known as the comimeros, a name borrowed from that given
to the Castilian insurgents of 1520. The breach was delayed by the conclusion
of an agreement at the end of 1820 between the extremists and the Government,
whereby Riego was recalled from exile and appointed Captain-General of Aragon,
while some of his friends entered the Ministry or obtained official posts; but
the beginning of 1821 brought a final rupture, and the establishment of the
comuneros as a new secret society, opposed to the Freemasons, but imitating
their organisation and ceremonies. This society was at first unimportant but
afterwards gathered such strength that in 1822 it numbered 10,000 members,
still maintaining its ultra-Liberal character and adhering to Riego. This split
was fatal for the constitutionalists, all the more that it was complicated by
the existence of other groups of conflicting views, always struggling with one
another and exciting dissensions. Such were, first, the group of the
qfrancesados, who, after their return to Spain, soon showed themselves so
moderate that they opposed the Liberals; secondly the societies of Carbonari,
either modelled upon those of Italy, or actually founded by Italian refugees,
such as General Pepe, after the failure of the Neapolitan and Piedmontese
revolutions; and, thirdly, the republican legitimists and French adventurers,
such as BesMeres, Montarlot, Vaudoncourt, and others, whose proceedings (to be
mentioned later) were on the point of producing grave disturbances in Spain.
Again, the moderate Liberals who desired a reform of the Constitution, such as
Martinez de La Rosa, Toreno, Feliu, Caso Manuel, and others, formed at the end
of 1821 a semi-secret society, named “ Friends of the Constitution,” and
nicknamed the anilleros, from the gold ring which was their symbol. Their chief
object was to strengthen and enlarge the power of the Government, in order to
avoid anarchy. We shall presently trace the various incidents which marked the
spread of the struggle between these several groups.
These
dissensions were cleverly turned to account by Ferdinand and the absolutists.
It is needless to say that the King had never, for a moment, sincerely accepted
the revolution. The man, who in 1814 had not understood the force of
accomplished facts and the meaning of Liberal opinion, could still less
understand them when he found himself violently deprived of his absolute power.
Thus it is not strange that, immediately after swearing to the Constitution,
the King began to plot against it, and that there were repeated collisions
between him and the successive Liberal Governments. From the beginning of 1820
there
222 “
The King's pig-tail.”—The Powers. [1820-1
were various
indications of reaction in several places, including Madrid. In October the
King refused to sanction the law for the extinction of nunneries and diminution
of monasteries, and only yielded before the threat of a revolt and the decided
attitude of the patriotic societies. On October 25, Ferdinand went to the
Escurial, whence he encouraged anticonstitutional conspiracies, at the same
time carrying on, through Alcald Galiano and Fray Cirilo, ex-General of the
Franciscans, negotiations with the Radicals, who with manifest folly accepted
this ignoble and dangerous alliance, in order to overthrow the Government. As
if these proceedings—publicly carried on—were not enough, there now appeared
near the Escurial an armed party calling themselves “ Defenders of the absolute
King”; and finally, on November 15, the Ministers were astonished by the royal
nomination, contrary to the Constitution, of the violent absolutist General
Carvajal as Captain-General of Madrid. The actual holder of the post, General
Vigodet, refused to give up the command; there was a serious sedition in
Madrid, a proof of the unpopularity of Ferdinand, who was obliged to annul the
appointment, to dismiss his confessor, and to return to Madrid. At his entrance
into the city, the King heard many gross insults in which the natural indignation
of the Liberals at the royal duplicity found vent. Ferdinand, concealing his
rage, awaited an opportunity to strike a blow at the Government. He found it at
the reopening of the Cortes, on March 1, 1821. Some days previously, the King
had intimated that the Cortes ought to take measures to prevent insults to his
person. At the opening ceremony he pronounced the usual speech, which had been
composed by Argiielles; and at the end he added a paragraph in which, after
declaring his loyalty to the Constitution, he bitterly complained of the
insults heaped upon him in the streets and in the dubs, and of the backwardness
of the executive in checking them; this appendix became known as “ the King’s
pig-tail.” Its immediate result was the resignation of the Ministers and the
nomination of others, among whom were several anilleroa. Ferdinand’s action was
partly prompted by desire to rid himself of a Ministry which had discovered his
intrigues with armed parties of Royalist insurgents.
But these
armed bands were not the chief danger for the Constitutionalists. Ferdinand,
distrusting his Spanish partisans, had early applied to the foreign sovereigns
for help in overthrowing the Liberals. His first application was made on
October 25,1820, the day on which he went to the Escurial, in a letter carried
to Louis XVIII by the Portuguese diplomatist Saldanha: in it Ferdinand declared
that he was a captive, and that Spain was about to plunge into anarchy, and
begged the French King to obtain the aid of the Allied Powers. Already in
March, the Tsar Alexander, alarmed by the success of the Spanish Revolution,
had upon his own initiative presented to the Powers a proposal for armed
intervention in Spain; but Austria, Prussia, and England, dreading
the increase
of Russian or French influence in the Peninsula, opposed it, as did also Louis
XVIII himself, who was sufficiently occupied with the public affairs of his own
kingdom. The revolution at Naples, where the Spanish Constitution of 1812 was
proclaimed, brought forward again the project of an anti-revolutionary
combination of the Powers. At the Congress of Troppau the matter was discussed
both generally and with special reference to Italy; and the Tsar took occasion
to express to one of the French envoys his desire that France should do in
Spain what Austria had done in Naples. But again the project fell through.
Ferdinand, however, continued to solicit Louis XVIII; and events in Spain
certainly told in favour of his applications.
In fact the
evident disloyalty of the Xing had aroused Liberal sentiment; and, on the other
hand, the extremists redoubled their efforts to remove the Moderates from
power. The conflict was twofold, and gave rise to the gravest occurrences. The
Cortes of 1821, after the change of Ministry, continued their labours until
June 30, passing some important laws concerning judicial administration,
revenue, education, and other matters. Debates upon the failure of the
Neapolitan and Piedmontese revolutions showed that the deputies did not grasp
the bearing of these events upon Spanish affairs. Certainly the domestic
situation was enough to absorb the attention of earnest constitutionalists. The
armed bands of absolutists daily increased; the higher ranks of the clergy
vehemently resisted the execution of the laws concerning ecclesiastical
matters. The Government used sometimes vigorous, sometimes moderate, measures,
but logically refrained from refusing to their enemies the advantages of Liberal
government. The extremists regarded this as a weakness, allowing the
absolutists to conspire and to harass the Government. Hence followed various
disturbances in several cities, and on the part of the Liberals a change from
their generous bearing of earlier days towards those who were suspected of
absolutism to one of violence and persecution. The gravest episode of this
period of political excitement was the assassination of Vinuesa, parish priest
of Tamajon, who was imprisoned in Madrid as author of a conspiracy, regarded by
some as the dream of a madman, by others as a device deliberately contrived in
concert with the King. After a long trial he had been condemned to a term of
imprisonment, which seemed to the extremists a trifling punishment, indicative
of royal bribery or pressure. On May 4 the mob attacked the prison and murdered
Vinuesa. In these outbreaks of political feeling refugees from abroad took no
small part. Among them two Frenchmen were prominent—Bessieres, who attempted to
start a Republican revolt in Barcelona, and Cugnet de Montarlot, who attempted
to obtain the support of Riego for an invasion of France in order to promote a
French Republican movement. Some historians have denied the reality of these
dealings, assuming that Montarlot was an agent of the French Government who
hoped to
compromise
Riego by this pretended conspiracy. But the fact of Mont- arlot’s dealings with
Riego and also with other extremists is certain. Although the levity and
quixotism of Riego seemed to invite such proposals, a letter written by him on
August 12 to another French refugee, Vaudoncourt, who shared Montarlot’s aims,
proves that Riego recognised the duties of his position, and was not prepared
for an enterprise involving international complications. Nevertheless the
French Government complained, to the Spanish Ministry of the real o< supposed
complicity of Riego in these fantastic plots; and, the complaint being
supported by Ferdinand, Riego was harshly and rashly removed from his command
in Aragon. This act produced in many places seditions or demonstrations of
extremists, who took for their banner the portrait of Riego. The demonstration
which took place in Madrid was dispersed by the police without bloodshed in the
spot known as Las Platerias, near the Plaza Mayor. (September 17). But the
agitation continued and was reflected in the Cortes themselves, which met in
extraordinary session (September 24, 1821, to February 14, 1822), and, in spite
of the violent discussions following the fall of the Ministry, devoted their
attention to projects and laws of great importance, such as the administrative
division of the Peninsula, customs and taxes, a proposed Penal Code, and public
charity.
In 1822
symptoms of growing disorder showed themselves both in the division of the
Liberals and in the activity of armed bands of absolutists, which received from
the French Government, not indeed official aid—for Villele did not venture so
far—but encouragement and assurance of impunity for the conspiracies planned in
France and for the aid in money and arms thence derived. At the beginning of
the year, Ferdinand, through his uncle the King of Naples, once more solicited
aid from the Powers; but as before, the matter, notwithstanding the support of
the Tsar, remained for the time undecided. In the new Cortes of 1822, the
extremists, favoured by the law forbidding the reelection of former deputies,
obtained a large majority, a serious matter under the circumstances, and all
the more so seeing that a Moderate, Martinez de La Rosa, was head of the
Government. The Cortes soon showed their tendency by appointing as their
President Riego, who had no qualifications for the post. The parliamentary
conflict which at once began was complicated by seditions and repression in the
provinces. The number of bands was so great as to constitute a state of civil
war, carried on without quarter. In Aranjuez, in Valencia* and in Madrid
itself, there were in May and June attempts at absolutist demonstrations and
risings, in the last of which (June 30), an officer of the King’s Guard, a man
of Liberal ideas, named Landabum, was killed by his own soldiers. This event
was the prelude to a veritable insurrection, begun by four battalions of
Guards, which left Madrid and encamped in the Pardo. Fearing an attack, the
people of Madrid made
preparations;
and, when the battalions from the Pardo silently entered Madrid, they were
beaten off, chiefly by the stout resistance of the National Militia (July 7).
The King, upon whose connivance the mutineers had reckoned, is said to have
appeared after their defeat upon a balcony of the Palace and to have encouraged
the pursuit. The Guard was disbanded, and a new Ministry of Radicals was
formed.
But the
international danger was now taking definite shape. The French Government, not
satisfied with indirectly supporting the Royalists, lent to Ferdinand a large
sum through its ambassador La Garde to aid a counter-revolution. La Garde
himself, with the envoys in Madrid of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and other
States, after the events of July 7, addressed a note to the Minister of State,
speaking of “ the horrible situation of his Catholic Majesty and his family,”
and of “the dangers threatening their august persons,” and plainly declaring
that “the relations of Spain with all Europe would depend upon the treatment of
his Majesty.” This threat was soon to be translated into the decision of the
Congress of Verona, which was preparing to meet.
The new
Ministry attempted to strengthen the Liberal position by placing proved Liberals
in important posts in Madrid and in the provinces, and by vigorously pressing
the war against the insurgent bauds. These had seized La Seo de Urgel, a
Catalan town, where they established a “ Supreme Regency of Spain during the
captivity of Fernando VII.” On August 15 this Regency addressed a proclamation
to the country urging the liberation of the so-called “ captive King,” and also
applied to Metternich for help; but Metternich was not disposed for an
intervention which might favour Russian plans.
The
proclamation of Urgel, the spread of the civil war, and the known attitude of
the foreign Powers roused the activity of the Liberals. Arrests, seditions,
orations in the clubs, .attempts to rouse public feeling against the enemies of
liberty, were redoubled, while the civil war increased in ferocity on both
sides, the constitutionalists gaining some success and forcing the Regency to
fly to France, But the decision of the Congress of Verona modified the
situation. Although the application of the Regents of Urgel was not
entertained by Metternich, it was viewed with favour by the French envoys
Montmorency and Chateaubriand, who, contrary to the instructions and desires of
Villele, worked steadily for an intervention, to be carried out by France. At
the meeting of October 20 Montmorency asked the other envoys whether the Allied
Powers would recall their ambassadors from Madrid if France should recall hers,
and, whether, in case of war between France and Spain, Louis XVIII might reckon
upon the aid of his allies. The Tsar replied in the affirmative, offering a
large army either to maintain order in France during the war, or to enter
Spain; but the opposition of the British plenipotentiary, Wellington, and of
Metternich, frustrated this plan. Yet the design was not abandoned; and it now
seemed certain that,
should the
Congress decide upon intervention, France would be charged to execute it.
Nothing was effected by Wellington’s declaration—following the instructions of
Canning—that his Government would not lend itself to intervention, nor by the
detachment of Great Britain from the policy of the Holy Alliance. Although
Villele, supported by Louis XVIII, sought at least to postpone intervention,
the forward policy prevailed, and the Congress decided upon military intervention
in Spain (October 30). Chateaubriand, who for dynastic and patriotic reasons
desired war, having been appointed Minister (December 28), contrived to
overrule Villele; and at the end of 1822 everything was ready for action.
Great
Britain, touched in her international interests and also influenced by a
strong popular sentiment favouring the Spanish Liberals, attempted to obtain
from the Spanish Government some concessions which might avoid intervention.
Her ambassador A’ Court, and afterwards Lord Fitzroy Somerset, a special agent
of Wellington’s, laboured with that object. San Miguel and his Ministry have
been blamed for not yielding to this pressure; but this censure is undeserved.
In the first place, the ultra-Liberal sentiment then dominant in Spain forbade
the Government to make concessions; acondly, the proposed concessions were
presented under the form of pressure by foreign nations which contrary to all
right desired to meddle with the internal affairs of Spain; and in any case
these concessions would scarcely have prevented action, which in the case of
the Holy Alliance proceeded deliberately from enmity to constitutional
principles, and enabled the French monarchists to gain credit for their dynasty
by an easy triumph of arms. The Spanish Liberals could not fail to see that
they would be alone in the struggle; for the British Government,
notwithstanding its sympathies, had declared that in case of war, it would
remain neutral; and even in those critical days A’ Court was pressing the Government
for a settlement of the question concerning the injury inflicted upon British
trade in America by the blockade of the insurgent Colonies.
Early in
January, 1823, the ambassadors of France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia,
presented to the Spanish Government notes declaring their common attitude. They
all demanded the abolition of the Constitution of 1812, the liberation of the
King, whom they regarded as a prisoner of the Liberals, and the cessation of
the anarchy which, with manifest exaggeration, was described as prevailing in
the country. But, except the Russ t" note, which seemed to suggest the
need of simply restoring the absolutist rigime, their representations pointed
to a moderate monarchical system or even (as in the case of the Prussian note)
declared that it was not for foreign nations to determine what political
institutions should be established in Spain, the essential points being the
restoration of public tranquillity and the safety of the King’s person. The
language was very vague except with reference to the Constitution, which was
vigorously condemned. These notes produced a profound effect in the
Cortes. The
unbounded indignation of the Liberals showed itself in patriotic speeches. The
Ministry replied to the notes by dedining to displace the Constitution of 1812,
repudiating intervention as contrary to the law of nations, and boldly refuting
the charges brought against the Liberals. The result was the withdrawal of the
ambassadors from Spain, those of Russia, Prussia, and Austria departing on
January 14, 15, and 16, respectivdy; the French ambassador soon followed,
having spent his last days in promoting dissensions among the Liberals.
The turn
which matters were taking was now evident; it was definitely shown a few days
later in the speech read by Louis XVIII at the opening of the French Chamber,
in which, after stating that the Spanish Government had dedined all
accommodation, he dedared that he had sent orders to recall his ambassador and
that a hundred thousand Frenchmen were ready to enter Spain. Great Britain
still strove to prevent the war, urging through her ambassador in Paris that
the demands of the Powers were inadmissible in their actual form, and that
propriety permitted no more than a “ recommendation ” that the Constitution of
1812 should be modified. But Great Britain went no further; and the Spanish
Government prepared for war.
The
difficulties of the situation were increased by want of money, by the existing
civil war, by the certainty that the King was encouraging the insurrection of
all his partisans, and by the doubtful fidelity of some military commanders.
Yet four bodies of troops were formed under Mina, Morillo, Ballesteros, and La
Bisbal, while San Miguel himself served under Mina against the French. The
offers made by certain foreigners in November, 1822, to form a foreign legion
were only accepted by decree of the Cortes on April 80; and in May a contract
was made with the self-styled English “general,” Sir Robert Wilson, for the
organisation of the Legion with the aid of arms and stores furnished by a
committee sitting in London, which despatched an expedition commanded by Major
Dickson and Thomas Steele; but all this produced ho result. In Madrid the alarm
was great; and in the middle of January it was increased by the advance to
Guadalajara of an absolutist band led by Bessieres, the republican conspirator
of 1821.
The Cortes,
considering Madrid unsafe, decided on February 15 to migrate elsewhere with the
King and the executive; but, when San kligud laid the matter before him,
Ferdinand refused to leave the capital; and the Ministry was dismissed and
replaced by another in which the comimeros had a majority. But the King failed
to parry the blow. The Cortes returned to the matter, and on March 8 decided to
move to Seville. The King pretended an illness, making it impossible for him to
travel. But the Cortes, rejecting this and other subterfuges, insisted; and on
March 20 they started for Seville with Ferdinand, the members of the executive,
and a few militia troops, Eighteen days later the French crossed the frontier.
Their entry into Madrid (May 23) and their advance towards
Andalusia
caused a proposal for another migration of the Court, from Seville to Cadiz.
The King again refused; whereupon the Cortes, upon the proposal of AlcaM
Galiano, agreed (June 11) to declare the King temporarily incapacitated and to
appoint a Regency which should act only until their arrival at Cadiz. This
decision contained the disadvantages of all half-measures, constituting as it
did a slight upon the King and yet not disarming him, since in three days he
was restored to his functions. But it showed that the King had completely
forfeited the respect of the Liberals—his dethronement had been actually
proposed in Madrid—and it also showed that the Liberals still hoped for
success. At that time they still counted upon most of the forces organised by
San Miguel; but these troops, with the exception of those commanded by Mina,
offered scarcely any resistance. It was not long before Morillo capitulated in
Galicia (July 10) and Ballesteros in Andalusia (August 4); soon afterwards, in
the middle of September, Riego was defeated and taken prisoner. Only Mina in
Catalonia, Plasencia in Estremadura, and a few leaders in the eastern region,
resisted with stubborn energy to the end. The country, far from seconding their
efforts, rather offered facilities everywhere to the French advance. Thus it
was clearly proved that the constitutional system was not popular, and that at
all events the mass of the people had not acquired any sense of the advantages
of that system which some years later was to provide a basis for democratic
parties.
Cadiz,
blockaded from June 24 and unaided from without, could not hope to escape a
speedy surrender. Although up to the end there were not wanting optimists, both
real and pretended, to sustain enthusiasm, discouragement gradually spread
among the soldiers and country-people; and, partly owing to personal interests,
partly owing to the intrigues of the King, who soon opened communications with
Angouleme, largely also owing to the use of money, a capitulation was arranged
stipulating for the liberation of the King from his “ captivity,” i.e. the
control of the Liberals. On October 1 he passed over to the French camp, after
he had first promised a general pardon and the formation of a moderate
Government—a fresh piece of royal perfidy, as will presently appear.
Thus closed
the second period of constitutional government. It perished not so much from
its errors, which have received excessive attention, as from indifference to
its principles in the mass of the population and in consequence of the European
reactionary movement, which led to foreign intervention. If only the external
acts of its political life are taken into account, it seems to have represented
in Spain a mania for liberty which could only end in anarchy; but, if its
intellectual and legislative achievement be considered, it must be recognised
that it did much for the intellectual progress of the country and also laid
.the foundation of institutions which for more than a century were to be the
basis of Spanish juridical life. A systematic study, such as has never
yet been
made, of the laws passed and the projects discussed in the Cortes and of the
abundant legal and political literature of the period will prove that in the
minority, consisting of highly educated men, there was a considerable ferment
of intellectual energy, which, whether well or ill directed, was full of hope.
The influence of the Encyclopedists was now shared by newer authors, among them
Bentham, who for some time gave character to our juridical philosophy. A great
development of periodical literature also provided a vehicle for French
doctrinaire ideas and for the economic theories of the time, including
Saintsimonism. The institution of the General Direction of Studies (1821), the
reform of the College of San Isidro and of the Seminary of Nobles (1822), the
establishment of the so-called “National Academy” on the model of the French
Institute, the foundation (1820) of the original Ateneo, destined afterwards to
have a profound influence on Spanish culture, and of the famous school (Colegio
de San Mated) directed by Lista and Reinoso, which educated the literary youth
who were soon to enthrone Romanticism—all these movements helped to lay the
foundation of the new education, both higher and popular.
But this
intellectual movement was smothered for a time by a reaction more violent,
blind, and cruel than that of 1814. Scarcely had the French entered Spain when
its excesses began. Supported by the bayonets of Angouleme the absolutists
established in Madrid a Regency which proceeded to persecute the Liberals with
the aid of the voluntaries reaJistas, who formed a kind of opposing force to
the National Militia and were the source of the future Carlist troops. On
receiving news of the decree depriving the King of his functions, this Regency
published a decree of general proscription (June 23), proclaiming the penalty
of death for all the Liberal deputies and for most of those who were engaged in
the Liberal cause. Scarcely had Ferdinand recovered his liberty when he
substituted for his promises of pardon made in the Cadiz proclamation a new
order (October 4), more sweeping than the decree of the Regency, passing
sentence of death on almost all the supporters of the Constitution and even on
those who had simply showed attachment to Liberalism or had shouted Viva Riego
or Mueran los serviles or any similar cry. This order, which was not published
in the Gazette, appeared in the Diario de Madrid and was posted at all the
street corners. The King’s confessor Saez was placed at the head of the
Ministry; military committees were appointed to prosecute political prisoners;
councils known as juntas de la fk were instituted unofficially with objects
resembling those of the Inquisition—for the King with curious inconsistency
refused to restore the Holy Office—and imprisonments, executions, and acts of
violence, were horribly multiplied. Many historians also mention a kind of
semi-secret clerical society called the Society of the Exterminating Angel,
having its centre in Catalonia but working in many places, terrorising Liberals
and Freemasons with persecutions; but
others, in
the absence of authentic documents, deny or doubt its existence. If it be a
legend, it is a characteristic legend, for by this or by similar methods the
extreme reactionaries, among them many of the clergy, avenged themselves
cruelly upon all whom they regarded as enemies. Riego, the personification of
Radical constitutionalism, was hanged with savage pomp.
Angouleme at
once protested against these excesses; but he was powerless to check them, for
Villele, though always inclined to moderation, was overruled by Austria,
Russia, and Prussia, which supported the violence of the absolutists and urged
the Regency to leave no trace of constitutionalism when once the King had been
released. The instructions to Angouleme were decisive on this point; and
Mettemich used the plainest language to the Austrian ambassador in Paris in a
despatch of March 23. All that Angouleme did was to aid the escape bf the
deputies and the members of the Government who were in Cadiz. But the
continuance of sanguinary punishments at once drew a protest from the British
Government and at length one from the French. Chateaubriand himself, on March
17, 1824, threatened Ferdinand with the withdrawal of the French troops, which
were still in Spain: and at last the Russian ambassador, Pozzo di Borgo,
interposed, but only procured the dismissal of Padre Saez and a decree of
amnesty (May 1). This decree was a sanguinary farce, containing so many
exceptions that it scarcely pardoned anyone; yet it angered the extreme
absolutists. In effect the persecutions continued as before; and the fall of
the French Ministry which included Chateaubriand (July), followed by the death
of Louis XVIII (September)* removed the only slight check upon the extremists
and increased their rigour towards the Liberals. An attempt at insurrection
planned by Colonel Valdes and other refugees living at Gibraltar (August)
furnished a pretext to justify this rigour. From that time to the end of 1829
the political history of Spain consists merely of a series of alternations
between terrorism and relaxation of coercive measures, according as extremists
or moderates prevailed with the King, or as he desired to conciliate this party
or that.
The
extremists found leaders in the royal family, namely the King’s brother Don
Carlos, and the latter’s wife, Maria Francisca of Braganza. Whenever these two
saw that Ferdinand was relaxing his first rigour, they promoted or encouraged
absolutist demonstrations and even revolts, such as that which was led by the
restless Bessieres in 1825, and that which broke out in Catalonia in 1828, directed
by a Supreme Junta established in Manresa, in order to free the King from “ the
disguised Liberals who swayed him.” These demonstrations of force, although
they were harshly chastised by Ferdinand, always produced a fresh jjeriod of
persecution for the Liberals. But the pure Royalists, now known as apostSlicOs,
were no longer satisfied with this. Distrusting the King, they now thought that
their principles could only be secured if Ferdinand were replaced by his
brother Don Carlos. Thus a party, which at first
had been
distinguished only by its principles, became a personal party, which began to
be called Carlist. The proclamation published at the end of 1827 by “a
federation of pure Royalists” stated this plainly. Some moderation had been
introduced into the Government through the personal influence of Ballesteros,
Minister of the Treasury, when the Queen, Maria Amalia of Saxony, third wife of
Ferdinand, died (May 17, 1829). She had married the King in October, 1819,
somewhat less than a year after the death of Isabel of Braganza.
The King
being childless and feeble in health, the hopes that Don Carlos would be his
successor gained force. But, the King showing a disposition for a fourth
marriage, the conflict of ambitions in the royal family proceeded without
disguise or shame. The conflict was led by two women, the wife of Don Carlos,
Maria Francisca, who had always exercised great influence over the King, and
Maria Carlota of Naples, wife of the Infante Don Francisco, another brother of
Ferdinand. Dona Carlota had . personal grievances to avenge, due to her
inferior position in the: palace and to slights received from Dona Francisca.
The personal enmity of these two women had naturally separated them
politically, so that Dona Carlota came to be regarded as a hope for the
Liberals, although in fact she was no less royalist than her rival. This
political antagonism, exploited by both parties, gave to the question of the
new marriage a bear g which was to have lasting consequences for Spain. The
candidate preferred by Carlota was her sister the Neapolitan princess Maria
Cristina, a beautiful and attractive woman. The partisans of Don Carlos
attempted to discredit her, representing her as an ardent Liberal, a proceeding
which only had the effect of throwing her more and more into the arms of the
non-apostolicals, thus determining her place in politics. But the King would
not regard either these rumours or the calumnies which were cast upon the
honour of the future Queen. Vanquished by her beauty, he chose her as Queen;
and Maria Cristina made her state entry into Madrid on December 11,1829. On her
journey through France the Liberal refugees saluted her; and she promised to
use her influence in their favour, desiring to win some sympathy in order to
counterbalance the influence of the apost6licos. The Liberals on their part
were naturally drawn towards one who represented the destruction of the Carlist
preponderance in the Court.
The new Queen
soon became the arbiter of her husband’s will, so far as this was possible with
Ferdinand; and favourable results would probably have followed for the
Liberals, but for an event which affected all Europe—the French Revolution of
1830. Alarmed at the doctrinaire Liberalism of Louis-Philippe, Ferdinand
committed the error of not recognising the new King; and the latter, reasonably
offended, aided or at any rate did not hinder the conspiracies which Alcald
Galiano, Mina, and other refugees, some of whom came from England, were
contriving, encouraged by the spirit of liberty which stirred the nations
232
Don Carlos and Maria Cristina.
[l83Q—2
of Europe and
which in England inspired the policy of Palmerston. But neither the French nor
the English Government officially supported the conspirators, although the
former was solicited by them; and, so soon as Ferdinand recognised
Louis-Philippe, all forbearance towards the refugees ceased. The various
expeditions attempted in 1830-2 by Mina, Torrijos, and others, all failed; and
another period of terror made men doubt whether the new Queen’s influence could
effect anything. This reaction was directed by Calomarde, Minister of Justice,
whose obscurantist zeal went so far as to decree the closing of the
Universities, the focus of the Liberal spirit which stirred the youth.
Persecutions were redoubled against Freemasons and heretics, some being
condemned to death; and books suspected of Liberalism were more strictly
forbidden, although they continued to circulate in numbers, propagating ideas
which were soon to bear fruit.
But a more
serious question engaged the attention of politicians. The Queen was with
child, and, if she should bear a son, the triumph of Maria Cristina and her
sister would be complete: not so if a daughter were bom, owing to the state of
the law concerning the inheritance of the crown. Contrary to the traditional
custom and law prevailing in the several medieval States of Spain, Philip V had
in 1713 been obliged to publish— not without protest—an act (auto acordado)
which, by always giving the preference of succession to the male line, aimed at
preventing any union of the Spanish and French crowns in one person. This act
has been called the Spanish Salic Law. The international situation which caused
this new rule having passed away, Charles IV, in agreement with the Cortes assembled
in Madrid, in 1789 abrogated the act and restored the law of Siete Partidas
which permitted the succession of women. This reform, which was in consonance
with the national tradition, was not published at the time, but kept secret,
although recorded in the archives both of the King and of the Cortes.
Accordingly Cristina, in order to meet every contingency, induced the King to
publish, on May 19, 1830, the pragmdtica or law of 1789. Don Carlos was
furious, and became more so when on October 10 a girl was bom, who was named
Maria Isabel and was at once proclaimed Princess of Asturias, that is to say,
heiress to the throne. Thenceforward the struggle between Don Carlos and the
Queen centred in the question whether the law of 1789 should be maintained or abrogated.
Cristina found little support in the Ministry, where Calomarde represented the
interests and sentiments of the apostolicos; but she sought support in the
army, flattering it and attracting partisans as best she could. In September,
1832, Dona Francisca and Calomarde, taking advantage of a serious illness which
brought the King to the point of death, and favoured by the absence of Carlota
who was in Seville at the time, mastered the enfeebled spirit of Ferdinand,
intimidated Cristina with the threat of a civil war, and procured the
abrogation of the law (September 18). But Ferdinand
having
recovered from this mortal attack, Carlota, who had hastened to the spot on
learning what had passed, contrived to alter entirely the course of events. The
abrogation of the law was annulled; the whole Ministry was changed; and
Cristina was authorised (October 6) to arrange State affairs during the King’s
illness. The result was that the law of 1789 was restored and was solemnly
promulgated a second time on December 81, and a Liberal turn was given to
policy. The Universities were reopened; and on October 15 a decree of amnesty,
although containing numerous exceptions demanded by the King, permitted many
refugees of 1824 to return to Spain.
Thus the
Liberals decisively attached themselves to Isabel and to Cristina, who became
the object of a romantic devotion which had its literary manifestation in
numerous occasional publications, interesting as indicating the spirit of the
time, while the absolutists formed the party of Don Carlos. Conspiracies and
attempts at insurrection naturally followed, which led the Government to grant
to Don Carlos “permission” to go to Portugal (May 13, 1833). Three days later
he departed. The Cortes having assembled in the ancient Spanish manner in June,
the oath was taken recognising Isabel as heir to the throne, although Don
Carlos protested in a note which he sent to his brother on April 29, upon
hearing that the Cortes had been summoned. Soon afterwards, on September 29,
the death of Ferdinand closed a reign full of cruelty and shame.
If Cristina,
who was Queen Regent during the minority of her daughter, had sincerely
embraced the Liberal cause, the Spanish political problem would have been
simple and plain; a struggle between Absolutists and Constitutionalists would
have enabled the latter to jrganise a legitimate party following the
development of ideas in Europe at large. But it happened otherwise. After
winning her first triumph, Cristina took a retrograde step, evading reforms and
accepting the guidance of such timid Moderates as Cea Bermudez, who had been a
Minister of Ferdinand’s, and generally inclining towards those who had no love
for the Liberal programme. She did not perceive that public opinion was not
what it had been in 1814 and in 1823, and that constitutional and Liberal
principles had made great advances among the masses who had formerly rejected
them. Dona Isabel, when she became Queen, fell into the same error or was led
into it by her councillors; and thus it was that, while other nations settled
their internal struggles more rapidly and securely, the political conflict in
Spain was disastrously prolonged and assumed a double form, first in the civil
wars against declared absolutism or Carlism, secondly in the efforts to induce
Cristina, her daughter, and the groups of courtiers, to accept frankly the
Liberal programme, efforts which, meeting a violent resistance, produced
seditious shocks and revolutions. In addition to this, there still existed
among the Liberals many of the factors which had
234 Regency of Cristina.—Quadruple Alliance.
[1333-40
produced the
. divisions between the moderate and extreme sections; besides a certain
indecision as to aims, which, together with the entrance of new ideas, led to ,
the rise of political tendencies hitherto unknown.
The refugees
in France and England from 1824 to 1833 had undergone the influence either of
Doctrinaires and Radicals, or else of English institutions and habits; and the
resulting sentiments affected and impaired that reverence for the Constitution
of 1812 which subsisted for many years. The internal history of the
combinations and conflicts produced by these various influences in Spanish
Liberalism is most interesting, explaining many events which otherwise would be
obscure. The Absolutists, even though the spread of Liberal ideas was rapidly
diminishing their ranks, still possessed for a long time a majority , in
various districts and in the rural population. Their cause was identified, not
always justly, with local interests concerning the maintenance of ancient
JfuerOs and sentiments of medieval independence. Thus they continued, almost
down to our own days, to be formidable enemies, whose defeat cost much blood
and treasure.
The Regency
of Cristina may be divided into three periods. The first (1834-5) is a period
of timid reforms carried out rather to attract the Liberals and counterbalance
the weight of the Carlist party, than by deliberate choice of the Queen. It
includes the Ministries of Martinez de La Rosa and Toreno; and its legislative
tendency is represented by the constitutional charter known as the Estatuto
Real. The second period (1836-7) is marked by the Radical policy and the large
reforms of Mendizabal and Calatrava, together with a brief restoration of the
Code of 1812, soon replaced by the Constitution of 1837. The third period
(1838-40) marks a return to Moderatism* ending in a revolutionary movement and
the abdication of Cristina. Accompanying these internal political events and
producing some of their principal episodes, the civil war follows its course,
having been begun by the Carlist party soon after the death of Ferdinand.
When Martinez
de La Rosa was called to power (January, 1834) in order to gratify the
Liberals, who were disgusted at the anticonstitutional proclamation published
by Cristina on October 4, 1833, the Carlists, organised as soldiers in Navarre
and the Basque Provinces by their first General, Zumalacarregui, who had been a
colonel in the army, constituted a real danger. The new Ministry promptly
intraduced some reforms, among them the extension of the amnesty to the
refugees, and, accepting the proposals of Palmerston, signed the Treaty of
April 15, between Great Britain, Portugal, and Spain, securing British aid in
the double revolution, dynastic and constitutional, which was igitating both
Peninsular States. The adhesion of France, completing the “Quadruple Alliance,”
raised the hopes of the Cristinos, although it produced the rupture of
diplomatic relations with Austria, Russia, and Prussia; but in fact it only
brought advantages for Portugal,
I834-5]
Martinez de La Rosa. Carlist
War.
235
where, with
the aid of Spanish troops, Dom Miguel was defeated and Dona Maria da Gloria was
restored. Don Carlos, who was still in Portugal, though closely pursued by
General Rodil, escaped with the help of the British Admiral, who conveyed him
to London. He was left in such freedom that some weeks later he was able to
return to Spain and place himself at the head of his partisans (July 9), aided
with arms and money by the French Legitimists. The Government sought armed help
from Great Britain and France, but without success, for Great Britain refused
to intervene or to allow France to intervene; and Louis-Philippe,
notwithstanding his engagements, showed himself more inclined to favour Don
Carlos, in order to conciliate Austria, Prussia, and Russia. All that Martinez
de La Rosa could obtain was the loan of an Algerian legion, and permission to
raise a British legion, which afterwards proved a valuable military aid. More
beneficial from the humane point of view was Lord Eliot’s Agreement with the
two armies, Carlist and Liberal (April 28, 1835), so called because it was
effected by the action of that British envoy, with the object of saving the lives
of prisoners, who hitherto had been pitilessly sacrificed to the fury of both
contending parties. An accident relieved the situation for the time, removing
the chief danger. The Carlists occupied all Navarre and the Basque Provinces up
to the line of the Ebro; but they held no fortified place. The eastern Powers
required, as a condition to their recognition of Don Carlos as King of Spain,
his possession of such a military base; the same was demanded by foreign
bankers disposed to provide a loan, and by the courtiers of Don Carlos desirous
of possessing a capital. In order to satisfy these three demands, Don Carlos
ordered Zumalacarregui, contrary to the general’s decided opinion, to take
Bilbao. Five days after the beginning of the siege of that city, the Carlist
general. was wounded by a bullet, and being unskilfully treated died on June
24, 1835. The Carlists were obliged to raise the siege in July: this was the
first notable success of General Espartero, who was afterwards to become
famous.
In the same
month the Government was changed. Martinez de La Rosa, who was unequal to so
serious and delicate a situation, could not resist the double pressure of the
Radicals and Moderates, besides the domestic and diplomatic difficulties of the
Civil War. His whole policy is condensed in the already mentioned Estatuto
Real, published in April, 1834, resembling the French Charte of 1814. This
concession from the sovereign to the nation denies the national sovereignty,
which was the basis of the Code of 1812, contains no declaration of rights, and
establishes a parliamentary system of two Chambers, or estamentos, one of
proceres or Senators, and one of Deputies, both absolutely dependent on the
Crown, and really possessing no more than the right of petition, like the
ancient Spanish Cortes. It need not be said that a constitutionalism so
limited did not satisfy the true Liberals, as presently
appeared in
noisy conflicts between the Ministry and the large body of Radical deputies in
the Lower House. Nor were extreme reformers satisfied with the ministerial
measures, resemblr g the Liberal legislation of 1820-3, and directed Against
the intrusion of the clergy in politics, and against the Religious Orders. The
extreme Radicals, steeped in anti-clerical ideas, and dreading the power of the
enormous number of monks and nuns—31,000 monks and 22,000 nuns according to the
census of 1835—and indignant at the support of Carlism and of absolutist ideas
by the Religious Orders, simply desired their destruction. The agitation for that
end, together with the accusation, frequent in the history of epidemics, that
the cholera which then visited Madrid was produced through the poisoning of the
water by monks, brought about in July, 1834, a popular sedition, in which some
disorderly crowds attacked the monasteries and muidered several monks. The
Government failed to check these acts of savagery, showing once more their
weakness and vacillation. Early in 1835 and after the fall of Martinez de La
Rosa the murders were repeated in other cities, unchecked by the first measures
of the new Ministry, which once more expelled the Jesuits and closed every
monastery of less than twelve monks.
But the
movement which had begun with violence against the monks soon became an
insurrection against the Government, whose moderation was disliked; and, the
revolutionary movement spreading to almost all the provinces, the Government
was powerless, although anxious to chastise the rebels severely. In this crisis
appeared the man who was to lead the Liberal forces, to remedy by a bold stroke
the confusion of the Treasury, and to create new interests in defence of the
constitutional system. This was Mendizabal, whom we have already seen in Cadiz
in 1819. He was now named Minister of the Treasury by Toreno. His arrival in
Madrid in September, 1835, from exile in England, and his frank declarations to
the Queen and to the Ministers, produced a decisive change. The new-comer
undertook the Government and contrived to pacify the revolution simply by
publishing decrees which satisfied some aspirations of the advanced party,
granting pardon to all insurgents and reorganising some branches of the
administration. He also promised in his programme of September 14 the
restoration of the public credit, and the termination of the war “ by the
unaided resources of the nation and he contrived to inspire such confidence
that the Chambers, by a vote of December 23, authorised him to reform the
Treasury. This he accomplished by means of decrees, of which the most important
are, that of February 19, 1836, which declared all the real property of the
extinguished Religious Orders to be for sale; and that of March, which,
supplementing another decree of October 11, 1835, suppressed with some
exceptions the monasteries, diminished the nunneries, and confiscated the
property of the suppressed Houses.
The result of
Mendizabal’s policy soon appeared both in the war
and in the
opinion of the so-called Conservative classes. In the war, by increasing the
army, improving its equipment, and paying attention to the soldiers, he
encouraged the Isabelinos, and rendered possible the improvement of the
military situation in the north. Among the Conservative classes the sale of
ecclesiastical property, which took place under conditions more favourable for
the purchaser than for the State, created a network of interests, which
necessarily thenceforth told in favour of the preservation of Isabel’s throne,
since Don Carlos could not be expected to respect these purchases. Thus the
Minister enlisted material interests as indirect support for the legitimate
dynasty. In international affairs his Government had further important results:
he gave greater influence in Spanish policy to Great Britain than to France;
whereas, notwithstanding the doubtful conduct of Louis- Philippe, Martinez de
La Rosa and Toreno had always leaned towards France, although unsuccessful in
their requests for intervention. Assured of the cooperation of Mendizabal,
whose political education had been English, as he often showed in his conduct,
the British Cabinet prepared to act independently of France, desiring at all
costs to prevent French intervention and the execution of the supposed design
of Louis- Philippe to marry one of his sons to Queen Isabel. A momentary breach
between Thiers and Metternich threatened to thwart the British plans, although
for the benefit of Spain, since Thiers induced his sovereign to modify his
former attitude of tolerance towards the Carlists, to increase the French
legion, and to permit the troops of Cristina to traverse French territory in
executing an enveloping movement.
In this
condition of things a new revolution, caused by the fall of the Mendizabal
Ministry and the renewed preponderance of the Moderates in the Government and
in the Court (May 15, 1836), disturbed all combinations. The dissolution of
the Cortes, whose majority was advanced or “Progressive,” and the publication
of a proclamation by Cristina vehemently accusing the supporters of Mendizabal,
brought about an insurrection, which in August involved all that part of the
Peninsula not dominated by the Carlists. The victory of the revolutionists led
to the insurrection of a part of the garrison of La Granja, a royal residence
then occupied by the Court. These troops, led by two sergeants, compelled
Cristina to order the proclamation of the Code of Cadiz (August 13). This
revolution was largely attributed by the Moderates to intrigues on the part of
the British ambassador, Lord Clarendon.
The state of
anarchy, which had prevailed in the country since May,
1836, favoured the Carlists, who, though
several times defeated by Cdrdoba, Narvaez, Evans, and other generals,
recovered from their losses, and continued to maintain the war, at least in the
north. In Valencia a new leader had appeared, Ramon Cabrera, a man of
remarkable military faculties, although not equal to his predecessor. He gave
to the struggle in the eastern districts and in Aragon a ferocious character by
338
Carlist War.—Progressive Government.
[1836-7
his cruelties
to prisoners, which led to sanguinary reprisals by the Isabelinos, especially
the shooting of Cabrera’s mother, which was teiribly avenged by him. The
Carlist General, Gomez, made a daring raid through the two Castiles and
Andalusia, without decisive results. Bilbao, besieged a second time, was again
relieved by Espartero after a brilliant victory (December, 1836), which,
however, did not conclude the war. The British Government, which decidedly
favoured the Queen, lent her i?540,000 for military expenses; while the British
Legion fought admirably before Bilbao and elsewhere. On the other hand, the
eastern Powers sent monetary aid to Don Carlos. The year 1887 was marked by an
eneigetic campaign under Espartero, which closed triumpha. itly with the
capture of most of the Carlist fortresses. Two other expeditions in that year
require some pre z ‘nary explanation.
'Hie new
Progressive Government, raised up by the revolution of 1836 and directed by
Calatrava, passed two sets of important measures: one relating to the Carlists
and the opponents of the Liberal cause, whose property was seized, and to the
war, which was pushed on by a new conscription of men from 18 to 40 years, and
by a forced loan of two millions sterling; the other of a social character,
insisting upon a policy of desamortising. the landed property accumulated by
corporations, civil and religious. In the field of pure politics, departing
from the spirit of the revolution, which had demanded the Constitution of 1812,
Calatrava formed a new Constitution, that of 1837, which agreed with the former
in some of its principles, particularly that of the national sovereignty, but
differed from it in the institution of two Chambers, in the absolute veto of
the Crown, and in the restriction of the suffrage. Bat even here Progressive
influence appeared in the elective character of the Upper House or Senate, in
the right granted to the Cortes to assemble of themselves if the King should
neglect to summon them in any year before December 1, and in other details. The
influence of the English Reform Bill of 1832, which also appears in the
Constitution of
1837, deserves mention as a new example of the
intellectual action exercised by English institutions upon Spanish politicians
almost from the beginning of the century. Although the new Constitution was not
welcomed either by the Moderates or by the recalcitrant docea/fristas, it was
for a long period the fighting banner of the advanced Liberals; and it had the
twofold importance of assuring the constitutional principle, which thenceforth
was never denied, and of ending the sentiment of idolatry for the Constitution
of 1812.
The
Moderates, seeking means of injuring the Progressives, now attempted to suborn
the troops in order to rouse an insurrection, and succeeded in sowing
disaffection in the army. Among other expressions of this disaffection was a
demonstration made by a group of officers of Espartero’s brigade, then
stationed in Madrid. This movement, which was not chastised by the general as
might have been expected, produced
1837-8] Moderate Government.—Decline of Carlism.
239
the fall of
Calatrava’s Ministry, and the appointment of another with Espartero himself as
Premier (August 18, 1837). The presence of these troops in Madrid was due to
the approach of two Carlist expeditions, one led by General Zariategui and the
other by Don Carlos himself. The former was defeated at the very gates of the
capital and retired upon Valladolid. The second, after traversing Aragon,
Catalonia, and Valencia, with varying fortunes, and having been reinforced by
Cabrera’s troops, approached Madrid, and reached Vallecas at the moment when
Espartero had left the place, called away by necessities elsewhere. Madrid,
weakly garrisoned, was in great danger of capture; but Cabrera, marching upon
the capital on the morning of September 13, was stopped on the way by an order
from Don Carlos. The motive of this order is not clearly known; but, from some
contemporary allusions, the following explanation seems probable. Cristina had
for some time been negotiating with Don Carlos for the termination of the war
by means of a marriage which should unite the two dynastic branches. The
understanding implied in these negotiations was probably the reason of the
expedition of Don Carlos, who, upon approaching Madrid, expected that the gates
would be opened to him by the Queen, and that a reconciliation and a change of
policy would follow. But at the last moment, for unknown reasons, Cristina drew
back, informing Don Carlos of her altered resolution; thus the plan fell through.
The expedition retired through New Castile, joined temporarily the forces of
General Zariategui, and at last reentered the Basque Provinces, pursued by
Espartero and other generals. The Carlist cause had been morally defeated and
undone. Fresh raids, attempted in 1838, were unsuccessful; and, on the other
hand, the first movements in favour of peace appeared among the troops of Don
Carlos. In Aragon and Valencia alone Cabrera obtained in this year some
successes, marked by barbarous cruelties to prisoners, which produced further
sanguinary reprisals by the Isabelinos in Valencia, Murcia, and Alicante. In
political matters the year 1838 is marked by a fresh predominance of Moderate
tendencies in the Government, showing itself chiefly in a project of municipal
law involving almost absolute centralisation, with the loss of the greater part
of the political and administrative independence of the municipalities. This
project was strongly opposed by the Progressives. In November a popular
movement, probably fomented by the Moderates, occurred in Seville, in which two
generals were concerned, who thenceforth were to play a large part in politics,
Cdrdoba and Narvaez. The latter, who had distinguished himself in the Carlist
War, alarmed the Liberals by his dictatorial tendencies and his ambition, which
presently clashed with that of Espartero, producing between the two generals a
bitter personal enmity, which was afterwards to affect events at least as much
as political differences. Narvaez, being banished upon the accusation of
Espartero, fled and left Spain.
The year 1839
was to be fatal to the Carlist cause, already profoundly undermined by various
causes of disorganisation, among them the personal insignificance of the
Pretender, his departure from the army, the group of intriguers who continually
aroused his jealousy towards his best generals, his ingratitude towards these
generals, and the administrative disorder which left the soldiers unprovided,
while the expenses of the Court increased. As usually happens in such cases,
two parties were formed—a Court party, uncompromising and fanatical; and a
military party prepared for compromise and ready to give an energetic and
orderly impulse to the war* and to avoid alienating the sympathies of the
people by violence, cruelty, and uncertainty of political aims. The leader of
this party from the middle of 1838 was General Maroto, who was placed in
command of the army by Don Carlos, and who soon won the firm attachment of the
soldiers. The struggle between him and the courtiers began at once, producing
frequent acts of disrespect and defiance of authority in military matters, and
calumnies which aimed at discrediting the General. When matters went so far
that his life was threatened, he took energetic measures, and arrested and shot
several generals and courtiers who were plotting a military insurrection
against him (February 19). This bold act impressed Don Carlos, deprived the
courtiers of their preponderance, and was the prelude to negotiations with
Espartero, initiated by Maroto, who placed himself at the head of the movement
towards peace arising from weariness of a war of which the end could not be
discerned, and from disillusion concerning the person of Don Carlos. Several
proposals, in which Great Britain and France had a share, having been rejected
by Espartero, the two generals at last concluded an agreement which was signed
on August 81,1839, at Vergara. Espartero undertook to recommend to the Cortes
the confirmation or modification of the fueros, while the military grades and
civil posts of the Carlists who submitted were to be recognised. Don Carlos,
who had attempted in vain to carry with him the troops of Maroto by presenting
himself to them, naturally declined to accept the agreement; but, although he
still commanded the allegiance of considerable forces, he retired to France
without attempting any resistance. Cabrera maintained the war for some months
in Aragon and Valencia; but repeated defeats at last compelled him also to
cross the frontier, accompanied by many followers (June 6, 1840). Thus closed
the struggle which for seven years had stained the Peninsula with blood.
At the time
when this occurred, the political contest betwreen Moderates and
Progressives was reaching an unexpected solution. The former, being masters of
the situation, pushed forward the already mentioned project of Municipal Law,
which was passed by the Cortes of 1840. In order to pass into law, it only
required the sanction of the Queen Regent, who on June 11 had started for
Catalonia, probably with the double object of testing public opinion and of
attempting to win
l84o]
Revolution. Abdication
of Cristina. 241
over
Espartero in order to effect a cowp d'etat which should overthrow the
Constitution of 1837. But she found a great part of the people opposed to the
Municipal Law; and Espartero, who had risen greatly in influence and popularity
after the agreement of Vergara, and who had already declared his adhesion to
the Constitution, declined to play the game of the Moderates, and advised
Cristina to refuse her sanction to the new law. The Regent promised to do so,
but afterwards changed her mind and sanctioned the law. This irregular conduct
immediately produced a serious insurrection in Barcelona (July 18). To appease
this, Cristina, with Espartero’s consent, appointed a Progressive Ministry; but
soon afterwards in Valencia, whither the Court had moved, she replaced it by a
Moderate Ministry.
This change
provoked a fresh revolution in Madrid, which soon spread to the provinces and
compelled Cristina to approve the appointment of a new Ministry, whose
composition was suggested by the Revolutionists, with Espartero as Premier.
This humiliation, the Progressive programme of the new Government, and the
gross attacks made upon the Regent in an anonymous pamphlet attributed to the
journalist Gonzalez Bravo, in which her second marriage with the guardsman,
Munoz, was denounced—an act which she had persistently denied in order not to
lose the Regency—vexed her to such a degree that she found no other issue to
the situation than abdication. Accordingly, on October 12, notwithstanding the
prayers and the counsels of the Ministers, she abdicated. On this occasion she
read an autograph speech, in which she entrusted to the Cortes the nomination of
a Regent and attributed her own abdication to differences of opinion with the
Government concerning certain political reforms, especially the Municipal Law.
Thus ended the Regency of Cristina, which began so hopefully, and was marred
principally by her habitual insincerity and the blindness with which she
always listened to the advice of the Moderate Party. Apart from politics, it
pleased her to protect literature and art; thus her name is connected with an
important movement, which took a decidedly romantic turn, guided by the Duke of
Rivas, Gutierrez, Espronceda, Figaro, Zorrilla, and many others. During the
years 1834-40 these authors express in their writings the French and English
influences received during the emigration and diffused both by literary
periodicals, such as El Artist a and No me olvides, which began to multiply in
Spain from 1834, and also by such characteristic associations as the Liceo
(1837) and the Ateneo.
The new
Progressive period, initiated in October, 1840, marked on the one hand the
culminating point of Progressive policy, following the lines traced by the
Liberals of 1820 and 1836, and of the popularity of Espartero, offering the
first example in Spain of those Governments directed by generals which
afterwards became frequent. On the other hand it was distinguished by the open
appearance of new tendencies,
242 Rule of Espartero.—Brigadier Prim. [i84o-3
which had
already been germinating in public opinion but were without sufficient strength
to take form in acts of violent opposition. Such were the republican ideas
which had been gradually forming a party and which in 1842 produced in
Barcelona a formidable insurrection. In this case republican interests,
apparently the guiding motives, were mixed with local interests, stirred up by
the manufacturers of the city, who had suffered from the repression of
contraband by the Customs Inspector Zurbauo, a man possessing Espartero’s
confidence. This insurrection was only suppressed by the arrival of Espartero
and the bombardment of the city (December 4).
But this was
not the most pressing danger for Espartero, who was a straightforward man and a
sincere Liberal, but inexperienced and, although anything but a dictator in
intention, drawn in fact to dictatorship by his military education and by his
ambition, which was being strengthened and increased by success. The whole
period of his rule from October, 1840, to the end of June, 1843, is simply a
struggle against the Moderates, against the ex-Regent, and against Liberals who
were dissatisfied or jealous of his preponderance. The opposition of Cristina
showed itself at once in the proclamation from Marseilles (November 8,1840),
which condemned the Progressive Government and protested against her forced
abdication; this proclamation provided a watchword for all the enemies of
Espartero and a pretext of hostility for all the European Governments except
that of Great Britain, which steadily supported the General. The nomination of
Espartero as Regent by the Cortes of 1841 (May 8) deprived him of the support
of those who desired the regency of a triumvirate. The appointment of
Argiielles in July as guardian to the Queen drew a new protest from Cristina,
who, as Isabel’s mother, claimed the continuance of that charge as a right. The
ex-Regent, surrounded in Prance by Moderates, planned or encouraged
conspiracies which came to a head in Pampeluna (October 2), and in Madrid
(October 7), where the generals Concha and Leon led an attack upon the palace
in order to seize the person of the Queen, who was declared to be held prisoner
by the Esparteristas. Both attempts were frustrated; but fresh movements took
place in 1843 supported by a section of discontented Liberals. First, Brigadier
Prim revolted at Reus and declared the Queen to be of age; then, other troops
mutinied, led by personal enemies of the Regent, such as Narvaez, Concha,
Serrano, Pezuela, and others. The counter-revolution spread, and Espartero,
abandoned by most of the troops, was obliged to fly. He embarked for England on
June 30. Thus ended his Regency, and with it the predominance of the
Progressive party; for, although those members of that party who had aided the
counter-revolution might fairly expect to reap part of its fruits—an
expectation which seemed to be realised when the first Ministry included the
Progressive Oldzaga—yet the Moderates were not long in shaking them off'.
The leader of
the Moderates from 1843 to 1845 was General Narvaez, a dictator by nature, so
harsh and cruel in repression that it was said of him that he never left alive
an enemy who fell into his hands. All the reforms effected by the Progressives
were abrogated, as well as the Constitution of 1837, which gave place to a new
Constitution, that of May 23, 1845, an essentially doctrinaire pact or
composition between the sovereign and the nation, as the first phrases of the
preamble indicate. The principle of popular sovereignty is implicitly denied,
and the confirmation of royal power appears in the provisions whereby the
monarch recovered the right of nominating the Senate, while the Cortes lost the
privilege of spontaneous assembly recognised by the Constitution of 1837, and
in other details. Other points to be noted are the abolition of trial by jury
for offences committed by the Press, a significant silence concerning the
principle of uniformity of codes and Jueros—doubtless intended to avoid rousing
the suspicions of Navarrese and Basques; and the conversion of “judicial power”
into simple “administration of justice.” Yet the Moderate reaction continued
the centralising policy in the new Education Law of 1845, destroying the
ancient independence of the Universities, and also continued in some degree the
anti-clerical tradition; for, although many of the laws passed since 1836 were
revoked and relations were renewed with the Papacy, the reopening of the
religious Houses was definitely refused. The progress of toleration in Spain is
shown in the fact that, notwithstanding the victory of Moderatism, no check was
set upon the Protestant propaganda which had made much way during the
Progressive Government.
At the close
of the period treated in this chapter, the dynastic question assumed a new
aspect with the abdication of Don Carlos in May, 1845, in favour of his son the
Count of Montemolin, and with the revival of the project for the marriage of
the latter with Dona Isabel, who, contrary to the Constitution, was declared to
be of age in November, 1843. This project brings definitely forward the famous
question of the Spanish marriages, which had been already raised, but which in
its development and solution belongs to a later section of this History.
CHAPTER
VIIL THE SPANISH DOMINIONS IN AMERICA.
The first phase in the growth and organisation of the
Spanish dominions in America may be said to close with the publication of the
New Laws for the Indies in 1542, fifty years after the first voyage of
Columbus. In that half-century the vassals of the Crown of Castile, by
occupation of coasts, table-lands, and interior outposts, had effectively
staked out the limits of an empire twice the size of Europe. The New Laws
declared that the Indians were free men, to be treated like the King’s subjects
in Castile; but this attempt to repair the violence of conquest and of slavery
by a sudden revolution, abolishing native Indian institutions, was hasty and
disastrous. The first Viceroy of New Spain vuspended their execution on the
plea of necessity; but in that fairly settled country they were in some degree
gradually enforced during the following twenty years. The attempt to enforce
them in Peru led to a rebellion, a civil war, the Viceroy’s death, and a long
series of disorders.
The decade
1570-80 closes more definitely in South America the period of conquest and of
civil wars. In 1577 the King sent a list of questions to all Governors in the
Indies; their answers furnished a full statistical account of the whole Empire.
The possibility of this collection indicates a considerable degree of
stability in both viceroyalties, in the more recently acquired dominion of Peru
as well as in the older viceroyalty of New Spain in North America, where the
peaceful period may be dated a generation earlier. The era of consolidation, of
administration following expansion, is distinctly marked in South America by
the Government of Francisco Toledo, Viceroy and legislator of Peru, who, in the
laborious service of twelve years (1569-81), five of them spent in travel, drew
up an elaborate and admirable code of laws and cast the government of Peru into
the form which subsisted for two centuries. Thus, before the close of the
sixteenth century, the great wave of expansion had spent itself; the framework
of empire had been put into definite shape, both geographically and
politically; and the kingdoms and provinces of the Crown in the Indies invite
survey as a system already fairly established.
The Spanish
Indies in the year 1580 extended through the tropics and far into both
temperate zones; they possessed an unexampled diversity of natural features,
climates, and altitudes—torrid coasts, vast table-lands, snow-fields extending
through the central regions of heat, strips of sandy desert, trackless forests
and swamps, river-systems mysterious in their magnitude—and an immense
interior frontier everywhere bordered by savage tribes. The retention and
administration of these dominions, a task perhaps greater than their
acquisition, can best be explained by following the methods whereby, during the
conquest, each step in advance was secured.
The
administration of outlying regions was at first usually entrusted to an adelantado
or frontier commander. Two tasks were particularly laid upon him—the reduction,
conversion, and preservation of the natives, and the foundation of Spanish
towns. Every adelantado was legally required to found at least three towns; and
his lieutenants aimed at perpetuating their memory in the same way. Royal
decrees prescribed the form of these foundations; in choosing sites, injury to
the natives was to be avoided; the plaza or central square was marked out by
the founder with solemn ceremony; round it were set the public
buildings—cabildo (town-hall), church, hospital, and prison; the streets were
traced intersecting at right angles and enclosing equal blocks; every man
received a rectangular building-site within the town and a piece of land without,
thus becoming a vecino or householder in the civic community; every vecino
became an encomendero, receiving an encmnienda, a trust or fief of one or more
villages of Indians, who were to pay him tribute or fixed labour in return for
protection and Christian instruction; these enco- menderos owed military
service in case of need and were intended to form a knightly class, “ to
defend, cnrich, and ennoble the kingdom and to care for the Indians.” In most
parts of New Spain and of Peru, where the natives were already subjected, these
encomiendas were valuable grants; but in remoter parts, especially the savage
regions of the River Plate, they were precarious or useless, depending on the
power or inclination of the encomendero to conquer or retain his supposed
tributaries. The larger towns received the dignity of cities; the smaller,
often having only a dozen or a score of vecinos, were usually styled villas.
Although the first settlers often had native wives, the Spanish towns were
clearly distinguished both in law and in fact from Indian settlements or
villages— Spaniards being legally excluded from the latter, just as Indians
were excluded from Spanish towns or confined to a special suburb with separate
organisation; but all cities, towns, and villages were popularly comprised in
the comprehensive and colourless term of pueblos or pobla- danes, that is,
settlements or inhabited places, clearly divided into pueblos de Espanoles and
pueblos de Indios.
Considering
that the first settlers, especially in South America, were adventurers, partly
gathered from Portugal, Italy, Flanders, Germany,
and the
Levant, as well as from Spain, men brutalised by long hardship, savage warfare,
and constant danger, the measure of success attained by these municipal
institutions is remarkable. A royal decree granted the rank of hidalgo to all
the companions of Pizarro; but men of such origin and life could hardly be
gentle lords of their Indian vassals; as encomenderos they were cruel tyrants,
but as vecinbs and councillors they knew how to fill their place. In the
remoter provinces the cabildo or town-council was often the only stable
authority in a wide district; on the death of a Governor it either undertook
his functions or named his temporary successor. Asuncion affords an extreme
example : a royal decree of 1537 empowered the River Plate settlers to name
their Governor in case of vacancy; as conquest merged into settlement, the
cabildo of Asuncidn claimed that this power had passed to them, and pushed it
far beyond the royal intention both in scope and in date, declaring vacancies
without warrant and appointing Governors of Paraguay in disregard of Viceroy
and of King; so late as 1730 Asuncidn is like a city-state, alternating between
anarchy, oligarchy, and elective monarchy. The cabildo of Caracas, to which the
right of governing during vacancies was renewed in 1675, arrested the Governor
in 1725 by viceregal order.
The first
regidores or town-councillors were named by the adelantado ; but afterwards
these posts were purchased from the King, frequently with the right of sale or
transfer. Thus the cabildos might seem to have preserved little popular
vitality; yet they were valued as a means whereby Spaniards bom in the Indies
might attain important and profitable positions. In small towns even such an
oligarchical and official body had a certain popular character; two alcaldes,
and in larger towns other officials also, were annually elected from among the
chief vecmos; thus in Mexico twelve prominent magistrates were annually elected
by the cabildo. The cabildos differed considerably in privileges and customs;
but they generally had the power of summoning the civil and ecclesiastical
officials and the principal vecmos to a meeting called caMldo abierto, or open
cabildo, for the discussion of any pressing matter of general interest. The
history of these bodies helps to solve a difficulty; the countenance and aid
granted by the Crown seem hardly sufficient to account for the subjection to
royal authority of territories won so largely by individual effort and at
private cost. In the cabildos the Crown and the settlers are seen working in
cooperation; by means of civic institutions the royal authority was gradually
extended, but never became so complete or universal as might appear.
Although in
the eighteenth century the Bourbon Kings, aiming at closer supervision over the
Indies, restricted the number of municipalities, seldom created new ones, and
took care to appoint some European regidores, the cabildo remained throughout a
valuable institution, serving as a channel of public sentiment and ultimately
providing
a means of
achieving independent government. In 1792 deputies from all the Venezuelan
municipalities, invited by the cabildo of Caracas, met to discuss certain
fiscal proposals of the Governor.
Another civic
institution transplanted to the Indies was the consulado. This commercial
chamber, already existing in five Spanish cities, was established in Seville in
1543, when the “ university ” of traders to the Indies was authorised to elect
annually a Prior and two Consuls, constituting a tribunal and chamber of
commerce, supported by a small tax on trade. Consulados similarly constituted
and elected were established in Mexico and Lima to judge commercial suits and
manage under legal rule the entire trade of both viceroyalties, with power to
appoint or admit as deputies in other towns local merchants, partly
representing local trade. The consulado concerned itself not only with
commerce, markets, and prices, but also with means of communication, roads,
bridges, navigation of rivers, improvement of ports; it frequently aided the
Crown with subsidies for commercial and military purposes; the alcabala or tax
on sales was usually farmed either by the cabildo or by the consulado. Although
the law required that one of the three councillors of the Lima consulado
should be a Creole, wholesale trade was generally in the hands of European
merchants; and the consulado, naturally favouring the established monopoly, was
a conservative, a monarchical, and sometimes a reactionary, body.
The mesta or
pastoral corporation, including in its brotherhood every owner of 300 sheep,
was early established in New Spain with a tribunal whose magistrates were
appointed by the cabildo of Mexico. In the great towns every trade was
organised into a society with its saint and feast-day, sometimes also its
militia company; cofradias or religious guilds were universal and were early
introduced among the Indians, providing unscrupulous clergy with a ready means
of extortion. The Universities of Mexico and Lima had all the privileges of
Salamanca; during the colonial period about twelve minor Universities were
founded whose degrees were only valid in the Indies; in places remote from a
University the Jesuit Colleges had power to grant degrees.
But in
general the theory of government was one of supreme royal authority. “These and
those kingdoms” (estos y esos remos) is the style officially used of the King’s
dominions in Spain and in America. TTie King claimed to be Emperor of the
Indies, successor to Montezuma in New Spain and to the Incas in Peru; the
Indies were not regarded as colonies; they were “ kingdoms and provinces ”
inhabited by native vassals and including certain Spanish settlements besides;
accordingly the government and well-being of “the two commonwealths” (las dos
reptiblicas) of Spaniards and of Indians were to be secured by royal authority
set over them ; the native dynasties having been replaced by His Catholic
Majesty, the institutions of the Castilian monarchy were imported into the
Indies for the government of kingdoms and
provinces,
just as municipal institutions had been imported for local administration and
the security of conquests; while for the government of the Indians some attempt
was made to preserve and adapt native institutions. Legislation consisted in
cedulas reales, royal decrees issued in the King’s name by the Council of the
Indies, which had supreme authority over all civil matters and scarcely limited
authority over all ecclesiastical matters; for by papal Bull the entire
patronage of the Indies was vested in the King; and the Pope was precluded,
except in reserved cases, from communicating directly with the Church in
America* no Bull passing thither unless approved by the Council; even the
tithes were grar-ted to the King on condition of supporting the Church and
teaching the Indians. The activity of the Council was all-pervading: a
perpetual stream of cedulas was showered upon the Governor of every kingdom in
the Indies, treating with almost ludicrous minuteness the greatest and smallest
matters of state, justice, religion, trade, finance, social conduct, etiquette,
precedence, and private morality.
There were
two viceroyalties. The Viceroy of New Spain, holding his Court with royal state
in Mexico, nominally controlled all the Spanish dominions in North America and
the Philippine Islands; but in fact only the kingdom of New Spain was directly
subject to him: the Philippines, the kingdom of Guatemala, and the provinces of
Yucatan and of New Biscay, were distinct Governments ruled by Captains-General,
supplying their annual deficit by a situado or grant from the Mexican treasury,
but only subject to viceregal intervention in case of disturbance or
unexpected vacancy. There were three audiencias, at once administrative
Councils and Courts of appeal, in the cities of Mexico, Guatemala, and
Guadalajara: the oidores, judges, and councillors in these Courts being lawyers
sent from Spain. Every kingdom was divided into districts, each ruled by a
corregidor or alcalde mayor, residing in the district capital, usually a “town
of Spaniards"; every Indian village had its Indian councillors and
officers, and also its Indian cacique, sometimes hereditary, sometimes
nominated for life by the Viceroy; a group of Indian villages was commonly
placed under a Spanish deputy of the corregidor, living in the principal
village of the group. The Antilles, which were divided at different dates into
two or three distinct Governments, were sometimes regarded as belonging to the
viceroyalty of New Spain, since they drew situados from the Mexican treasury.
Havana was regarded as the naval fortress of New Spain.
The Viceroy
of Peru, holding a more magnificent Court in Lima with higher rank and larger
salary, had nominal control over dominions extending 3500 miles along the
coast, from PanamA to Valdivia, and 3000 miles overland from Lima to Buenos
Aires. Except Caracas, which was attached to the Government of Santo Domingo
and financially supported by the Mexican treasury, all Spanish South America
depended upon him. The kingdoms of Chile, Quito, New Granada, and Tierra
1580-1780] Governments and provinces.
249
Firme, and
the three River Plate provinces of Paraguay, Tucumdn, and Buenos Aires, formed
seven distinct Governments; but viceregal intervention was frequent, for Panamd
was the gate of Peru and the only authorised entrance to the South Sea and to
the interior of the Continent, and depended upon Peru not only for the salaries
of its officials, but also for grain to feed its inhabitants; the kingdom of
Chile got from Peru its annual situado and supplies of men and stores for the
endless Araucanian war on its southern frontier: the Viceroy was also enjoined
to prevent European trade to the interior through the forbidden port of Buenos
Aires, a place carefully kept in poverty and supplying its annual deficit by a
situado from Peru. The system of corregidores and of Indian villages generally
resembled that of New Spain; but, owing to the vast distances and the great
mountain ranges, control was more difficult and doubtful; in great part of the
serrania or mountain provinces the Spaniards paid little regard to Government;
and in the provinces to the east of the Andes the system could only be
imperfectly applied owing to the savagery of the natives in the Chaco and on
the Pampa. Throughout most of that region there were no Indian pueblos; and
every Spanish town formed in effect a separate settlement continually exposed
to attack by savages and obliged to take measures for its own preservation.
Several towns perished, while others were often threatened with extinction by
Indian attack.
There was no
complete uniformity in the system, which was often modified by local
conditions. There was a tendency to preserve delimitations and arrangements
made by the earliest Governors, which were not everywhere alike. The terms
corregidor and gobemador covered many gradations of power, dignity, and
emolument. Important places on the coasts and frontiers were placed under
Governors of higher rank and authority than the corregidores, often possessing
militaiy command. The independence of the three River Plate provinces was
probably due to circumstances more than to theory; and Buenos Aires by her
position gradually acquired a certain predominance over the others. The
province of Charcas or Upper Peru held an ambiguous position, being subject to
the close supervision of Lima and yet possessing an audiencia whose
jurisdiction included the whole River Plate region.
Every
official, from the Viceroy downwards, on leaving office was subjected to a
residenda or enquiry into his conduct, held by a special judge who threw open
his court to all complainants of whatever colour. This residenda was in many
eases, perhaps in most, a mere form; in remote districts the judge was the
magistrate’s successor; but there are many recorded instances of searching and
thorough enquiry. In case of reported misgovemment a Visitor was often sent to
examine a Governor’s conduct and suspend him if necessary.
The careful
system of delegated and supervised authority was marred by the want of a
permanent and well-paid civil service; a corregidor
holding an
ill-paid post for three or five years returned to private life with a fortune.
This defect was partly remedied by the usual promotion of. deserving officials:
but the residencia, sometimes protracted for years, owing to the judge’s death
or an appeal to the Council, tended to interrupt continuity; for no one might
take another office pending this enquiry. Lax and irresponsible administration
also arose from the impossibility of control at so great a distance from Europe
and over such vast regions. The officials themselves were unable to reconcile,
execute, or even grasp, the multitudinous cidulas, which were often ambiguous,
inconsistent, or trivial. Many being soon abrogated or amended, it was
difficult to say what decrees were actually in force; the code of laws commanded
to be prepared in 1635 was not published till 1680 and already required a
commentary. In 1797 a Viceroy informs his successor that the Mexican palace
contains 156 large volumes of royal cedulas issued since 1600. Thus Indian
jurisprudence was a matter of long, profound, and inconclusive study. Although
the general intent of the laws was clear and a Governor guided by equity and
known rules could satisfy their spirit, there was a natural tendency to
convenient neglect. The Viceroys always exercised a dispensing or suspending
power; the subordinate Governors and corregidores were no less independent; a
royal cedula was kissed and placed on the head with the words, “I obey, but I
do not execute”; and in turn the white settlers rendered what obedience they chose.
“Here all men govern,” writes the Peruvian Viceroy in 1689; “the people have
more part in all political discussions than in any other provinces of the
world; a council of war sits in every house.” In 1744 Ulloa writes, “Everyone
here considers himself a sovereign.” Sanctuary was a great abuse, for the house
of any priest or of any caballero sheltered a fugitive from arrest; this latter
privilege was jealously guarded by the Creole aristocracy, who bitterly
resented its forcible abolition in Lima in 1730.
But, if there
was laxity in Lima, there was astonishing licence in the mining districts. The
pride and the disgrace of Peru was the Villa Imperial of Potosi, situated on a
sterile plain 13,500 feet above the sea, beside a conical hill 2000 feet high, which
from the discovery Of its silver treasures in 1545 was the envy of the world.
For many leagues round the soil produced nothing; yet in 1611 the population
was estimated to be 160,000, including 66,000 Indians. The miners and
adventurers living among the snows in the tropics were even more reckless and
lawless than most mining populations. The Basques, being the richest and most
numerous merchants, prominent in the cabildo and in the offices of the royal
treasury and mint, were attacked by the Andalusians, aided by the Creoles;
frequent tumults grew into combats under chosen leaders; intermittent fighting
continued, with many killed and wounded, for forty years until in 1623 the
Viceroy organised an armed force to impose peace. But the strife revived, and
there was no
1580-1780] Europeans and Creoles.-Laocity and
corruption. 251
peace in
Potosi till 1750. The discovery of a rich mine at Funo in 1680 produced still
more scandalous scenes of bloodshed and disorder. People so careless of their
own lives naturally did not spare their Indian labourers, for everything was
dear at Potosi except silver and human life. In 1802 the treasurer of Potosi
estimated that only one-fourth of the silver extracted since 1545 had paid the
King’s dues; the lowest estimate puts the contraband silver at one-half. Things
were abnormal in these mining districts, which but for their mineral wealth
would have been abandoned to a few Indian shepherds; but everywhere frequent
disorders arose from the enmity between Spaniards bom in Europe and Criollos,
Creoles, or Spaniards bom in America; the former, nicknamed Gachvpines in New
Spain and Chapetones in Peru, usually held the chief offices in Church and
State; the latter resented their inferiority none the less because it was
partly due to indolence and want of education. The mestizos of mixed European
and Indian blood, often illegitimate in birth, and the mulatos of mixed
European and African blood, were people of ambiguous position, prone to vicious
and disorderly ways, and the worst oppressors of the Indians.
The danger to
life and health in emigration promoted the universal laxity. Of thirty-six
Peruvian Viceroys from 1550 to 1801, ten died iii office, and four on the
return journey or immediately afterwards. The mortality among the Viceroys of
New Spain was almost as great. To Cervantes the Indies are the refuge of scamps
and broken men, and Quevedo leaves his sharper after a career of rascality
preparing to cross the sea. By restricting emigration to licensed passengers of
known character the Kings strove earnestly to prevent this evil; but the
repetition of the royal cedvlas shows their futility. By favour of the ship-
captains many unlicensed emigrants, among them not a few foreigners, reached
the Indies; many succumbed to pestilence at Portobello; many got no farther
than Cartagena, where the chapetonadas or immigrants’ fevers swept them away;
and the survivors were often rescued from homeless misery by the hospitable
negroes and ended by marrying negresses. But many, reaching the interior,
infested the mining districts and Indian frontiers, notwithstanding repeated
commands that they should be arrested and sent to Spain or pressed into the
army.
In New Spain,
a country more accessible, more normal, of sounder foundation and better government,
the proverbial rule of life was Vivir y dejar vivir, “ Live and let live.” In
Peru, which never shook off the taint of its baser mode of acquisition, the
motto was Comer y dejar comer, “Eat and let eat.” Officials were largely paid
by perquisites, and were not required to decline gifts; but corruption went far
beyond these limits. Viceroys and Governors had great opportunities,
particularly in the distribution of patronage; for they appointed many of the
corregidores, filled temporarily all unexpected vacancies, and nominated all
parish priests on the recommendation of the prelates.
252
Conflict of authorities,^ The Church.
[i580-i780
Many yielded
to the , temptation; the upright and energetic, unsupported by the audiencias,
could do little against universal custom. Administration was hampered by the
multitude of officials and by the disputes of competing authorities. The
Viceroy might preside in the audiencia without power to speak or vote; the
audiencia might report directly to the King, criticising the Viceroy; Viceroy
and audiencia were constantly at variance as to the vague limits of their
functions. The city of Mexico contained at least ten distinct tribunals. The
three ecclesiastical Courts of the Inquisition, the Santa Cruzada, and the diocese,
frequently clashed: the special Courts of merchants, of soldiers, of priests,
and of royal officials, caused frequent disputes of jurisdiction; but most
serious were the dissensions between Viceroys and Archbishops, between
Governors and Bishops. The prelates held a political status, being charged to
enforce the laws concerning conduct and humanity, and they not infrequently
became Viceroys and Governors; the disputes were waged with the weapons of the
law and of excommunication, but sometimes also with lethal weapons. Quarrels
between authorities were frequent, and also popular seditions against authority
accompanied by the cry Viva el rey y muera el mal gobierno; in fact,, movements
as serious as many, which in the nineteenth century have been dignified with
the title of Revolution, were scarcely abnormal. In capital cities custom or
convenience permitted in emergencies the assembly of the magistrates and chief
vecmos in a junta or convention, whose decisions had a quasi-constitutional
force—a body somewhat resembling the cabildo abierto, but more distinctly
political and not merely municipal in character. In Mexico such a junta in
1623, following and sanctioning an episcopal protest and a popular Sedition,
deposed the Viceroy—an act which was accepted by the Crown. Such movements are
not steps towards independence; they are rather, like the activities of the
cabildos, survivals of the individual or corporate vigour which marked the Conquest.
They can be regarded as pointing towards emancipation only in so far as they
indicate the possi bility of independent action inherent in the character and
ways of the people.
The same
licence pervaded the Church. The complaint recurs throughout that the clergy
are recruited from two sources: some are the outcasts of Spanish parishes and
monasteries; others are Creoles, either idle and dissolute men driven by
disgrace or want to take Orders, or else men put into religion by their parents
with a view to getting a doctrima or Indian parish and making a fortune out of the
Indians. Many benefices, including most of the doctrmas, were by special
dispensation in the hands of regular clergy almost exempt from episcopal
control. The rule of celibacy was generally evaded; religious duties were
hurried through, and the instruction of Indians was reduced to- an absurdity;
amidst general immorality in the towns, the regulars set the worst example,
making their monasteries places of licence and pleasure. The
quadrennial
chapters of the Orders held for the election of provincial prelates were
scandalous scenes of disorder and strife—Creoles and Europeans contending for
these lucrative posts, which held the patronage, subject to viceregal
confirmation, of all the parishes administered by the Order: the victor was
conducted home by the idlers of the town, waving banners and clashing
castanets. From 1629 the different Orders were successively commanded to elect
a European and a Creole alternately. At the first Franciscan election held in
Lima in 1680 under this rule the Creole padres resisted the command, made a
murderous attack upon the commissary-general of their Order, and fought in the
streets against the infantry sent to suppress the disturbance. The scandals of
these chapters recur in viceregal and episcopal reports down to the nineteenth
century. But there were large exceptions to these disorders; the missions
required and found self-sacrificing and devoted priests; the Franciscans were
better than the other Orders; and the Jesuits observed admirable conduct,
maintaining the same discipline as in Europe, expelling unworthy members and
devoting themselves in their colleges to education, to study, and to religious
and charitable ministrations.
In a general
view it would be misleading to dwell exclusively on the widespread irregularities
in Church and State : they are represented and deplored in official and legal
treatises which are themselves examples of laborious public service. In a large
and general sense the Latin heritage of organised life was preserved, and it
would be easy to multiply examples of Upright and single-hearted zeal.
The tribunal
of the Inquisition, sitting in Mexico and T-imn from 1570 and in Cartagena from
1603, was a powerful organ of government, charged to supervise conduct and also
to exclude strangers; but this latter commission seems to have been neglected;
for the foreigners who were frequently brought before the Inquisition in
Cartagena were summoned not as aliens but as heretics. During the union of the
Spanish and Portuguese CroWns (1580-1640) the Portuguese, though legally
aliens, were tolerated in the Indies; and in 1605 the Inquisition of Lima
received royal orders to moderate its zeal against Portuguese Judaisers: but
thirty years later the tribunal reports to the King that the trade of Lima is
dominated by suspected Portuguese, that the streets seethe with them, and that
a Spanish shopkeeper can only succeed by partnership with one of them. A hot
persecution followed; torture produced evidence; one woman died upon the rack;
finally, at an auto de fe held in 1637 sixty-three Portuguese were exhibited as
convicted of Judaism, while eight carried palms in token of triumphant
acquittal; eleven of the convicted suffered death. The accusation of Judaism
was probably true in most cases; the retail trade of Tima was passing into the
hands of Portuguese Jews, until the Inquisition stepped in. John Hawkins’ men,
captured at Vera Cruz in 1567 and
254
Commerce. The
fleets. [isso-mo
enslaved,
were generously treated by their Spanish masters until the Inquisition of Mexico
attacked them, when three were burnt and the rest suffered various penalties.
Of the English pirates taken with Oxenham in 1573 four suffered death, one of
them by fire, through the Inquisition of Lima; and in 1622 an Englishman, the
agent of an English merchant of Seville, was burnt in Cartagena. These seem to
be the only instances of the torture or death of Englishmen through the
Inquisition in South America; thirteen of the Englishmen captured with Richard
Hawkins in 1595, after being reconciled or admitted to the Church as penitents,
were imprisoned by the tribunal at Lima, but released by royal command; and the
few Englishmen and Dutchmen brought before the tribunal and reconciled after
1600 were treated much more leniently than Spaniards and Portuguese. In the
first twenty years 30 persons were executed out of 1265 judged by the tribunal
in Lima; 270 of these were ecclesiastics, accused sometimes of erroneous or
ambiguous doctrine, sometimes of saying mass without possessing full Orders,
sometimes of soliciting their penitents, a crime which recurs throughout the
histoiy of the tribunal. Among the charges against laymen are blasphemous,
immoral, or scandalous expressions, witchcraft, bigamy, and other domestic
irregularities.
Although
composed for people inapt for commerce, careless of gain, and free in spending
it, yet a third part of the Code of Laws for the Indies deals with commerce.
The precise and limited course of trade, at first in some degree dictated by
circumstances, was afterwards maintained by authority for convenience of
control and taxation, and for the exclusion of foreigners as well as for
defence. At first trade was permitted from several Spanish ports; but in fact
ships seldom sailed except from the Guadalquivir; and the Indian trade was soon
confined to Seville. Then, the law prescribing adequate armament being generally
evaded, so many ships, sailing singly, were taken by French corsairs, that
about 1529 they were ordered to wait for one another and sail in company; about
1550 this rule was more rigorously enforced, and convoy was ordered to the
Canaries on the outward voyage and from the Azores on the return. This system
was afterwards further developed; two fleets annually sailed from the
Guadalquivir; one, generally called the Jlota, accompanied by two warships,
sailed to Vera Cruz, where European goods were exchanged for silver, cochineal,
indigo, and hides in the fair of Jalapa; the other, the Jlota de Tierra Firme,
was popularly called the armada or the galleons, being convoyed by the eight
war-ships which constituted the armada real de la guardia carrera de las Indias
or armada del mar del Norte. In West Indian waters the few ships for the
islands and for Venezuela were detached, while the main body sailed to
Cartagena, a sleepy city which for a few weeks awoke to the activity of the
fair in which the merchants of New Granada dealt with those of Seville.
Meantime the silver bare from Potosi had been carried by llamas to the port of
Arica, thence by the armadUla or
i58o-i78o] The great fairs. The Manila galleon.
255
little
squadron to Callao, and thence to Panamfi by the two ships which constituted
the armada del mar del Sur, a force first organised after Drake’s capture of
the one treasure-ship between Callao and Panamd; from Panama the silver was
carried by mules northwards to Portobello. On the arrival of the armada del mar
del Norte from Cartagena, the pestilential village of Portobello, usually
abandoned to a few negroes, a handful of officials, and a small garrison frequently
relieved, became for six weeks one of the great centres of the world’s trade.
The agents of the Seville and Lima merchants first met to fix prices, and then
the chests of silver bars were exchanged for bales of silk and cloth; but
during the fair many died; and, if war or accident detained the galleons for
the winter, the pestilence swept away the crews and soldiers.
Trade from
Europe to the viceroyalty of Peru was rigidly confined to these fairs; European
goods reaching Buenos Aires by this strangely circuitous route, including a
land journey of one thousand leagues from Lima, were worth six times their
original cost; but from 1620 the port of Buenos Aires was allowed to export
annually two shiploads of local produce, in exchange for European goods for
local use, not for transport to the interior. Even this concession, opening the
way to contraband, was viewed with indignation by the “commerce,” or considado,
of Lima. Regularity in the sailing of the fleets was impracticable; the jfata
was often intermitted, the armada still more often; from 1656, owing to the
loss of Jamaica and other disasters on the Atlantic, probably also to the
decay of Potosi, the armada became in theory triennial, and from 1685 only
occasional. These irregularities were partly remedied, perhaps partly caused,
by frequent licenses granted to single ships, known as “register ships,” to
cany a limited cargo; the licenses were costly, and the limit was always
exceeded.
The rule
directing trade to Seville had one exception; a galleon, usually accompanied by
a smaller ship, sailed annually from Manila to Callao till 1592, and
thenceforward to Acapulco, laden with Chinese goods, principally silk and
muslin, to return to Manila carrying Government officials and priests for the
Philippine missions, also silver limited by law to 500,000 pesos, but amounting
in fact to three or five times as much. The voyage from Acapulco to Manila and
back occupying fourteen months, Acapulco had a trans-oceanic fleet of four
ships, an annual fair which temporarily doubled the population, and a small
colony of Chinese residents; the arrival of the Manila galleon was one of the
great annual events of New Spain, and this regular trade with aliens—for it was
in fact trade with China—is cited as one of the causes contributing to a
sounder state in that kingdom. Though the consulado of Seville repeatedly
protested against this trade, as infringing Spanish monopoly, the Crown refused
to suppress it, on the ground that its suppression would involve the
abandonment of the settlements and missions in the Philippines together with
the chance of evangelising
256 The Casa de Contratacidn.—Army and militia.
[1580-1780
China; but
the limited trade hitherto allowed between Peru and New Spain was totally
prohibited in 1631, the Seville trade having suffered from the Peruvian
preference for Chinese goods obtained through New Spain.
Commerce with
the Indies was managed by the Casa de Contratacion established at Seville,
consisting of a tribunal and council with numerous officials, whose duty it was
to supervise the preparation of the fleets and enforce the multitudinous and
minute regiilations by repeated visits on board; on the despatch of the fleets,
to prevent the sailing of foreigners, unlicensed passengers, contraband goods,
or freights exceeding the legal limits; and on their return, to make sure that
none of the men had deserted, that there was no unregistered silver or other
contraband, to see to the unlading and the payment of dues and to prevent gold
and silver from passing out of Spain. The Casa appointed the officials of the
fleet, until these posts were made vendible. The consvlado, which ranked as a
branch of the Casa, undertook part of its work. In 1718 the Casa, including the
consulado, was transferred to Cadiz, which had been since 1680 the actual port
of sailing. The imposts upon trade were enormous, collected both in Seville and
in the ports of arrival, and they tended to increase until the proverb ran that
the King took one Jlota in every three. In 1635 fresh dues were imposed to
support the armada del BarhventO, a small permanent West India squadron, to
cruise about the islands and along the Spanish Main, and in case of need to
convoy the Jlota from Vera Cruz to Havana. The three armadas, of the North Sea,
of the South Sea, and of the Windward Isles, completed the Indian naval
establishment; but they were always inefficient. The Spaniards were equally
weak in seamanship and artillery; there were many Germans, Dutch, and English,
among the gunners and sailors; the commanders were often land officers; and,
down to the eighteenth century, the war-ships were still unwieldy galleons, of
a pattern long abandoned elsewhere, always cumbered with cargo and passengers
and incapable of serious fighting.
The regular
army in the Indies usually consisted merely of small garrisons in the chief
ports, with some troops in the south of Chile and in the north of New Spain ;
most of the soldiers were Creoles and mestizos, drafts from Spain being always
speedily thinned by death and desertion. The garrisons, especially on the
Pacific coast, were as inefficient as the fleet; the soldier’s trade was
abhorred in the Indies; and during the 250 years following conquest there was a
general disposition for peace. The militia furnished by the inhabitants of the
towns varied much in numbers and in efficiency; negroes, though sometimes
legally excluded from it, were generally admitted; pure Indians were excluded,
with some exceptions. The interior Spanish settlements seldom contained regular
soldiers; the obligations of the encomendcros were forgotten, as the
encomiendas diminished in number
and value;
and in fact the defence of such settlements fell upon all the inhabitants,
often aided by friendly Indians.
In 1497
pardon was granted to criminals who should go to Santo Domingo; and during the
succeeding generation any' Spaniard might emigrate whose ancestry was not
tainted with Judaism, Mohammadanism, or heresy; nor were the Emperor’s subjects
or even other foreigners rigidly excluded; but this freedom was soon
restricted. No one was allowed to leave Spain for the Indies without the King’s
license, which was only given sparingly to men of approved character. Doubtless
the dread of losing population was a motive, but so also was the government of
the Indies. They were not to become European colonies; the commonwealth of the
Indians was to be preserved; white men were to live under control in organised
groups in cities as servants of King and Church; every precaution was to be
taken against the evil, constantly denounced by Kings and Viceroys, of idlers
and vagabonds living among the Indians and bringing disrepute upon “ policy ”
and Christianity.
These
regulations were constantly broken; gain tempted the ship- captains to carry
contraband goods and unlicensed passengers in every fleet, notwithstanding the
threatened penalty of death for this latter offence ; repeated cedulas denounce
the constant arrival of unregistered silver, escaping the royal dues. But not
only subjects committed irregularities; occasionally the King seized at Seville
the silver of the merchants, giving in exchange promissory notes of doubtful
value. The system of annual fairs, coupled with the great risk of shipwreck or
of capture by corsairs, induced a precarious uncertainty; profits were enormous
and ruin frequent. Foreign goods might be sent to the Indies, provided that
they were the genuine purchased property of Spaniards. Any Spaniard could trade
with the Indies through a member of the “ commerce ” of Seville; but the
members were forbidden to act as agents of foreigners. This prohibition was
disobeyed; and early in the seventeenth century a large part of the goods sent
westward was despatched by foreigners through Seville merchants, who were never
known to betray these secret and illegal trusts.
The study of
Spanish-American laws and institutions is in itself incomplete and therefore
misleading; for the actual course of events is largely a history of
infractions, evasions, and authorised exceptions. The Spanish settlers
generally welcomed smugglers without enquiring too nicely whether they were
corsairs and enemies of the Crown ; from the beginning of the seventeenth
century the Dutch seated in Cura^oa almost monopolised the trade of Venezuela;
in the Antilles the French down to 1697 and the English down to 1670 preferred
piracy or war, but did not neglect contraband, which continued after the
conclusion of peace. The Portuguese in southern Brazil pushed an immense contraband
trade with the River Plate, and founded in 1678 the fort of
258 Taxation.—Coinage.—Mining regulations.
[i580-i780
Colonia del
Sacramento as a smuggling post, ten leagues from Buenos Aires across the
estuary; during the following eighty-five years the place was five times taken
by the Spaniards and five times restored to the Portuguese on conclusion of
peace.
The internal
taxation was gradually assimilated to the oppressive system prevailing in
Spain; the alcabala, or tax upon all sales, was introduced after 1573,
notwithstanding protests which in Quito reached the pitch of insurrection.
Bread and com were exempt from this tax, as well as arms, compounded medicines,
trained horses, paintings, “because of the excellence of that art,” and books
in Latin and Spanish; books were also exempt from import duty, but were subject
to a strict censorship, “ feigned and unseemly histories ” being excluded. The
other chief internal sources of revenue were the royal dues on minerals, the
sale of municipal and other offices, the Indian tribute, stamped paper, the
monopoly of playing-cards, taxes upon all civil and ecclesiastical salaries,
part of the incomes of vacant benefices, the tithes which were partly applied
to secular purposes, and the sale of the Bull of the Holy Crusadej granted by
the Pope to support war against the infidel, but always renewed with occasional
brief interruptions. This last very profitable source of revenue was
administered by a special treasury and tribunal in every capital; and the
purchase of the Bull was pressed upon everyone in biennial courses of sermons.
Frequently the King, pleading the necessities of war against infidels and
heretics, applied to his subjects for loans and also for donativos or free
gifts, meaning in fact heavy extra taxes.
In New Spain
silver at the mines paid to the King If per cent, plus one-tenth of the
remainder, in Peru If per cent, and one-fifth of the remainder down to 1736,
when, owing to the decay of the mines, the dues were reduced to the scale of
New Spain. Mercury, required for the extraction of silver, was a royal
monopoly, being sold by the King to miners at his own price; it came partly
from Europe, partly from the Peruvian mine of Guancavelica, belonging to the
King, but worked by contractors. The silver real, reputed one-eighth of an
ounce, and worth about G^d., was the unit in reckoning small sums; but the
general unit was the reputed silver ounce or piece of eight reales, usually
called simply peso, equal to about 4j. 4d.; the Mexican mint has coined these
dollars for 350 years. The ducat, a Spanish unit little used in the Indies,
was, from the middle of the sixteenth century, not a coin but a sum of money,
namely eleven reales, about equal to 6s.
Six Indian
diggers were assigned to any mine-hunter, who on discovering a vein of silver
had the right to stake out a space of sixty by forty yards; an equal space
belonged to the King and was always sold if found saleable; anyone on paying
100 pesos might then stake out a limited claim, which was forfeited unless
worked to a certain depth within a fixed time. The most numerous and most
successful mine-
1580-1780] Foreigners.—Net Revenue.
259
hunters being
foreigners, it was decreed that foreigners should have these rights equally
with Spaniards and Indians, also that German experts might be employed. These
decrees are an instructive commentary both on the efficacy of the laws
excluding foreigners and on the common notion that Spaniards had an inordinate
passion for gold and silver; about 1640 a competent writer says that “ most of
the calamities of the Indians at Guancavelica are due to the cruelty, iniquity,
greed, and depraved morals of the foreigners who flock thither.” The way from
Brazil could not be barred; nor were the ports in fact effectively closed. The
naturalisation of foreigners long established in the Indies was permitted from
1562; yet the decrees excluding foreigners are constantly repeated.
These large
taxes produced a disproportionately small revenue. Some were farmed; others
were collected by the ordinary magistrates, who received a percentage on the
amount; there was much waste, carelessness, and dishonesty, in collection as in
expenditure. Most of the revenue was spent in the Indies on the elaborate and
costly civil and ecclesiastical establishment; a surplus came from the
treasuries of the mining regions in New Spain and Peru; but these regions were
but a small part of the geographical area of the Empire, and the greater part
of their surplus was absorbed by the loss incurred in other provinces; frequently
it was only by borrowing and sometimes by advancing money themselves that the
Viceroys were able to remit to Spain the sums expected by the King. Complete
records of the amounts so sent to Spain are not accessible, but before 1590 the
annual despatch seldom exceeded 1,500,000 pesos. From 1600 to 1700 about
4,000,000 pesos probably represents the usual amount, but much of this was lost
by shipwreck and disaster; during the eighteenth century the amount increased,
and after 1760 it increased greatly, owing to the tobacco monopoly, the growth
of trade, and the progress of mining in New Spain; towards the close of the
eighteenth century the Crown drew annually from the Indies about eight millions
of pesos, while the situados to Cuba, Manila, and other places, further
absorbed three or four millions. But the actual average was probably
considerably less than these usual amounts owing to periods of depression and
to the occasional intermission of despatch in war-time; in the latter case the
deficiency was not fully made good in succeeding years. From 1579 to 1650 the
royal dues at Potosi usually exceeded 1,000,000 pesos, and in eighteen of those
years they approached or passed 1,500,000: the subsequent decay of Potosi was
more than balanced by the increased product of New Spain, which produced from
1775 about two-thirds of the revenue sent to Spain. In 1795 the
Spanish-American mints coined thirty-eight million pesos, of which twenty-four
millions were struck in New Spain. In each of the following years the Mexican
mint coined over twenty-five millions.
The asiento
de negros or contract for supplying African slaves to the
260
[1580-1780
Indies, which
in the eighteenth century became the object of international diplomacy and war,
has a separate history. The slave-trade, being repulsive to Spaniards, was
generally granted by contract to foreigners; in 1595 a Fleming undertook to pay
100,000 ducats a year for the monopoly, embarking annually 4250 slaves, of whom
3500 were by the contract to reach the Indies alive: in 1600 the Portuguese
Governor of Angola took the contract, the ratio of mortality being raised, 5000
negroes to be embarked and 3500 landed at Cartagena and Vera Cruz; similar
contracts were granted down to 1640, when the revolt of Portugal interrupted
the trade. Portuguese were now excluded; Spaniards were unwilling; Dutch and
English, though ready enough, were not acceptable agents; but after twenty
years’ interval a Genoese house gave an increased price for the monopoly; in 1676
the consulado of Seville took the contract; in 1696 the Portuguese Company of
Guinea undertook to land in six years and a half 10,000 tons of negroes at
three “pieces'” (i.e. negroes) to the ton, paying 112 pesos per ton for the
privilege; in 1701 the contract was transferred to the French Company of Guinea
for ten years; lastly, in 1713 it was granted as the price of peace to the
English South Sea Company, which undertook to send 4800 pieces of proper height
and age annually for 30 years, the sovereigns of Spain and of England each to
receive one-fourth of the profit.
The attempt
to employ negroes in the Andes failed; nor were they ever numerous in Chile or
the River Plate region or the Mexican tableland ; but in the tropics, apart
from the mountains, they relieved the less enduring Indians in mines and
pearl-fisheries as well as in ordinary labour. The nature of the country
facilitating escape, bands of cimarrones or runaway negroes early infested the
woods and hills of Tierra Firme; but usually the negroes easily adopted the
religion and customs of their new country, where they were generally treated
with more humanity than among other Europeans, especially when they were
servants to individuals; for a certain patriarchal character has always marked
the Spanish household, the master regarding every dependent as a member of the
family. A slave could legally purchase his freedom for a moderate sum, whatever
his original cost might be, and could compel a master convicted of harshness to
sell him to another. In the coast towns of the tropics there were many free
negroes and mulattos, who provided companies of militia. Humboldt found the
negroes much better treated in Cuba than in Jamaica; in considering Spanish
treatment of the Indians this testimony should not be forgotten.
The treatment
and government of the Indians cannot be dismissed in a dogmatic summary, owing
to the divergence of actual fact from constitutional theory and also owing to
the innumerable diversities of the Indians themselves. The people of Anahuac
and of Cuzco and some of their neighbours had developed a considerable degree
of mechanical
skill and
social organisation; but within fifty leagues of both these centres the natives
descended through grades of lower culture to the most abject or ferocious
savagery. Their relations with the Spaniards varied from hearty and loyal
allegiance or complete subjection to independence and intermittent warfare.
Down to the eighteenth century few white settlers, except in a few Peruvian
coast towns, were separated by more than 100 miles from savages, many of them
cannibals, many of them inveterate enemies, raiding the frontier towns to carry
off Spanish women into savage concubinage and Spanish boys to be reared as
Indian warriors, often to become the most intrepid and wily leaders against the
Christians. The immense differences of natural features and climate meant
corresponding diversities of population; there were wide differences between
the people of the torrid coasts, those of the interior forests and swamps,
those of the tropical table-lands, the mountaineers of the south temperate
region, and the nomads of the Pampa; and smaller local divisions were infinite.
In 1864, 120 living idioms were reckoned in Mexico, of which 35 were distinct
languages,. besides 62 extinct tongues; about 1790, 350 idioms, 35 of them
distinct languages, were counted in Quito alone; Azara, in 1809, after years of
observation, remarks that the differences between the small tribes on the
Paraguay are greater than the differences between European nations.
, But enquiry
naturally turns to the peoples of New Spain and of Peru, tribes more settled
and advanced, though indolent, apathetic, inert, and careless of
self-preservation, when judged by European standards. The shock of conquest and
revolution, service as porters and auxiliaries in war, labour in mines and in
the building of ships and cities, displacement of customs and sentiments,
caused a great diminution of inhabitants. The brutal conquerors of Peru,
themselves daily exposed to hardship and death, were indifferent to the lives
of their auxiliaries; even in New Spain the extensive and solid Spanish cities
are monuments of suffering and mortality continued after the conquest, the want
of beasts of burden being supplied by men. But more were killed by epidemics
than by all these causes; twice before 1580 the indigenous plague of mazahuatl
swept New Spain with appalling mortality; but more wide-spread and continuous
were the ravages of the newly-imported European fevers, small-pox and measles.
In every fresh advance during three centuries these plagues accompanied the
white men and destroyed at intervals one-sixth or one-fourth of the King’s
newly-subdued Indian vassals; even in the settled parts the pestilence
continued without ceasing, and the frequent epidemic outbreaks were only less
destructive than thn earlier visitations.
The
“commonwealth of the Indians” was treated as distinct, the natives being
regarded as a separate part of the body politic. The first object of Government
was to “reduce” the natives, to gather them into considerable villages
possessing Indian magistrates and a white
priest; they
were thus to be made “ politic ” people, to learn “ civil life,” and to be
instructed in Christianity. “ Before the Indians can be made Christians, they
must be made men,” writes Toledo, who deplores the extreme difficulty of the
task, saying that the Indians still live as they did under the tyranny of the
Incas, sunk in apathetic indolence and only working at command of their
caciques, who exploit them ruthlessly. Even apologists and defenders of the
Indians constantly repeat the same verdict: “ They are timid and pusillanimous
people, indolent but submissive, of small understanding, imitative but not
inventive! ”
In every
Indian pueblo, including the cercados or native suburbs of Spanish towns, the
Indians annually chose, in presence of the Spanish priest, councillors and two
alcaldes, who had considerable summary powers to flog and imprison for
drunkenness, immorality, and theft, more serious cases being remitted to the
nearest Spanish town; the lash was preserved from pre-Conquest times to
chastise Indians in cases where white men were fined. The Indians were legally
classed as gente miserable, people unfit to take care of themselves, having the
privileges and limitations of minors, forbidden to alienate property or make
considerable contracts except through the official Protector; they were exempt
from the Inquisition as being, like children, unable to grasp matters of
doctrine, and, though nominally subject to episcopal Courts, in fact were never
brought to account for doctrinal matters. But the curas, even the most devoted
and humane, everywhere punished absence from mass with the lash, which is
declared by a champion of the Indians to be indispensable, since without it
none would attend; they were subjected to a reduced number of fasts and feasts
and a less rigid matrimonial table of affinity, and were not required to
purchase the Bull of the Santa Cruzada or to give any offerings in church or
dues for masses, baptisms, marriages, and funerals. They were exempt from
alcahala; the payment of tithes was a disputed matter, only partially enforced
with many relaxations; apart from the turn of paid but forced labour, called
tamda in New Spain and mita in Peru, the only contribution to the State was the
tribute or capitation tax paid by all males between 18 and 50 years of age;
this varied in different times and places from one peso to nine, paid in kind
where metal was scarce. Though there were instances of hardship, the tribute
was not usually excessive, being much less than exactions endured before the
Conquest, and it was commonly remitted in famine or other calamity; but to
minor officials it was a ready occasion for extortion.
In return,
the Indians were entitled to possess sufficient land for their support; but
Spanish graziers often encroached and damaged the crops. The novel institution
of individual property caused much perplexity and litigation in Peru, the
Indians carrying their trivial disputes to the audiencia and often dying on the
long journey through various climates. A heavy abuse from the beginning was the
exaction by the
i58a-i78o] Forced labour. Humane laws.
263
encomenderos
of unpaid and excessive personal service in lieu of paid tribute; to prevent
this and other grievances, an encomendero was forbidden to live on his
encomienda, and was bound to inhabit a stone house in the capital of the
district; yet this illegal personal service was not wholly eradicated even in
1780. Hospitals were everywhere built for the Indians; a paid Protector was
appointed in every district, besides the chief Protector in the capital, who
was specially charged to secure justice for them in the audiencia\ and humane
treatment was unceasingly enjoined upon all officials.
In the
vicinity of the Spanish towns, apart from the mines, the Indians seem to have
been well treated and fairly content. Toledo in 1570 found that the only
well-managed hospital in Lima was that established for the Indians. The murder
of an Indian was punished by death. In 1630 the Indians of the cercado of Lima
are described as “ instructed in policy and Christianity and espafkilizados so
that they seem like Spaniards; they live in 200 houses and have among them
eighty negro slaves, more than are owned by all the other Indians of Peru.”
Though the general rule forbade fire-arms and horses to Indians, those of Lima
furnished militia, both horse and foot. In the Peruvian coast valleys,
destitute of mines and adapted to negro labour, the Indians readily learned
mechanical arts and earned good wages in the armada and in the dockyards; their
villages were ruled tranquilly but rigorously by Indian alcaldes who excluded
all Spaniards and negroes. In Lima, Cuzco, and La Plata, as in the Indian
quarter of Mexico, there were colleges for Indian nobles, although these
foundations were sometimes neglected or diverted to other uses. Many Indians
flocked to the Spanish towns, either living at random, free from tribute, in
the markets and in the courtyards of the houses, or else attaching themselves
to Spanish families as hereditary serfs.
Although the
laws of protection and tutelage admit the impossibility of treating Indians
like white men, yet from 1542 to 1600 Spanish legislators aimed at making them
equal to Spaniards by ordering the abolition of every kind of serfdom and of
all forced labour, and enjoining that negroes should be substituted for Indian
workmen; but even these sweeping decrees contain ambiguous additions admitting
necessary exceptions. Discretion in applying the laws is left to the Viceroys;
where negroes are not available, Indian labourers must be used; in any case
idleness is not to be allowed. In fact, the Conquest had brought with it a
problem hitherto unfamiliar. Life under European conditions required labour in
public works, in mines and factories, and above all on farms: the few white
settlers scattered in small groups were not prepared to perform this labour in
countries already possessing a docile peasantry; but the peasantry, needing
almost nothing, ignorant of the use of money, abased by the shock of
subjection, and perplexed by strange conditions, did not care at first to
labour for wages. On the other
264 Regulation of labour. The mita of Potosi.
[1580-1780
hand, they were
accustomed to work at command, for the polity of the Incas had rested upon
serfdom and forced labour; royal decrees could not induce Governors or settlers
to dispense with institutions already existing and in their opinion necessary.
The attempt was abandoned; while unpaid service in lieu of tribute was
absolutely forbidden, serfdom and paid forced labour were both admitted;
serfdom indeed was still discountenanced in many ambiguous decrees, and was
rather tolerated as an existing institution and authorised by prescription than
distinctly legalised. The serfs, called yanaconas in Peru, were attached to the
soil, could not be sold, and were entitled to payment and instruction. The
repetition of these rules indicates their frequent breach; yet many serfs were
well treated and content; they were often in fact tenants sharing the crops
with the Spanish landlord; many chose serfdom, especially as domestic
retainers, in order to escape mita and tribute.
Forced labour
in civic works, on farms, in mines and factories, was regulated by the mita or
succession of labourers, whereby only a certain proportion of the men, varying
in different provinces from one twenty- fifth to one-fifth, might be summoned
from their homes at one time to serve for a fixed wage. Provisions for their
protection are repeated and multiplied; about 1610 it was forbidden in Peru to
employ Indians in the sugar-factories, where they were liable to be hurt by
machinery and by drinking spirits, or to employ them as woodcutters, since
falling trees killed or injured them, although the usual exception is added
that when royal galleons are being built Indian woodcutters may be
indispensable. It may be questioned how far external care could protect people
so little able to take care of themselves—people who in former times had, on
the death of an Inca, killed themselves in crowds; but in fact the decrees for
their protection were evaded, especially in the Peruvian mining districts. The
mita of Potosi, which was treated by Viceroys as a great matter of State, may
be described in illustration. About 1575 Toledo assigned the 95,000 Indian
villagers inhabiting seventeen districts as mitayos for Potosi; one-seventh of
them were annually summoned to labour in the mine one week in three; thus
18,500 Indian mitayos were always present, of whom 4500 at a time worked underground,
receiving a daily wage of four reales or two shillings, half the wage of a free
Indian. The mitayos were to be carefully protected from hardship and danger;
but humane regulations were frustrated by the greed and lawlessness of the
mine-owners and by the rapid diminution of the mitayos. In 1633 the 95,000
assigned by Toledo had dwindled to 25,000, and in 1678 there remained less than
1700. In 1681 an energetic Viceroy was sent with orders to restore the mita,
which had lapsed from the disappearance of the Indians, to the great loss of
the mining industry; by a careful count of Indians and by adding fourteen
districts, he enrolled 31,000 mitayos, making an annual shift of 3000,
1080-1780] Decrease of Indian population.
265
who were now
to work two weeks out of three. And then begins a fresh cycle of hardship,
apathetic submission, and decrease, hastened by a terrible epidemic of cholera
in 1720. In 1788 the intendant of Cochabamba, a province adjoining Potosi,
reports that three of his Indian villages had been completely depopulated by
the mita, and that of the Indians who annually went to Potosi one-third never
returned; in explanation he describes the exhausting, dangerous, and unwholesome
character of the work, and the fatal change of climate. The mercuiy mine of
Guancavelica, requiring about 600 labourers at a time, consumed its mitayos
even more rapidly than Potosi. But worse than either were the obrages or doth
factories, in which the Indians were shut up unseen except by their exploiters
and delivered over to a hopeless, grinding slavery, their legal pay being so
manipulated on pretext of food, clothing, and payment of tribute, that they
were always in the master’s debt, owing him unending toil; reiterated royal
commands failed to release them.
Viceregal and
other reports are almost unanimous in ascribing the decrease of Peruvian
Indians to ill-treatment and dangerous or excessive labour, to the long
journeys, sometimes of 150 leagues, from their homes, and to the interruption
of domestic life; but there were other causes. It was the interest of
corregidor, ctira, and cacique to resist an accurate census and frustrate the
mita, keeping the Indians to be exploited by themselves; many Indians fled to
the unconquered heathens, or to districts exempt from mita or to Spanish towns;
many bought immunity from mita; many after their year of service remained at
Potosi as free labourers, either working in the mine and in the numerous
accessory tasks or collecting surface silver and buying stolen silver to be
sold again. In 1600 a free labourer in the mine received a peso daily, besides
what he could make by stealing; the Peruvian rule of life, “Eat and let eat,”
was extended to the Indians; and stolen ore was regularly sold by them in
public market to Spanish speculators. In 1610 the practice was regulated and
authorised, every free Indian miner being allowed one load of ore daily; the
sale of this brought up his daily earnings to a minimum of 13 reales or 7
shillings.
But in their
own villages the Indians were often the victims of three tyrants, the
corregidor, the cura, and the Indian cacique. The corregi- dores, being
authorised to purchase mules and other necessaries for sale to the Indians,
often bought the unsaleable stock of Lima tradesmen, spectacles, playing-cards,
books, toilette powder, velvet, silk, compelling their Indian subjects to
purchase these at the seller’s price and reaping almost incredible profits at
the cost of terrible suffering. But a nearer and more constant oppressor was
the cura, usually a regular priest almost exempt from episcopal control;
official reports show the cura unlawfully engaged in trade, exacting forbidden
dues, compdling children to bring offerings, multiplying festivals to increase
extortion, sometimes
turning the
church into a cloth factory and compelling the parishioners to labour all
Sundays and feast-days.
The worst
destroyers of the Indian were epidemics and alcohol. From the most cultured to
the most savage all were the slaves of intoxication; during any brief absence
of the cura an Indian pueblo plunged into an orgy of drunkenness and incestuous
debauchery; to the abstemious Spaniard this vice branded the Indians as bestial
people and justified the distinction universally drawn between Indians and
gente de raz6n. With all their denunciations of ill-treatment, some officials
are vaguely conscious that the decay of Indians is a matter beyond their
control; one Viceroy attributes their decrease to their subjection to
strangers; an early historian of Quito, after describing the devastation of
conquest, is still at a loss to explain the total depopulation of large
districts, and finally ascribes this to the secret judgment of God.
Yet the
grievances were great. “ The Indians have scarce a tongue to complain; if they
attempt it, they are intimidated by the corregidor,” writes the Viceroy in
1681; appeal to the audiencia was generally fruitless; one official would not
condemn another. Small disturbances and conspiracies were not uncommon and were
little regarded by the authorities; but about 1730 these sporadic troubles
became more frequent, partly owing to an attempt to make a census. In 1742 an
Indian of Cuzco, a fugitive from justice or injustice, taking an Inca name and
proclaiming a restoration of the Empire, organised a revolt or rather an
invasion among the Chwnckos of the montana or forest region on the east and
north-east frontier of the central Peruvian provinces, between 10° and 16°
south latitude. Many missions were destroyed; the Spaniards were confined to
their towns and the frontier was thrust back for half-a-century ; yet the
Viceroy reports that the corregidor of Tarma is needlessly anxious for strong
measures, and that the case is one for missionaries, not for arms. In 1750 an
Indian conspiracy in Lima, not the first, indicated stability rather than
weakness; for the militia company of Indian nobles in proof of fidelity
voluntarily attended the execution of the leaders. A rising of some pueblos in
a neighbouring province with an attempt to raise the whole kingdom was more
alarming; and the Viceroy suggests that it is perhaps unwise to allow the
Indians on the proclamation in Lima of a King’s accession to represent in
ceremonial procession the departed line of Incas.
In 1780 the
cacique of an Indian pueblo in the district of Tinta to the south of Cuzco,
after a vain attempt to represent Indian grievances to the King, invited the
corregidor to his house, and, pretending a royal warrant, tried and executed
him; then, taking the Inca name of Tupac Amaru and asserting a commission from
the King, he seized the treasuries of two districts and raised a paid army of
17,000 men, which he led against Cuzco, claiming to be the deliverer of
Indians, Creoles, and mestizos, but threatening death to all who should resist
him. Other
leaders
sprang up in the southern serrania, notably a baker calling himself the Inca
Tupa Catari, who plunged with his followers into orgies of drunkenness and
homicide, killing white men, women, and children, and threatening civil war
against Tupac Amaru. The latter, repulsed from Cuzco, turned his arms against
all except Indians; at first many mestizos and some Creoles favoured the
rising, but they were soon alienated by massacre and outrage; and after four
months of aimless warfare and some vain attacks on small towns his diminished
forces were defeated by a Spanish officer commanding 15,000 men, mostly loyal
Indians under their caciques. But meantime more serious troubles afflicted
Upper Peru (now Bolivia), extending even to Tucumdn; in some places only whites
were killed, in others all mestizos and all Europeanised Indians of every sex
and age, in one place every man wearing a shirt; one town was flooded by
cutting an embankment, and its 10,000 inhabitants were drowned. Tupac Amaru’s
nephew, pretending a commission from Charles III, was, still in command of
15,000 men a year after the first outbreak, but was at last brought to
capitulate; 100,000 people are said to have perished in the troubles of 1780-3.
Tupac Amaru was executed with medieval tortures, proof of the panic inspired by
the rebellion.
This movement
cannot fairly be regarded as the attempt of an oppressed nationality to amend
its wrongs; there was no general rising of the Indians and no cohesion among
the insurgents. It is a yet greater error to regard this as the beginning of
the struggle for independence; whatever the first intention of its authors may
have been, the movement was in fact aimed, not at the emancipation of the Spanish
settlements, but at their destruction; the rising was a partial movement in the
“ commonwealth of Indians,” whereas the later struggle for emancipation was a
movement in the “ commonwealth of Spaniards,” to which most of the Indians were
indifferent or hostile.
This
insurrection produced a reform—the abolition of corregidores throughout the
Indies except in New Granada, and the institution of mtendentes, officials of
high rank and character, ruling large provinces and directly responsible to the
King; each intendencia was divided into partidos ruled by subdelegados. But
there was one great defect, due to the chronic necessities of the treasury; the
subdelegados were paid by a percentage of the Indian tribute collected by them;
and the old story of neglect and oppression by priests and officials continued.
The history
of the encomiendas illustrates the decrease of the Indians. Originally granted
for two or sometimes three lives, after which term they were to pass to the
Crown, these fiefs began to fall in before the close of the sixteenth century;
but the Viceroys retained a valuable patronage by renewing them, often to
families other than the first possessors. Their action was received at first
with vigorous reprimand, then with acquiescence; the Crown took to making these
grants to
268 Increase of mestizos.—Indians in New Spain,
[mo-is&t
courtiers
living in Spain; and the principle of perpetuity, at first rejected, was in
some degree admitted. The possession of rich encomiendas by ecclesiastical and
charitable foundations impeded their extinction; yet during the seventeenth
century many lapsed to the Crown. After 1751, the Crown absorbed the remainder
without ‘much difficulty, depopulation having almost extinguished their value.
About 1790, in Chile, fifty- three surviving encomiendas, comprising 960
Indians, were extinguished; the richest encomienda in Cochabamba then consisted
of nine Indians; in Paraguay the Protector reported the existence of 122
encomiendas> comprising about 2000 Indians, who were still illegally
subjected to unpaid personal service for two months every year. But it must be
remembered that, as the Indians decreased, the mestizos increased; Indian women
preferred union with white men; and many of those who passed for white were of
mixed origin. Everywhere there was a limited society of well-to-do Creoles and
Europeans who jealously guarded their purity of blood; but only in the province
of Buenos Aires, bordered by savage tribes, was the bulk of the population
European.
In New Spain the
Indians fared better; the country was easier to control and more thickly
populated, and the natives showed more endurance under the new conditions. The
drainage canal of Mexico, employing thousands of forced labourers for two
centuries, did not destroy population as did the mita of Potosi; the great
mining era of New Spain was the settled age of the eighteenth century, not, as
in Peru, the age succeeding the Conquest. Notwithstanding much injustice and
oppression, the Indians increased in number and improved in condition during
the eighteenth century, especially after 1770, about which time the tcmda was
abolished and all labour made free; and in 1805, according to Humboldt, the
Indians, except in the dbrages* were better off than the peasantry over a great
part-of northern Europe ; labour in the mines, though exhausting, was short and
better paid than in Europe. The few remaining Indian cities and the two Indian
quarters of Mexico, with their separate Indian cabildos exercising authority
over groups of subject Indian villages, were treated with dignity and
consideration. So long as the Spanish power lasted, the people of the “ free
city ” of Tlascala retained with unimportant modifications the privileges
granted by Cortes, and even carried these privileges to the distant frontier
settlements which they made in support of Spanish Imperial expansion; it may be
doubted whether any other conquering power has ever observed such a treaty for
three centuries. It is true that the attempt of Spanish legislators to endow
the body of natives with policfa, to make them “ civil people ” in the European
sense, overshot the mark of possibility ; the unmixed Indians in general
remained merely passive members of the body politic; so late as 1864 the
Mexican Indians are truly described as still depressed and indifferent.. Yet
the “New Laws” for the liberation of the Indians promulgated
I600-1700] The frontiers.—The
missions.
269
by the
Habsburg Emperor were not ineffective; three centuries after his time an
invading Habsburg prince was put to death by a pure-blooded Indian acting as
constitutional head of the Mexican commonwealth.
The treatment
of Indian subjects naturally leads to the frontier question, the attitude of
Government towards the unsubdued gentiles. To the north of New Spain and to the
south of the River Plate and of Chile, there were long irregular frontiers;
several provinces of both continents contained savage enclaves; moreover, there
was an immense undefined interior border-line, extending westward from the mouth
of the Orinoco to the Andes, thence irregularly southwards to Salta, then in a
great curve round the Chaco, past Cordoba to Santa Fe; from this point a narrow
and ill-defined strip of Spanish settlement, bordered to east and west by
savagery, extended northwards up the Parand, and Paraguay to a point north of
Asuncion.
The close of
armed conquest in the sixteenth century did not end European expansion. As in
other empires, the safety of the frontiers demanded advance; nor was the
condition of the Papal grant of the Indies, the conversion of the heathen, ever
forgotten. The extension of royal power over regions properly belonging to the
Crown was an undoubted duty and privilege; and the beneficence of this work was
a political and religious axiom. But a sincere and partly successful effort was
made to cany on this work without violence or bloodshed. Philip in commanded
that attacks upon the heathen should cease and that advance should only be made
thenceforth by the peaceful persuasion of missionaries. Abstinence from armed
aggression became so much an established maxim that, in 1680, a junta of
Bishops and Governors met in Tucumdn to discuss whether it was lawful to make
offensive war on the Chaco Indians,*who constantly raided the towns. The
initiation of the policy of pacific advance is marked by the royal invitation
to some Italian Jesuits to undertake the pacification of the savage country on
the upper Parand, Thus began in 1609 the famous missions in the province of
Guaira, generally known as the missions of Paraguay, although they were remote
and politically separate from the earlier settlement round Asuncion, and most
of them lay outside the present limits of the Paraguayan Republic.
Many of the
Guaranis, a people practising a rude agriculture but other- ,dse savages,
living in little groups in the woods, menaced on the north by ferocious
cannibals and on the east by the Paulistas, lawless Brazilian slave-raiders,
were now gathered into “reductions,” each ruled by a Jesuit priest with one or
two assistants. After a destructive raid of Paulistas in 1630 fire-arms were
introduced, and a regular Indian militia, both cavalry and infantry, was
formed; these troops were repeatedly sent by their Jesuit chiefs to save the
towns of Corrientes, Santa Fe, and Asuncion from attacks of savages, and to
help the Spanish troops of Buenos
Aires against
the Portuguese. In 1705 the King formally thanked them for their service
against the infidels; and in the following year they assaulted and took with
reckless daring the Portuguese fort of Colonia. This curious commonwealth of
some thirty Indian villages, exempt from outside control, and administered by
elected Indian officials under the admirable rule of the priests, was the most
orderly, stable, and contented community south of the tropics. In 1740 their
inhabitants numbered 144,000; but they were reduced by epidemics, by mortality
in the military service of the King, and by the results of an iniquitous treaty
ceding seven of the reductions to the hated Portuguese, whereby those seven
villages were driven into revolt, followed by destruction through a
Hispano-Portuguese military expedition; at the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767
they numbered 110,000. After that event the reductions were handed over to
civil administrators and young regulars of other Orders who hurried to seize
the houses, gardens, and orchards of the Jesuits, caring little for the
Indians; and the province gradually relapsed into depopulation and barbarism.
These
missions, though secluded from intrusion, were not secluded from observation;
they were jealously watched by the authorities of Asuncidn. Their merit is
proved by the inspections and reports of Governors and Bishops, by the letters
of Jesuits to one another, by the analogy of their work throughout the Indies,
by the exaggerated or trivial character of the charges brought against them in
1767, and by the reports of two separate royal commissioners sent to Guaira
after the expulsion, who contrast the former admirable system with the
succeeding disorder. A remarkable testimony to the general merits of the
Jesuits is afforded by the petition of the “substitute” American deputies to
the Cortes of 1810, who demanded, among other reforms, the restoration of the
Company in America.
Not only in
Guaira but on almost every frontier the missionaries, especially the Jesuits,
pushed forward the dominions of the King and the Church; in their repeated
expeditions into the Chaco and other savage parts many lives were lost with
small visible results; but in the regions- of the Orinoco and the Amazon large
tracts were reduced. Industrious and orderly communities, cited as models by
neighbouring civil Governors and containing thrice the population of the Guaira
missions, were formed among the Mojos and Chiquitos between the head waters of
the Paraguay and Madeira rivers; and in the eighteenth century some impression
was made even upon the ferocity of the Chaco Indians and of the Chiriguanes to
the east of Upper Peru. This religious conquest was also a great political system,
ordered and paid for by the King; the missions on reaching a certain stability
and order were generally erected into doctrmas or settled Indian parishes; and
the reductions became pueblos, regular villages liable to tribute and sometimes
subject to the ordinary civil administration.
The expulsion
of the Jesuits in 1767 was the greatest blow inflicted on the Indies since the
Conquest. In the pueblos de Espanoles their colleges contained the ablest, most
industrious and most orderly subjects of the King, historians, naturalists,
geographers, teachers, ministers to the sick and poor; on the frontiers they
were the best teachers and protectors of the natives and the firmest pillars of
the monarchy. It was also a great shock to the missions and to European influence
on the frontiers. The other Orders could not supply their place at once, nor
had the newcomers 150 years of experience to guide them. A great part of the
ground lost was never regained; indeed some interior parts of South America
were less known to white men in 1850 than in 1750; but between 1770 and 1810
much progress was made in California and in the Orinoco region. In both these
regions, especially in California, where there were apprehensions of foreign
intrusion, the missions were followed by a kind of skeleton military occupation
consisting in presidios, small posts placed at wide intervals, each garrisoned
by twenty or thirty horsemen, generally recruited among the frontier cow-boys.
The missions
had their defects. Sometimes the method of peaceful persuasion was varied by
armed raids, the missionaries indulging the tribal instincts of their neophytes
by leading them against their heathen neighbours to carry off children to be
reared as Christians; moreover, in the older and more tranquil missions, as in
the doctrimas formed out of them, there was often a tendency to the covetous
and selfish administration found elsewhere. Yet Humboldt, after long travel in
1799-1800 among the Orinoco missions, though finding many faults, sums up
decidedly in favour of “ the great and useful establishments of the American
missions,” controlling countries four or five times as large as France and
forming a vast zone round the European dominions; this estimate does not
include the extensive missions of California and of the northern provinces of
New Spain. It may safely be alleged that so vast a region of savagery has never
elsewhere been pacified with so much patience and so little violence, and that
an immense indefensible frontier has never won comparative security at so
little cost of life and treasure.
It has
sometimes been said that there is little to tell concerning the Spanish Indies
between conquest and independence, two exciting epochs which overshadow the
intervening period. Yet the exploration and conquest of the wilderness, the
spread of geographical knowledge and of European influence, the study and
treatment of savage peoples—■ that process which in other continents has
fixed the attention of the world—cannot be quite uninteresting in South America,
where for two centuries such work was pursued by the quiet enterprise of
priests travelling in pairs, often perishing by obscure but not unexpected
deaths, which are only recorded in the annals of their Orders. But
*
272 Effect of foreign wars. Buccaneers. [1500-1713
the drum and
trumpet also woke the coasts and islands of the Spanish Indies; in every
Spanish war since 1500 the Indies have played a part, sometimes a
preponderating part. The French, the Dutch, and the English, all seized insular
fragments of this Empire and repeatedly attempted acquisitions on the mainland
with little success. From 1521 French sailors preyed upon the returning ships;
in 1537 Havana was robbed by a French corsair, and in the following twenty
years was twice sacked and burnt; Santiago de Cuba and Cartagena suffered the
same fate. The French were followed by Dutch and English smugglers,
slave-traders, and corsairs. The Spanish main was repeatedly scoured; first
Drake, afterwards Cavendish, raided the Pacific, till then a Spanish lake; but
these raids, though they showed the way to others, had little permanent effect
in themselves. More ignoble but more lasting were the enterprises of the
seventeenth century; the French boucaniers or cattle-hunters of Santo Domingo,
already lawless and halfsavage, being driven to piracy by Spanish hostility,
were joined by Dutch, Portuguese, and English adventurers, a rascally community
loosely held together by greed of booty and enmity to Spain. French settlements
in the islands and the English capture of Jamaica in 1655 gave them a secure
footing and official protection; from the capture of island caravels and the
occasional cutting off of a treasure-ship they passed to organised war in
considerable fleets, sacking the Spanish towns on islands and mainland with
murder, torture, arson, and outrage. In 1670 Henry Morgan crossed the Isthmus
with two thousand men and burnt Panamd. But in that same year the Treaty of
Madrid, whereby Spain recognised existing English possessions, deprived the
English buccaneers of official protection. Some now became pirates in the
Pacific, whither Dutch expeditions had preceded them; others joined the French
buccaneers, who rioted in the Caribbean Sea down to the Peace of Ryswick; in
1683 they even sacked Vera Cruz, committing every kind of atrocity.
The War of
the Spanish Succession (1702-13) opens with Benbow’s unsuccessful expedition
against Cartagena; the aims of the English appear in the secret treaty made in
1707 with the Austrian claimant “ King Charles III of Spain,” to the effect
that a joint Anglo-Spanish Company should be formed to trade with the Indies,
or, if this could not be done, that the English should be admitted to trade
with the Indies, and that all other foreigners, but especially the French,
should be completely excluded. Apprehensions concerning French commercial
rivalry were natural, for the French not only held the asiento de negros, but
were also allowed during the war to send “ register ships ” round Cape Horn,
practically monopolising trade with Peru.
In 1713
Philip V obtained peace by granting to the English the asiento de negros for
thirty years and also the right to send annually one loaded ship of limited
tonnage to a fair in Cartagena or Portobeilo or
1713-48] English contraband.—Bourbon reforms.
273
Vera Cruz.
After the peace efforts were made to suppress smuggling; but nothing could
hinder the vast system of contraband now developed by the English under cover
of the slave-trade and of the navio depermiso. English slave-depots were
established in the principal ports; goods were introduced under pretext of
clothing and feeding the negroes; each depot became a great store of smuggled
merchandise; slaves were no longer brought in large numbers to fixed ports, but
small ships at odd times carried negroes from Jamaica to various destinations,
every ship a smuggler. In the occasional fairs the navio de permiso was loaded
far beyond the limit and was accompanied by smaller ships which anchored out of
sight. Free from the enormous dues laid upon Spanish merchandise, the English
were able to undersell the lawful importer and reduce the legal fair to a
nullity. In this contraband trade the chief delinquents were the Spanish
merchants receiving the goods and the customs officials who had good reason to
connive; the English merchants came to regard it as by prescription a
legitimate and regular business; and much indignation arose when a Spanish
coastguard fleet was organised which impeded the trade and pushed the right of
search to its extreme limits. After long friction and much negotiation between
the two Courts, Great Britain declared war in 1739. During this war the
smuggling from Jamaica still continued. A body of 250 Spanish smugglers on the
Isthmus formed a little army, supplied with arms and ammunition by the English
enemy, controlling the municipal elections of Panam&, and regularly
navigating the Pacific; on being attacked they built a wooden fort, hoisting
the English flag, and were only exterminated by a regular military expedition.
The Indies were wholly unprepared for defence; the garrisons and military
stores of Cartagena and Callao were in a ludicrous state of neglect; and the
two “ frigates ” constituting the armada of the South Sea were ancient and
shapeless barges built by negroes at Guayaquil. Yet two British expeditions,
attacking from the North and South Seas in order to join hands across the
Isthmus, failed; and the efforts of Vernon and Anson secured no adequate
success.
The peace of
1748 favoured an attempt at reform and control. Already, since the accession of
the Bourbons, something had been done, notwithstanding the difficulties of war;
tried public servants, not necessarily great nobles, were appointed Viceroys;
and the establishment of the viceroyalty of New Granada relieved the unwieldy.
Government of Peru. Yet a secret report presented to Ferdinand VI in 1744 after
nine years’ residence in South America by the two young astronomers and naval
officers, Ulloa and Juan, reveals astonishing scandals; no enemy could have
produced by way of satire a more scathing exposure of incompetence, dishonesty,
corruption, neglect, waste, oppression of natives, and universal immorality,
both political and domestic. There is some internal evidence of rhetorical
exaggeration and of the impulsive
egoism of
youthful critics; in any case a confidential report which notes faults with a
view to reform obviously cannot be taken as a complete historical account; yet
almost every article in the indictment is supported by independent authority. A
serious effort at reform was now made. Though the^ota to Vera Cruz was
continued biennially, the galleons and the fair of Portobello were abolished in
1748, the trade of Peru thenceforth passing in register ships round the Horn;
the remaining encomiendas were ordered to be vested in the Crown, a reform
gradually accomplished during the following fifty years; parishes served by
regular clergy were to be given to seculars as vacancies arose, a replacement
necessarily slow but actually realised. Under Charles III fresh vigour appears;
the privilege of sanctuaiy was restricted; the appointment of a Minister for
the Indies simplified the cumbrous supervision of the Council. The efficiency
of the administration was greatly increased by the establishment of separate
Governments in the outlying parts of New Spain and also in Buenos Aires,
erected in 1776 into a viceroyalty comprising everything east of the Andes from
Lake Titicaca to Patagonia, with an audiencia in the capital from 1796, besides
that in La Plata. Venezuela had become a separate Government under a
Captain-General in 1731. The institution of intendencias (1781-5), the first
great alteration in the system of government since 1580, tended generally to
closer responsibility and better administration. The organisation of the
militia after 1767 indicates considerable efficiency, a very large part of the
white, and mixed population being enrolled. The eagerness of the Creoles to
get commissions in this militia, their addiction to genealogies, and the
general respect paid to descendants of conquistadores, indicate a certain
historic sentiment of Spanish loyalty. About 1775 the consulado of Mexico lent
to the Viceroy for the reformation of the mint 2,000,000 pesos without security
or interest; and a mining magnate of New Spain gave to the King two full-rigged
ships of the line, and lent him a million pesos without interest.
One curious
phase of this reform was an attempt to reduce into settlements the scattered
white men of the frontiers, mountaineers, woodmen, and shepherd-horsemen,
detached from law and government; a constant concern about the uncontrolled and
vagabond character of these pioneers of European influence particularly marks
the official view of expansion. But natural opportunity and the pastoral habits
of Spaniards overcame regulation; the rmwheros or frontier horsemen of New
Spain, perpetually warring with savage Apaches and Cumanches, the Venezuelan
llaneros or horsemen of the plains, of mixed European, African, and Indian
origin, the gauchos of Buenos Aires, many of them of pure European race, but
half Indianised by a barbarous life and savage warfare, independent of all the
world with a horse, a lazo, and a knife, and the somewhat similar but less
savage huasos of Chile, are
1760-84] Increase of trade.—Discontent of the
Creoles. 275
characteristic
products of Spanish settlement. But something was now done towards the
suppression of violent crime and the regulation of the frontiers.
The great
increase of trade enjoyed by Havana during the thirteen months of British
occupation in 1762-3 probably suggested a loosening of the shackles upon
commerce. From 1764 mail-boats partly laden with merchandise sailed from
Corunna to the West Indies every month and to Buenos Aires every two months; in
the following year trade with the Antilles was opened to nine Spanish ports.
This led to such an increase of trade and of customs-dues that further
concessions followed; from 3774 the kingdoms of the Indies were allowed to
trade freely with one another Finally in 1778 this privilege was extended to
Spain, all Spaniards being allowed to trade with any American port; efforts
were made to link the chief towns with the coast by roads, a work hitherto
neglected partly on the ground that roads facilitate invasion. Consulados were
established in many capitals, replacing the deputies of the central consulado
of Lima or of Mexico. Chambers of mining, supported from the public revenue,
were instituted in Peru and New Spain.
But the
reform of government involved great cost and much discontent among the
Creoles; the tightening of authority was not welcomed, and still less the
greater strictness in collecting old taxes and the imposition of new ones. In
the British war of 1762-3 the temporary loss of Havana and Manila and even the
subsequent cession of the detached settlements in Florida were unimportant,
except for the heavy financial burden following the war and causing some
sporadic unrest. The war of 1779-83, undertaken by Charles III in support of
the English-American colonists, indirectly shook the allegiance of some of his
own American subjects by pressure of taxation. The government monopolies of
tobacco and spirits established in 1752 were now everywhere enforced, and many
tobacco plantations were ordered to be destroyed. At Socorro in New Granada
some malcontents revolted in 1780, assuming the name of comuneros, and offered
the throne of New Granada to the oidor vainly sent against them with a small
force; 15,000 men were soon under arms, demanding the abolition of the tobacco
monopoly and of certain taxes. They were pacified by concession of their
demands; but, fresh disturbances arising, the leaders were arrested and the
agreement was repudiated by the Viceroy. It is significant that, although the
leaders invited the Indians in proclamations which talked of Tupac Amaru and of
Peruvian independence, some Indians who joined the revolt were not welcomed;
the movement was practically confined to the commonwealth of Spaniards. In 1784
two agents of the comuneros visited England in hopes of getting arms and
support; and the Spanish ambassador in London reported to his Government that
they were believed to have had an interview with one of the Ministry.
This movement
and other smaller disturbances occurred at a critical
epoch. The
successful revolt of the English Colonies in North America waa followed by a
larger intercourse with foreigners and the partial infiltration of Liberal and
revolutionary ideas; a nervous apprehension in the Government showed itself in
a ludicrous crusade against suspected books, in a new dread of education in the
Indies, and in political imprisonments. The outbreak of the French Revolution
naturally increased the political excitement among a section of educated
Creoles and also the suspicious activity of the authorities. The two
generations which comprised the movement of official reform and stricter
administration had also brought development in the character and attitude of
the white or mixed population. A brief opening of Pacific trade to the French
during the latter part of the war of 1739-48 had attracted some French settlers
to Chile, introducing an external influence greater than their mere numbers
might seem to cany. The Peninsula sent an increasing number of immigrants,
especially vigorous and stubborn settlen from the Basque provinces. After 1780
the word “colony” came into use, doubtless borrowed from abroad, but perhaps
implying a new theory and a recognition of changed conditions. The people were
acquiring a new political self-consciousness since the time when in 1702-13 the
Indies had tranquilly awaited the issue of a dynastic struggle in Spain.
The French
war of 1793-6 and the British war of 1796-1801 brought with them fresh
financial burdens, especially repeated donativos; the latter war also brought
the plague of cruisers and privateers and the interruption of communication
with Spain, leading to trade with neutrals and even with the enemy; for during
this guerra de compadres, or war of comrades, numbers of Spanish ships under
their own colours traded between the mainland and the British West Indies,
carrying licenses signed by British officers. Venezuela was most exposed to
external influence through communication with the United States, with Trinidad
and Jamaica, and with Santo Domingo, once the metropolis of the Spanish Indies
but now emerging from French rule into a stormy independence.
In 1797 some
European Spaniards confined in La Guaira for a revolutionary attempt in Spain
organised a conspiracy which drew in about seventy inhabitants of that port,
among them several officials, one of whom, Espana, has given his name to the
movement. But the attempt found little general support; most of the Creoles,
especially the landowners and cattle-masters, were conservative or indifferent;
and to skilled foreign observers the Spanish monarchy still appeared unshaken.
Although many now preferred to call themselves Americans rather than Creoles,
the term Espanoles still included all the white population of the Indies; and
it was not until the outbreak of the revolutionary war that the terms Americans
and Spaniards camc to be used in opposition.
At the
opening of the nineteenth century the dominions of the Spanish monarchy
extended through seventy-nine degrees of latitude,
from San
Francisco to Chiloe; in the extreme north and south the line was thin, but it
was unbroken; and the Castilian language was spoken through a distance equal to
the length of Africa. Over a great part of two continents a heterogeneous
population were not unwilling vassals of the Spanish Crown; whatever internal
reasons may have existed for revolution, the actual impetus came from without,
for it was only upon the fall of the Spanish monarchy in the Peninsula that
these American dominions were detached; indeed it would be almost as true to
say that Spain fell away from the Indies as to say that the Indies fell away
from Spain.
Spanish rule
in America is often regarded as a gigantic and shortlived mistake; but in fact
its long continuance is only less noteworthy than its vast extent and the
gradual diffusion of Spanish ideas and ways through that extent. One aspect of
that rule is remarkable; from the middle of the sixteenth century the dominant
note of the Spanish dominion is peace, a peace unknown in those regions before
or after the Spanish era. Indian warfare, though serious enough to those
inhabiting the threatened regions, was trivial compared to some disturbances of
the Pax Britamnica in the nineteenth century; no external enemy ever penetrated
more than a few leagues from the coast; the army in Spanish America was little
more than a coastguard and a military police on some of the frontiers. If there
is something of Oriental immobility in this long and peaceful continuance,
there is also something of Latin stability and permanence both in local methods
and in general result. Spain in America inherited and preserved something of
the majesty of the Roman Peace.
In discussing
the often-repeated accusation of Spanish oppression, it is necessary to define
what sort of oppression is meant: whether oppression of the Indians by the
whites, or oppression of the whites by the Spanish Government. If the former is
meant, then the Creoles were as guilty as the Europeans, and both were more
guilty than the Spanish Government and its immediate representatives. If the
latter, the restraint of the whites was in fact the measure of protection
enjoyed by the natives; free immigration and large autonomy granted to
European settlers would have meant extermination or enslavement. But the theory
of a universal control which should foster both “ commonwealths ” and protect
the weaker was largely ineffective; and in this failure lay the troubles of the
Indians. The difficulty of the task is illustrated by the various judgments
passed upon the work of the Spaniards. Some critics accuse them of oppression;
others find that they solved the problem of the European attitude to conquered
aliens; while a modem historian blames the folly of Spain in striving to
preserve inferior peoples, and commends as natural and sensible the Anglo-American
method of extermination.
Accordingly,
in discussing the merits of the Government towards the whites it should be
clearly grasped that colonisation in the usual sense was not intended by the
Spanish Crown nor apparently desired by the
Spanish people;
it is only permissible to blame the Government for not encouraging colonisation
if the fact is faced that such encouragement would have meant the disappearance
or complete enslavement of the natives. Nevertheless, although restraint of
immigration and control of settlers were necessary for the preservation of the
“ commonwealth ” of Indians, the whites had distinct grievances resembling
those which weighed upon Spaniards in the Peninsula, especially the slow and
uncertain course of justice which left prisoners for years untried in gaol, an
extravagant and wasteful system of taxation, and a narrow restriction of trade,
accompanied by heavy imposts; but the general rigour of Government was tempered
by the discretion of rulers, while an overactive or troublesome Governor could
be removed by his subordinates or by a popular movement, generally with
impunity. The usual exclusion of Creoles from the highest posts was a
grievance; but both its extent and its significance were much exaggerated
during the struggle for independence, since a very large number of subordinate
posts, some of them commanding large influence and dignity, were usually held
by Creoles. In fact, almost all the revolutionary leaders were connected with
the royal service through posts held either by themselves or by their fathers.
In Chile and in Buenos Aires the earlier stages of the revolution were largely
directed by two Creole lawyers educated in Spain, of whom one, Rosas, was legal
assessor to the Governor of Chile, the other, Belgrano, was secretary of the
consulado of Buenos Aires.
The severest
critics of the Spanish dominion have been Spaniards, among whom a multitude of
reformers denounce abuses, plead for the injured, and urge remedies ; on the
other hand its praise comes rather from foreigners. Vancouver in 1795 is no
less unstinted in praise than Richard Hawkins, prisoner in the Indies in 1594;
observers such as Humboldt and Depons, historians such as Robertson, Helps, and
Bancroft, though unsparing in criticism and in the recital of damaging facts,
nevertheless leave the reader with a sense of sympathy and admiration. The
facts demand some explanation; here was an empire which, by the testimony of
its own administrators, was honeycombed with continuous decay in all
directions; yet this empire survived repeated external shocks, continually
extended its influence, and after three centuries evoked the admiration of
foreign observers. This vitality is not explained by the theoretic system of
administration, nor yet by the practical neglect of that system. Perhaps the
explanation may partly be found in personal character; for, the cumbrous
machine of Government being used by officials and settlers as much or as
little as they chose, matters were moulded in kingdoms and provinces by the
character and wishes of Viceroys, Governors, and Oidores, in districts and
parishes by those of Corregidores, Curas, and Caciques. Examples constantly
recur of admirable and loyal service, which has something Oriental in its
simplicity and self-abandonment; in emergencies the presence of one
279
capable
leader counterbalances all vices. Again, the undefinable Spanish quality of
hidalguia, which animated the better part of the community, especially in New
Spain, showed itself in a noble charity and hospitality, a liberal and careless
use of wealth, indifference to material results, and an old-fashioned
uncalculating loyalty, sometimes almost fantastic.
There is
something medieval in the Spanish dominion down to its close; the Middle Ages
supply the best parallel to its apparent inconsistencies—high ideals and
shameful vices, tender humanity and shocking ferocity, thoughtful provision and
actual neglect, cult of formulas and indifference to facts, exaltation of
ceremonial faith and shameless profligacy, a theory of all-pervading
sovereignty and acquiescence in constant breaches of that sovereignty. The
first Bourbon King in 1708 impresses upon his Governors the conditions upon
which Alexander VI granted the Indies to the Catholic sovereigns ; in the age
of the French Revolution the conversion of the gentiles is still the constant
care of European Ministers and proconsuls; in the legal code reprinted in
Madrid in 1791 the first law concerning the Indians is the testament of Isabel
la Catolica; the crude medieval note is almost startling in the formula which
in the nineteenth century still summarised public duty, “ the service of Both
Majesties.” This comparison with the medieval spirit may help to explain the
strength of the Spanish sovereignty, a strength which lay perhaps more in the
region of ideas than in that of facts; the service of God and the King was a
comprehensive guide, appealing with diverse significance to a Castilian duke or
an Indian neophyte; and, if to most men a trite counsel of perfection was
meaningless, still there were some to whom the most single zeal and devotion
in Church or State was a matter of course, a duty performed with the utmost
simplicity and indifference to reward. The “ preservation of the two
commonwealths of Spaniards and of Indians” was a matter of extreme difficulty,
only attainable by the pursuit of an idea through all imperfections and by
submission to religious restraint. In the Spaniard extremes meet; but the
apparent contrasts are not due to any complexity in Spanish character, but
rather to its simplicity, a simplicity which follows with equal facility the
most diverse impulses and motives. During ages of weakness, poverty, and
misgovemment in Spain itself, a Spanish character was impressed upon half of
the New World; this has been done partly by laws and government, but much more
by the genius of the Spanish nation, a genius which lias been best interpreted
by the author of Don Quixote.
THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF INDEPENDENCE IN SPANISH AMERICA.
Although the example of successful colonial
insurrection in North America had little immediate effect in South America, a
link between north and south is perhaps to be found in Francisco Miranda, a
Spanish officer bom in Caracas, who is said to have served with Washington and
Lafayette. Leaving the Spanish army, he visited the United States in 1785, to
discuss with Washington plans of South American emancipation. Afterwards,
travelling in Europe, he was received with attention by Princes and Ministers
and served as a general in the French revolutionary army. Between 1790 and 1806
he urged in turn upon France, Great Britain, and the United States, as each in
succession was involved in disputes or war with Spain, an expedition to aid
revolt in the Indies. In 1796-8, Pitt’s Government contemplated extensive
operations against South America; and the Governor of Trinidad issued a
proclamation promising in case of resistance to Spanish Governors “all the
succour to be expected, be it with forces or with arms and ammunition.” But the
occasion passed, partly because President Adams was unwilling to cooperate,
although Alexander Hamilton, expecting to command an expedition, wrote to
Miranda,r the plan ought to be a fleet of Great Britain and an army of the
United States.” Meantime Miranda, while living in London and importuning
Ministers, was organising Republican secret societies among Spanish-Americans
living in Spain and England; thus the gospel of emancipation, scarcely heard in
the Indies, was being propagated in Europe; from Europe were to come almost all
the leaders as well as the ideas which guided the struggle. In 1804-5
hostilities between Great Britain and Spain seemed to bring Miranda’s
opportunity; he had repeated interviews with Melville, and with Sir Home Popham,
who was to command a squadron to support him; steps were taken with a view to
an attack on Buenos Aires, and large operations were contemplated ; but in
July, 1805, Pitt suspended the project, being at that time in hope of detaching
Spain from France by means of the coalition then in course of formation, though
he intended to resume the scheme
1806-8] British operations in
South America.
281
in case of
failure. Next year Miranda with 200 men sailed from New York with the knowledge
of Jefferson and Madison, and attempted without success a descent upon the
Venezuelan coast. Starting again from Trinidad and supported by the British
Admiral of the West India Station, he landed near Coro; but, meeting no welcome
from the inhabitants and losing the support of the Admiral upon erroneous news
of peace negotiations, he abandoned the attempt.
Meantime
Popham, as noted in a previous volume, sailed from Cape Town without orders
against the River Plate, carrying 1600 troops under Beresford, who in June,
1806, marched unresisted into Buenos Aires, an unwalled town of 50,000
inhabitants. On his approach the Viceroy fled helplessly to Cordoba, thereby in
some sort abdicating Spanish authority in the capital. Beresford, instead of
proclaiming independence, named himself Governor, exacting from all officials
an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. But in six weeks he was overpowered
and compelled to surrender by the townspeople, aided by a relief force which
had been organised in the Banda Oriental by a naval officer named Liniers,
acting in concert with the Cabildo of Buenos Aires. This victory achieved by
the people was followed by political action; the Cabildo, to satisfy the
popular demand, summoned the magistrates and chief vecinos to a Junta, which
entrusted the Government to Liniers, deposing the Viceroy. Liniers was
afterwards formally appointed Viceroy by the King.
Further
British operations in 1807, also noted elsewhere, resulted, first, in the
capture of the fortified town of Montevideo, but afterwards in the capitulation
of Whitelocke at Buenos Aires and the retrocession of Montevideo. In spite of
this disaster, an army of 10,000 men was assembled at Cork to act against
Spanish America, probably by way of the Gulf of Mexico, under Sir Arthur
Wellesley; but peace with Spain in 1808 caused the expedition to be diverted to
the Peninsula. The avowed motive of Pitt’s designs had been the opening of
markets to British trade; in fact British policy towards Spanish America was
commercial rather than imperial; but in 1806-7 Ministers appear to have been
carried away into schemes of conquest by Popham’s raid.
Although no
single step in the defence and reorganisation of Buenos Aires was entirely
without precedent, this striking series of military and political events might
almost seem to constitute a revolutionary development. The King’s
representative had been set aside; invasion had been twice repelled;
capitulations had been arranged; and Government had been reconstituted—largely
through municipal and popular action. Opinion had been educated not only by
internal movements, but also by external influence and example; for, during the
seven months of British government in Montevideo, the first newspaper of the
River Plate was there published in Spanish and English; an active trade was
carried on, the bay being crowded with British shipping and the
people
hurrying from distant Andine provinces to make their purchases before the
evacuation; much was done by the English to spread Liberal notions of trade and
of politics. Moreover, although allegiance in the cities was unshaken, many of
the lawless inhabitants of the plains had received with exultation the news of
the first British invasion and of the collapse of authority. On the other hand,
the Creole battalions of citizen soldiers organised to resist the English had
not been disbanded, and the people were flushed with victory over a powerful
invader. Some modification of government was inevitable and had in fact been
already initiated on the spot. Although the notion of independence was as yet
only silently nursed by a few theorists, the materials of revolutionary thought
and action had been prepared. Moreover, these events had been watched with
eager interest throughout South America, especially in Chile, whence money had
been sent to aid resistance to the English. And it was largely owing to these
preliminary movements that, when the occasion came, Buenos Aires was able to
achieve her independence by a peaceable and uninterrupted process, and that her
forces were thus set free to aid the emancipation of Chile and to prosecute
large strategical and political designs far beyond the River Plate region.
In 1808 the
ground had been thus prepared in the southern continent, when the collapse of
the Spanish monarchy initiated a long series of disorders and struggles in the
Spanish kingdoms on both sides of the Atlantic. During the events which led to
the establishment of Joseph Bonaparte in Madrid as King (1808), provincial
Juntas sprang up in several Spanish cities; in May the Junta of Asturias
declared war against the French; the Junta of Seville with some success claimed
supreme authority over Spain and the Indies. Within twenty days of his arrival,
Joseph fled from Madrid before Spanish armies. In September, a Central Junta of
deputies from the provincial bodies met at Madrid; but in two months it was
flying southwards, while Napoleon entered the capital and restored Joseph. The
Central Junta in December, 1808, united with the Seville Junta to form one
body, which sat in that city for fourteen months, sinking lower in discredit
while French armies overran Spain; in January, 1810, the Junta, escaping to
Cadiz, resigned, appointing a Regency of five to arrange for Cortes
representing Spain and America; a deputy was to be chosen by the Governor and
Cabildo of every American capital; but, pending their arrival, their seats were
to be occupied by Americans who happened to be in Cadiz. The Cortes, meeting in
September, 1810, appointed as Executive a Regency of three; in 1812 a Liberal Constitution
was promulgated which subsisted till 1814, when Ferdinand, restored to the
throne, dismissed the Cortes and established absolutism: this system lasted
till 1820, when the army destined for the reconquest of America revolted and
aided in restoring the Constitution of 1812. Amidst much disorder and some
armed strife the Constitution stood, until in 1823' a French army entered Spain
and
restored the
absolute monarchy to its career of tyranny. During these vicissitudes South
American emancipation was achieved.
Thus the
fifteen years of struggle, revolt, and constitutional effort in America
(1809-24) were years of revolutions and constitutional effort in Spain; in
feet, the revolution of America was worked out on both sides of the Atlantic.
It was begun, not by a deliberate revolt against Spain, but by an attempt to
repair or replace the fallen monarchy. First, the monarchy which was the only
constitutional link between Spain and America disappeared: then Spain herself
seemed to disappear, and the kingdoms of the Indies felt themselves to stand
alone, and attempted to provide for their own government. In so doing they
found themselves in conflict with Spanish Governors and Peninsular authorities:
the result of that conflict was separation.
On the abdication
of Charles IV in 1808, Ferdinand VII was proclaimed King in every
Spanish-American capital with universal applause. Presently—in some places even
before his proclamation—French emissaries arrived with letters from the
Minister and Council of the Indies, announcing the abdication of Ferdinand and
the confirmation of all actual Governors and officials by Joseph, the new King.
The news was everywhere received with cries of Viva Fernando Septvmo and with
a burst of indignation at this French insult to the nation. Next came letters
from the Juntas of Asturias and of Seville, each claiming to be a national
Government and asking contributions to the defence of the mother- countiy. The
national resistance was greeted with enthusiasm; the offers of Princess Carlota
of Brazil, sister of Ferdinand, to arrange for the provisional government of
the Indies, met with no response; but donativos poured in, and large sums were
remitted to Spain. Thus, the first act of disobedience to the Council of the
Indies was a revolt against the French intruders; in the course of three years
it was gradually turned into a revolt against Spanish authority by the force of
circumstances, by the agitation of a few separatist politicians, but most of
all by the unsympathetic or hostile attitude of the colonial Governors and of
the successively improvised Governments of Spain. Joseph’s confirmation brought
suspicion upon the existing Governors, who were generally more inclined to
await events than to lead or follow the popular movement. At Caracas the
difference between the popular and the official attitude was emphasised by the
arrival at La Guaira of a British frigate, announcing the Anglo-Spanish
alliance against Napoleon, just after a French frigate had brought news of King
Joseph’s accession. The Governor officially received the French captain and
refused the demand of the English commander that the French frigate should be
seized or given up to him. On the other hand the Englishman was received with
enthusiasm by the populace, who were only prevented by an armed guard from
murdering the Frenchman in the streets.
In the
general tension and uncertainty a profound effect was produced over the whole
continent by a few sporadic disturbances, confined to limited areas and
apparently of little importance in themselves. In August, 1809, the audiencia
of La Plata in Upper Peru, after a long dispute with the Governor, deposed him
and assumed his functions. This act of a royal Court, consisting of European
magistrates, and historically the strongest pillar of Spanish authority,
followed many precedents and was hardly unconstitutional; under normal
conditions it would have merely produced an interminable written “ process,”
passing into oblivion with the royal appointment of a new Governor. But under
existing conditions it meant a revolution; and the neighbouring city of La Paz,
catching the infection, proclaimed autonomy. A Creole officer commissioned from
Lima suppressed and rigorously chastised these disturbances. But the movement
in Quito, although it was rather personal than constitutional in origin, had
more significance and wider influence, both on account of the distinct
statement of those motives of revolution which were afterwards everywhere
professed, and also on account of the shock produced throughout the Spanish
Empire by its tragic issue. In August, 1809, a group of citizens of Quito,
constituting themselves into a Sovereign Junta, deposed the Governor and
assumed his authority, alleging “ the example of our transatlantic brothers, the
present unsettled state of Spain, the annihilation of the lawfully constituted
authorities,” and the danger of passing under French dominion. Troops sent by
the Viceroys from north and south found that the movement had already
collapsed; but the leaders, notwithstanding a previous promise of pardon, were
imprisoned, and a year later were murdered during a riot in which many citizens
were killed by soldiers. A new Junta was then formed under the presidency of
the Governor, a Spanish nobleman aged eighty years, who had served the King in
the Indies for forty years ; in December, 1810, he was a second time deposed.
Having retired to a convent, he was dragged thence by a mob and murdered in the
streets.
These and
other confused local conflicts, although their general effect has been
universally recognised, may seem rather to obscure t.Tmn to introduce the
succeeding movements. But the course of events in Spain has a more obvious
significance. In January, 1810, the Central Junta, before dissolving in Cadiz,
issued a proclamation inviting the Indies to send deputies to the Cortes in the
following terms: “ You are no longer what you were, bowed beneath a yoke harder
in proportion to your distance from the centre of power, regarded with
indifference, vexed by greed, and destroyed by ignorance. After nominating your
deputies, your destinies will no longer depend upon Ministers or Viceroys or
Governors; they are in your own hands.” This curious incitement to revolution
reached America together with news, still more eloquent, that the Central Junta
had dispersed and that the French had overrun
Andalusia;
already opinion had been prepared by theorists, arguing that \v± h the monarchy
all external authority had fallen, and that the self-styled rulers in Spain
were merely intruders; now, they argued, “ Spain is lost
there is no more Spain.” Between April
and July, 1810, all over
South America
the principal municipalities, usually by means of cabildo abierto, and
sometimes under the presidency of royal Governors, soon to be displaced, formed
juntas to “ preserve the authority of Ferdinand VII.” Of the numerous councils
thus formed the most important were those of Bogota, Cartagena, Caracas,
Santiago de Chile, and Buenos Aires, which either themselves grew into
revolutionary Governments or appointed supreme executive authorities. But only
in Buenos Aires was the work uninterrupted; and therefore it seems advisable to
narrate first the only revolution whose course was continuous and free from
external checks, and thus to provide an example, which is also a commentary
upon the varied struggles of other provinces.
On the news
of the King’s abdication, his son Ferdinand was proclaimed in Buenos Aires
amidst a burst of indignation at Napoleon’s pretensions. The offer of Princess
Carlota of Brazil, Ferdinand’s sister, to undertake provisionally the
protectorate of the River Plate, was rejected; and the message of the Seville
Junta announcing the formation of a national Government in the King’s name was
received with enthusiasm. Elio, the ultra-royalist Governor of Montevideo, who
afterwards perished in defence of absolutism in Spain, suspecting Liniers, who
was French by birth, of lukewarmness, refused obedience to the Viceroy and
summoned a royalist Junta in Montevideo; the Cabildo of Buenos Aires thereupon
deposed Liniers, who was promptly reinstated by the new Creole battalions.
Communications were broken off between these two cities, which, though both
loudly proclaiming the same King, were thus brought to a state of passive hostility
by the collapse of monarchy in Spain. The Central Junta of Seville in a manner
sanctioned sedition by continuing Elio in command, thereby approving his
independent attitude.
The confusion
of authority in Spain and in the Indies—the claims of Ferdinand, of Joseph, of
Carlota, of the Seville Junta, the new and vague activities of the Cabildo, of
the citizens, and of the victorious Creole battalions, the doubtful attitude
and source of viceregal command— favoured the objects of a small group of men
educated in Europe during the revolutionary period, who were quietly working
for independence; and thus, when Admiral Cisneros, a veteran of Trafalgar,
arrived as Viceroy appointed by the Central Junta, he found that in the
viceroyalty, as in Spain, administration was passing from the hands of
officials to those of semi-municipal, semi-popular bodies. In fact, owing to
the absence of external shocks and the greater vigour of the Cabildos, this
evolution was more tranquil and in a sense more constitutional than in Spain,
every step following precedents which had royal sanction. Cisneros himself
was compelled
by financial difficulties to act as head of an autonomous State in admitting
neutral trade. Circumstances and even the necessary actions of devoted
royalists were separating Spain from America; the cry of Viva Fernando might
cover the most contrary opinions ; and, but for sentiment and habit, there was
no reason why a Viceroy appointed by a Junta in Seville, which was partly
municipal, partly elected, and partly self-constituted, should not be
controlled or deposed by a similar Junta in Buenos Aires.
In these
unstable conditions, the small party having the most definite and logical aim
held strong ground; and they were aided by events. In 1809 news came of the revolutionary
movements in Upper Peru and in Quito; and Spain seemed to be sinking under an
overwhelming wave of French invasion. The Cabildo of Buenos Aires, now equally
divided between Europeans and Americans, was the only effective Government,
guided however by a small secret society of separatists. The commander of the
Creole battalions, approached by these men, promised to declare for
independence upon the capture of Seville by the French. That event was
announced in May, 1810, whereupon a cabUdo abierto decided that the Cabildo
should appoint a governing Junta, on the ground that Spain was submerged and
that on the fall of the monarchy the power passed to the people. Cisneros was
required to resign; and on May 25 a triumvirate of revolutionary tendencies was
appointed “to preserve the integrity of these parts of his American dominions
to our beloved sovereign Ferdinand VII and his successors.” Thus was effected
the bloodless revolution of Buenos Aires, which at this point passes from the
municipal stage to the more difficult task of forming a State, to be treated
later.
Most of the
interior provinces, though without any definite scheme of common action,
followed the lead of the capital. Liniers, leading a reactionary movement in
Cordoba, was captured by a volunteer expedition from Buenos Aires and hanged.
But the attempt to unite the whole viceroyalty failed; an Argentine expedition,
offering to Paraguay in the name of Ferdinand VII independence and union with
Buenos Aires, found that the Paraguayan leaders had virtually achieved
independence and that they declined union. Elio, now named Viceroy by the
Spanish Regency, still held Montevideo, which at last yielded to Argentine
attack in 1814; but some local movements in the Banda Oriental, the province
whose capital is Montevideo, and a Brazilian invasion, withdrawn through
British influence, indicated that union with Buenos Aires was doubtful. Upper
Peru, invaded by Argentine forces as belonging to their viceroyalty, was
successfully defended by the Peruvian Viceroy with American troops and generals
(1811-2); but on the other hand Tucum&n was defended against royalist
invasion from Peru. The theory of allegiance to a dethroned and captive King
who had never reigned, although sincerely held by the great majority, could not
long survive
1808-16] The Argentine Provinces.—Chile.
287
war against
two Viceroys and the hostility of every successive Government in Spain. In
1813 the royal symbols were disused; but it was not until 1816 that a Congress
at Tucuman proclaimed the independence of the Argentine Provinces. In the
following year this independence was secured by an expedition into Chile which
defeated the Peruvian royalists on the Pacific slope of the Andes and thus
redeemed failure in Upper Peru. This external action demands mention here,
because it was the logical outcome and necessary safeguard of the Argentine
revolution, securing it against external molestation or reconquest. In a
larger historical sense, however, this movement does not belong to Argentine
histoiy but rather opens a fresh phase of the struggle, initiating that
aggressive advance against royalism in America in which every part, of the
Continent was concerned. Its course will therefore be traced later as part of
the continental war.
While the
River Plate region was thus gradually achieving a revolution, confused indeed
by domestic problems and disputes, but undisturbed by any external troubles
beyond the need of frontier defence, the movement in other capitals had passed
from the municipal stage into various phases of armed conflict between
royalists and insurgents, as well as between contending parties and leaders
among the insurgents themselves. In 1811-2 revolutionary Governments were
formed in Chile and also in the north of the Continent; hut, failing to win
general popular adhesion, they all succumbed during the years 1814-5 before the
forces of royalism or reaction. It is impossible to give a lucid summary of
these multifarious movements from 1811 to the critical interval of 1815-6, with
all their vicissitudes of local ehullitions, wide-spread insurrections and
reactions, attempts at government, sanguinary defeats, and collapse of
newly-risen despots, oligarchies, councils, and congresses. But an attempt must
be made to follow the main course of events in those centres from which the
Governments of independent States ultimately emerged.
In Chile the
earlier development, which began in 1808 with a reform of the Cabildo of
Santiago by cooperation between the Governor, Colonel Garcia Carrasco, and the
citizens, and culminated in the deposition of that Governor (August, 1810), was
more tranquil than the movement in Buenos Aires and more typical of the orderly
and quasi-constitutional use of Spanish institutions. The Junta of Santiago
went so far as to convene in 1811 a Chilian Congress which appointed an
executive triumvirate; but this parliamentary effort produced, as in every
similar case, disorder and confusion, complicated by jealousies between
Santiago and Concepcion; and in 1814 the nascent Republic of Chile,
notwithstanding a brief effort of union among contending parties, was
extinguished by invasion from Peru.
The
viceroyalty of Peru, in spite of some local disturbances, was firmly held for
the King throughout this period (1811-6) and down to
288 Peru.'—The northern countries. Caracas.
[1809-11
1820, separating the countries of the southern
hemisphere from the northern provinces of New Granada and Venezuela, and
effectually preventing cooperation between north and south down to 1822. Thus,
though the two movements interacted upon each other by way of example and
policy, the northern group of revolutions followed a distinct course, marked by
greater violence, confusion, and bloodshed, and by more astonishing
vicissitudes of failure and recovery. Venezuela and New Granada, divided from
each other by the eastern chain of the Andes, at first acted separately; indeed
the rugged mountain kingdom of New Granada was itself broken both
geographically and politically into many centres of action, among which Bogota
and Cartagena stood out as rival claimants for supremacy or separate
sovereignty. Though perpetually shaken by internal discord and sporadic civil
wars, a loose and ill-defined league of provinces maintained Republican
independence in New Granada until the arrival of the Spanish army of reconquest
in 1815. But, in a large sense, the movements of Venezuela and of New Granada
tend to flow into one current whose course can best be traced by following the
revolutions of Caracas. These also supply the main personal interest of the
struggle owing to the guidance of two distinguished Caraquenos, first Miranda,
the precursor of independence, and afterwards Bolivar, the Liberator.
Caracas, the
cradle of tropical independence and the first focus of armed war against
Spanish authority, had a more stormy history than any of her neighbours, being
twice captured by the royalists and twice recovered by the patriots. The
movement began, as elsewhere, with a municipal revolution. After agitation
carried on by separatists throughout 1809 and the despatch of commissioners to
seek help in England, the Cabildo of Caracas, with the addition of some elected
members, became in April, 1810, “the Junta formed to preserve the rights of
Ferdinand VII.” The Governor, who at first was nominally president of this
Junta, was soon deported, with the Oidores and principal officials; and a few
months later the revolutionists began civil war by attacking the royalist city
of Coro. The Cadiz Regency responded by declaring a blockade of Venezuelan
ports and granting letters of marque to West Indian privateers—measures which
definitely stamped the Caraquenos as rebels and recognised or initiated a state
of war between the Spanish authority and the insurgent Americans. The Caracas
Junta, being generally recognised in Venezuela outside the royalist provinces,
requested the Cabildos to elect a Congress, which in April, 1811, chose a
small executive with Miranda, newly arrived from England, as President. In
July, 1811, the Congress, persuaded by Miranda, gave the first example to
Spanish America of a proclamation of complete independence.
But
Monteverde, a Spanish naval lieutenant, leading a body of Creoles, swelled by
friendly Indians, from the royalist province of Coro, attained unexpected
success in consequence of the earthquake which
on Holy
Thursday, 1812, the first anniversary of the meeting of Congress, destroyed
Caracas and killed 20,000 people in the revolutionary towns, sparing the
royalist places. The clergy preached Divine judgment to a terrified people;
Puerto Cabello, the strongest fortress in the country, was abandoned by its
commander, Bolivar, a prominent member of the old Creole aristocracy; and in
July, 1812, Miranda signed a capitulation securing free departure to the patriot
leaders. On entering Caracas Monteverde found Miranda in prison, where he had
been confined by Bolivar and other officers. Miranda remained a prisoner—to die
four years later in a Spanish dungeon—while Bolivar received a safe conduct and
passed to his estates. The only Government now was in the hands of a few
irresponsible royalist guerrilleros ruling with capricious cruelty; but
henceforth Bolivar devoted his life and fortune to emancipation and
reorganisation. He was at this time a childless widower of twenty-nine,
educated in Europe, where he had imbibed revolutionary ideas. Puny and
ill-proportioned in body, of a worn, anxious, and melancholy countenance,
possessing little military experience or skill, a true urban Creole in candid
vanity and unashamed sensuality, he moved some to repulsion, others, including
many of his British subordinates, to devoted affection. Repeatedly beaten and
apparently abandoning his associates, but always renewing the struggle, he was
universally recognised as the chief inspiration of the movement and ultimately
as the Liberator of five extensive Republics.
Retiring now
to New Granada, which in turn had declared for complete independence, he raised
troops in Cartagena and invaded Venezuela, proclaiming retaliation and war to
the death, pardon to American enemies, but no quarter to Spaniards. Thirteen
months after Miranda’s capitulation he entered Caracas, and assumed the title
of IMertador. But meantime one Boves, a Spanish sergeant who had been dismissed
from the army for misconduct but had obtained a militia commission in the civil
war, was gaining an extraordinary ascendancy over the half-savage mounted
herdsmen of the plains by superior skill, daring, and ferocity, by early
successes and promises of booty and debauchery. Boves was almost the only white
man in his army of 4000 Uameros, whom he led in the name of the King to a
savage war of barbarism against civilisation, of the desert against the towns.
Crouching almost invisible by their horses’ necks, and charging with the
lance, these half-naked barbarians were irresistible; they spread panic through
the country and approached the capital. In June, 1814, Bolivar suffered a
crushing defeat, which caused many of his troops to desert to the royalists and
exposed Caracas to capture. Accordingly, having first killed his 880 royalist
prisoners, he abandoned the place, leading a crowd of fugitives on a terrible
flight of seventy leagues to Barcelona, where the inhabitants—such was the
jealousy between cities—closed their houses against them. The Venezuelan
Republic perished a second time;
and Bolivar
crossed the Andes once more, to serve the Congress of New Granada in reducing
its unruly cities to obedience.
But meantime
Ferdinand had been preparing an expedition for the reconquest of the insurgent
provinces. Originally intended for the River Plate, it was diverted to the
Spanish Main, doubtless because the royalists possessed no base in the River
Plate after the fall of Montevideo in June, 1814. In April, 1815* a fleet of sixty
transports convoyed by war-ships arrived at Cuiiana carrying a siege-train and
10,000 troops under the command of General Morillo, a man who had served as a
sergeant of marines at the battle of St Vincent and had fought his way up from
the ranks; he is said to have been recommended for this American command by
Wellington. Finding the Venezuelan towns already reduced, and Boves, who might
have been a troublesome subordinate, removed by death in battle, Morillo
quietly moved westwards, accepting the adhesion of the Venezuelans. Thence he
passed to the invasion of New Granada.
That country
had passed five years of stormy . (dependence in apparently futile disputes
and even armed quarrels, due to the difficulty of consolidating the action of a
crowd of municipalities, each with its junta acting separately; while a
garrulous but disregarded Congress, largely consisting of idle lawyers, was
discussing theories, passing minute enactments, and talking about Greece and
Rome, a few of the leaders vainly striving for a strong central executive.
Bogota, the ancient capital, and Cartagena, the chief port, had become centres
of independent Republican provinces, indifferent or hostile to the Congress.
When Morillo knd«l, Bolivar had just reduced Bogota by arms and was now
besieging Cartagena, also Republican, which in turn was at war with Santa
Marta, a rival port which was naturally Royalist,* In the south the Indian and
Creole inhal 'tants of Pasto and Patia, stubbornly royalist, drove back from
their mountains every patriot advance from the north and preserved Quito for
the King down to 1822. In these conditions, the Republic or Republics of New
Granada fell before Morillo. Bolivar, whose m! directed activities had opened
the way to the enemy, fled to Jamaica. In the course of 1816,125 persons were
executed as traitors in New Granada. In that year only the River Plate
provinces remained independent; for the energy of the Peruvian Viceroy had not
only preserved Peru, but had also recovered Chile by a campaign which
overwhelmed all resistance. Except in the River Plate provinces the war might
seem to be at an end; for in every other centre the revolution after five years
of effort appeared to be crushed and its leaders dead or driven into exile.
This general collapse was due perhaps less to external attack than to the
weaknesses and defects of the new essays at government which had not shown
themselves preferable to the former system.
In the south,
in the security of achieved independence, deliberate and tranquil preparations
were being made with much military skill and
political
foresight for a decisive move to counter this advance of royav ;m,
And even in the north the ruin was not quite complete, although recovery was
slow and indeed scarcely perceptible for nearly two years. Starting from points
6000 miles apart, two distinct movements of recovery from south and north—the
Argentino-Chilian movement, led by San Martin and Cochrane, and the Colombian
movement, led by Bolivar—deprived Spain of a continent. The former movement comprised
the lands south of the tropics, crushed the Spanish navy in the Pacific, and
initiated but did not complete the revolution of Peru. The northern movement
covered the whole tropical region and finally included Peru and Upper Peru,
taking up the struggle against these central strongholds of royalism at the
point where San Martin had laid it down.
These
separate movements, which were finally enabled to meet and in some degree to
merge together by naval victories on the Pacific and by successful invasion of
Peru, require separate narration. But it must be remembered that they were
simultaneous and complementary to each other. Communications passed between the
leaders; and the order of events indicates that the earlier operations and
successes of San Martin not only encouraged the more doubtful struggle in the
north, but also suggested or guided in some degree the movements of Bolivar.
Moreover the invasion of Chile and Peru by San Martin has an essential
connexion with the invasion of New Granada by Morillo. Had the Spanish
expedition taken its intended route to the River Plate, the Argentine forces
would have been required there for defence. The diversion of the expedition to
the Spanish Main left these forces free for external action. Ferdinand was only
able to strike at one point; but there can be no doubt that Morillo hoped,
after pacifying New Granada, to advance southwards and, keeping up his strength
by American enlistment, to join hands with the royalist forces of Peru and so
overwhelm the insurrections in Chile and the River Plate provinces. This plan
was frustrated in part by the guerrilla warfare in the north, but in great part
also by the advance upon Peru of Republican naval and military forces from the
south, which fully engaged all the strength of the viceroyalty and even
divided Morillo’s forces. Thus the invasion of Peru by San Martin was the
American response to the invasion of New Granada by an army from Spain.
It will be
convenient to describe the southern movement first, since its earlier
successful advance rendered possible the later successes of Bolivar. San
Martin, bom in the River Plate region, the son of a Spanish official, was
educated in Spain, and entered the army: a prisoner first in France (1794) and
then in England (1797), a fighter in many campaigns from 1793 to 1811, he
brought with him valuable experience, when, having reached the rank of
lieutenant-colonel, he offered his sword to Buenos Aires and transplanted
thither the revolutionary secret society
to which he
had belonged in Spain. After holding command in the war of Upper Peru, he
solicited the Governorship of a sub-Andine province, where for two years,
uncontrolled by the Buenos Aires authorities, he gathered and trained the army
of Argentine recruits and Chilian refugees which was to strike at Peru through
Chile. In 1817-8, having led 5000 men from Mendoza over a pass 12,000 feet
high, San Martin, in conjunction with the Chilian O’Higgins, defeated the
royalists first at Chacabuco (February, 1817), and then, after a considerable
reverse, in the decisive battle of Maipli (April, 1818), which practically won
over Chile, though the war lingered on in the extreme south.
In the same
year a frigate escorting ten transports with 2000 troops sailed from Cadiz against
Chile. One of the transports was carried by its mutinous soldiers to Buenos
Aires; and the Chilians, thus forewarned, contrived to capture most of the
transports and also the frigate, which became the flag-ship of an improvised
Chilian fleet. In November, 1818, this fleet was placed under the command of
Lord Cochrane, the finest living naval leader, who had already distinguished
himself by remarkable feats of war as a captain in the British navy. Being
obliged to leave that service, he offered his sword to Chile; and in three
years he swept the Spanish flag from the Pacific. He was a seaman probably not
far inferior to Nelson in skill, insight, and dash; but his qualities as a
commander were marred by an impracticable violence of temper and an intrusion of
personal aims which produced constant quarrels and undignified recrimination.
His first serious effort, an attack upon Callao, was unsuccessful; but in
January, 1820, the strong fortress of Valdivia was captured through an
extraordinary assault, led by his commander of marines, Miller, who had joined
San Martin at the age of twenty-two after much active service in Spain and the
United States.
After the
victory of Maipti two years elapsed before advance into Peru was rendered
possible by Cochrane’s naval strength, by San Martin’s military preparations
and understanding with the Chilian Government, and by the posture of affairs in
Europe. For in 1819 the Buenos Aires Government, disturbed by Gaucho
rebellions, and alarmed by the prospect of invasion by the expedition then
assembling at Cadiz, recalled San Martin and his army. The revolt of the army
of Cadiz and the consequent abandonment of that expedition enabled San Martin
to disobey this command and to execute his long-designed scheme of advance to
the north. In September, 1820, the “ Liberating army of Peru,” under San
Martin, was transported in Cochrane’s squadron to the neighbourhood of Lima.
Soon afterwards Cochrane achieved the astonishing feat of carrying off the
frigate Esmeralda, which was anchored under the guns of Callao; and the finest
battalion in the royal service, which had been sent southward by Morillo to aid
the defence of Peru, deserted to San Martin, 650 strong, chiefly Creoles who
had replaced during five years of war the Spaniards brought by Morillo. Thus
the first success of this
invasion
inflicted a blow not only on the viceroyalty of Peru, but on the Spanish army
of invasion in the north. Yet San Martin, disregarding the impatience of his
men and the exasperation of Cochrane, remained inactive and even watched
royalist reinforcements marching into Callao.
Expeditions
to the north under Arenales, and to the south under Miller, showed what could
be done; but San Martin argued that his mission was emancipation, not conquest,
and that his mere presence would win over Lima. Herein he was right; but he was
wrong in thinking that the possession of the capital would bring over the
country, or that he could win Peru without beating the royalist, officers who
held all the interior and could recruit at leisure. The royalists evacuating
Lima in July,
1821, San Martin entered and proclaimed
Peruvian independence, naming himself Protector with absolute power. After
assembling a Congress as futile as the others and proposing a Peruvian monarchy
under a European prince, San Martin retired in 1822 into private life. Lima
was reoccupied by the royalists, who had deposed the Viceroy as not sufficiently
zealous and put in his place the veteran officer La Serna, who had been one of
the defenders of Saragossa in 1809. Thenceforth the emancipation of Peru
belongs to the story of Bolivar, who in 1822 brought the Venezuelan war to a
successful end and moved south upon Peru.
The separate
narrative of the northern movement may now be resumed at the critical epoch of
1816. In that year the Republics of New Granada and Venezuela were reduced to a
few patriot guerrillas precariously struggling among a royalist population in
the llanos or plains lying between the Orinoco and the belt of coast towns.
Here Paez, an almost illiterate peasant, gathered a party of horsemen which he
increased by small successes, and also by the unusual method of sparing the
lives of his royalist prisoners, many of whom, formerly followers of Boves, now
joined Paez on learning from him what la Patria meant. Supplies were obtained
from the unfortunate missions; and, when Bolivar, who with other refugees had
been organising a fleet and a small expeditionary force in Hayti, appeared in
the llanos, he was at once recognised as chief. Although his carelessness in
command was sometimes disastrous, his presence brought strength. The capture of
Angostura in July, 1817, and of San Fernando in February, 1818, won for the
patriots the line of the Orinoco. Confined to this region, and occupying a town
so royalist in sentiment that he was in danger of assassination by the women,
Bolivar, hearing of the proposed intervention of the Powers in 1818, issued
from his capital, Angostura, a proud declaration of independence and of
equality with Spain, while to the Argentine Provinces he sent a message
proclaiming the unity of South America.
Yet no
progress was made in the campaign of 1818 against Morillo, who had now returned
from New Granada. The llaneros were splendid guerrilleros, quick in sudden
assault, surprise, or raid, wearing out the
294 British mercenaries.—Republic of Colombia.
[18I&-22
royalists
with continual annoyance, and baffling pursuit by disappearing into the plains
and driving away the cattle, living on beef without salt or bread, expert in the
craft of plain and river, consummate horsemen and swimmers; but they were as
yet useless in the mountains, unfit for distant and decisive campaigns, and
recognising no leader but their “comrade” Paez. Moreover the Republican fleet,
commanded by a Dutch Creole from Cura^oa and largely manned by British sailors,
accomplished less than might have been expected. Bolivar gave a new turn to the
war by engaging British troops, mostly disbanded veterans of the Peninsula and
of Flanders. First came officers and sergeants to train Bolivar’s men; then
came soldiers. Before the end of 1818 at least 6000 British subjects arrived.
Five-sixths of them perished in the war, some in sanguinary fights, some under
stress of labour as prisoners in the torrid climate of Panamd, but most by
famine, pestilence, and hardships, such as they had never known in European
warfare: they joined an army of almost naked men, destitute of baggage,
commissariat, surgeons, and ambulance, fighting in a tropical country of
indescribable difficulty, where capture meant probable death and victory was
followed by a general slaughter of prisoners, where the path of war led across
plains which turned from desert to swamp with the change of season, through a
labyrinth of deep rivers infested by crocodiles and mosquitos, and over a vast
mass of frozen mountains.
Having
installed a Venezuelan Congress at Angostura, Bolivar, in 1819, led 3000 troops
westward up the Orinoco behind the line of royalist occupation, crossed the
Andes, where many men and horses died of cold, liberated New Granada by the
victory of Boyacd, and entered Bogotd. After this stroke of large political
strategy, he returned to Angostura and proclaimed the union of New Granada and
Venezuela in the Republic of Colombia. In 1820 Morillo, having concluded an
armistice with Bolivar, returned to Europe; and in 1821 his successor was
beaten in the battle of Carabobo, where Bolivar’s British troops, who bore the
brunt of the fight, suffered terrible loss. Venezuela was practically
independent; and the Liberator entered Caracas in triumph. The northern
movement had reached its conclusion, and the Republic of Colombia had achieved
real existence under the Presidency of Bolivar.
But the
Liberator still had a great task before him in the extirpation of royalism
from the Continent, first by loose cooperation with San Martin, and then by
taking up the continental war at the point where it was dropped by the
Argentine leader. Peru, with its dependencies of Quito in the north and Upper
Peru in the south, was still to occupy the Liberator for four years. That
viceroyalty in fact constituted a third geographical region, intermediate
between north and south; and its emancipation forms the third and final phase
of the struggle, the conclusion of the successes gained first by San Martin
and then by Bolivar. In 1822 San Martin appeared to be in possession of Peru;
but
Quito was
still royalist. Thither Bolivar now directed his forces; and, thirteen years
after her first revolutionaiy movement, Quito was freed through the victory of
Pichincha (May, 1822), won by the Colombian Sucre, the most modest and humane
of the revolutionaiy leaders, and probably the best general produced by South
America. Then, after some reverses, Guayaquil and the adjacent provinces were
secured with the help of troops sent from Peru by San Martin. At last in July,
1822, an interview took place in Guayaquil between the two chiefs, the
Protector of Peru and the Liberator of Colombia. To San Martin this interview
was a disillusionment; he offered indeed to serve under Bolivar; but in
September, 1822, he resigned his command and retired, after inviting Bolivar to
lead his Colombian army into Peru and complete the work of independence. Thus
Bolivar took up the work where San Martin had left it. Cochrane, having
finished his task, had already resigned his Chilian command, to pass into the
service first of the Brazilians and then of the Greeks. A brief royalist
occupation of the capital followed; in September, 1823, however, Bolivar
entered Lima and proclaimed a constitution, but was soon appointed absolute
Dictator by a moribund Congress. He had lefb Lima to prepare for the field,
when he heard that a mutiny of Argentine soldiers had restored Callao and Lima
to the royalists and that Sucre was in a precarious position in the Peruvian
highlands. Retiring northwards, though almost prostrated with illness, he
raised a fresh army in southern Colombia and moved south to join Sucre. This
southward march perhaps surpa sed in difficulties and endurance all that went
before; horses dragged up precipitous and almost pathless tracks to Alpine
heights, whole battalions prostrate with mountain sickness, an entire division
of 3000 men groping helpless and agonised for a day from snow-blindness—-these
were some of the incidents of the march. On August 5,1824, the first shock took
place at Junm, where the partial defeat of the patriots was turned into victory
by a cavalry charge under Miller; in this skirmish, which lasted forty-five
minutes, not a shot was fired; but 360 royalists were killed by lance and
sabre, and that night almost all the wounded died of cold. Three months later
Sucre with 6000 patriots met 9000 royalists at Ayacucho between Lima and Cuzco,
about midway between Buenos Aires and Caracas. In the battle 1000 patriots and
2100 royalists fell; La Serna, the last Spanish Viceroy in the Indies, remained
a prisoner; and a capitulation was signed which included the 23,000 royalist
troops remaining in Peru.
Ayacucho
sealed the independence of Peru and of South America. Callao held out for
fourteen months, and in January, 1826, within a month of its fall, Chiloe, the
last royalist stronghold in America, surrendered to the Chilians. From that
time the Spanish cause, though favoured by groups in the towns, was only upheld
in the field by some guerrillas and brigands in Chile and Venezuela, who were
finally suppressed about 1830.
In 1824
Bolivar received with acquiescence a message from the
Colombian
Congress, informing him that through absence in Peru he had ceased to be head
of their State; but after Ayacucho he was supreme in two new Republics
established in Peru and Upper Peru. He formed Upper Peru into the Republic of
Bolivia with a constitution under which three Legislative Houses were
established, and a President was appointed for life and empowered to nominate
his successor. This “ Bolivian Code ” was in turn accepted by Bolivia, Peru,
and Colombia in Bolivar’s presence and abandoned in his absence. Leaving Sucre
as Bolivian President, he was received in Lima (February, 1825) as Dictator and
Liberator and ruled there for more than a year, attempting to establish either
a union or a confederation between Peru and Bolivia and also working for the
assembly of a Pan-American Congress at Panamd; but the inefficiency of the
Colombian Congress and the independent attitude of the towns demanded his
return northwards, while Paez, Governor of Venezuela, wrote entreating hie
presence, declaring that he could not check the popular desire for separation
from Colombia, the people despising the distant Congress of Bcgotd. All the
authorities of Lima besought him to remain; and the Cabildo resigned in a body,
declaring that upon his departure Peru must cease to exist. Bolivar appeared to
hesitate; but in November, 1826, after nearly five years’ absence in the south,
he was triumphantly received in Bogotd and some months later in Caracas.
Successive
Colombian Congresses renewed his supreme power; and for two years he was in
fact sole ruler and legislator; but he failed in his attempts to form a vast
northern Republic and to unite it in federation with its southern neighbours.
His deputies in Bolivia and Peru were dethroned after his departure; and in
1829 the towns of Venezuela, one after another, in cabildo abierto resolved on
separation from Colombia and compelled their governor Paez to assume
independent authority. In 1830 Guayaquil and Quito broke away to form the
Republic of Ecuador. In 1829 Bolivar’s Government, in the hope of securing
union and stability, proposed to the British and French Ministers that on the
Liberator’s death a Bourbon prince should reign over Colombia. In May, 1830,
having assembled a Congress to settle future government, the Dictator resigned
his office and retired to ■Jartagena, announcing his departure for
Europe. But the Congress fell into contempt; the country was plunged into civil
war; and the general voice seemed to be recalling Bolivar to command when he
was struck down by consumption. On December 10, 1830, he dictated a message
exhorting Colombians to union; a week later he died at the age of forty-seven.
The five Republics which had called him Liberator sank into the cycle of
confusion, disorder, and rapid revolutions which is not even yet closed.
Venezuela alone under the supremacy of Paez maintained for seventeen years
comparative tranquillity, but upon his fall and exile was plunged into similar
disorder.
The strange
career of Bolivar almost baffles judgment; it is the story of the emancipation
of half a continent through efforts chiefly guided by one man; yet, in view of
his moral and physical weaknesses, it is not easy to grasp the personal
qualities which won for him the worship of the people and the love of his
associates. To money he was indifferent; a million pesos voted to him in Bolivia
he spent upon the liberation of all the slaves in the Republic. Alone among the
revolutionary leaders of South America, he formed around him a group of able
men devoted to himself and to the public service. He himself wrote a biography
of Sucre; and, although both men must have known that Sucre was the better
commander, Bolivar rejoiced in his friend’s triumph as if it had been his own.
Paez, though most outspoken about his chief’s faults, always wrote to him in
terms of tender intimacy, even while he was disavowing Bolivar’s authority and
leading the separation of Venezuela; and in his autobiography, written forty
years later, Paez repeats these expressions. Bolivar’s design of combining
several extensive Republics in one vast federation has often been dismissed as
a day-dream; and in truth the physical and political difficulties were great.
The road from Caracas to the south of Bolivia, traversing the scene of his
activities, through great and varied obstacles, measures 4300 miles; and the
groups of population through this vast region were divided by the historical
cleavage resulting from separate settlement and separate government by Spain.
The road from Caracas to Piura traversing his Republic of Colombia measures
2200 miles. Whatever might have been achieved by permanent and undisguised
personal rule, the effort to unite Venezuela under one Congress with New
Granada was impracticable; so was probably the inclusion of Peru in a scheme of
federated Republics. But a federation of Republics north of the Equator, which
seems to have been his last design, might well, with a few more years of life,
have been accomplished. His attempt to convoke a Pan-American Congress cannot
be dismissed as a grandiose absurdity; possibly he intended a closer union than
was possible, but combination for defence was a reasonable aim. Bolivar died,
bitterly lamenting the failure of that constructive work which he valued above
independence; yet few men have achieved so much in so short a time.
Upon
Bolivar’s death and the division of Colombia into three Republics the
Spanish-American States may be said to have formed themselves geographically,
following generally the former Spanish divisions. But political form had not
yet been attained. Though republican constitutions nominally existed, no
central Government except personal autocracy really prevailed anywhere.
Paraguay had already sunk under a despotism, indescribable in its grotesque
horror, which lasted for sixty years (1810-70) under three successive tyrants;
elsewhere, dictators, directors, and autocratic presidents succeeded one
another with
bewildering rapidity, each ruling irresponsibly in his capital, but seldom
possessing undisputed authority beyond a limited district; for the delimitation
of frontiers, which meant the separation of certain geographical areas from one
another, did not necessarily imply the consolidation of each area into a
compact community. The constructive work of the cabildos in forming
independent urban governments, essential as it was to the movement, was
inimical to the formation of large territorial States; in 1828, Bolivar in his
efforts at consolidation actually decreed the suppression of all
municipalities; and in Venezuela a junta convoked by Paez passed a similar
measure.
The
conflicting centripetal and centrifugal tendencies which divided every State
were commonly styled Unitarism and Federalism, the latter word being strangely
used in a sense almost opposite to its usual meaning and implying an effort not
at union, but at separation. Municipal leaders and military chiefs, having
some indistinct notion of the United States Constitution, believed that in
detachment and subdivision they were imitating its peculiar merits. Thus
Bolivar and others, who aimed at uniting separate bodies and might fairly be
called Federalists, were styled Unitarists, while the separatist efforts and
independent activities of contending provinces and towns were described as
Federalism. In the River Plate region these tendencies were at first described
by the more expressive names of Capitalism and Provincialism.
The many
separate efforts towards organisation, remarkably alike in their general
character, rested upon local civic feeling combined with vttachment to the
monarchy; the disappearance of this latter motive left no principle of union.
Except the Spanish divisions of kingdoms and provinces, there were in general
no clear guides to the military and political grouping of population; and there
was a natural though unfortunate sentiment against the maintenance or restoration
of anything resembling the Spanish centralising system. Comparison with the
United States is misleading; in the first place Spanish America possessed no
parliamentary system; secondly New Granada alone is equal to the thirteen
British Colonies in mere extent, besides presenting immensely greater
difficulties of communication. As for union of the whole Continent, Caracas and
Buenos Aires could communicate with Europe almost more easily than with each
other.
The task was
further complicated by the awakening of the forces of disorder used and in some
degree organised by the revolution, forces which had been increased by the
banishment of the Jesuits and the dispersion of their neophytes. The
half-barbarous population of the frontiers, which had held no place in the
political scheme under Spanish authority, had discovered its strength; those
who had been vagabonds or scattered peasants, ignorant and careless of
political matters, were now material ready to the hand of any ambitious
politician or any rude chieftain who might command their allegiance by superior
horsemanship,
i8ii-3o] Indian resistance to
the Revolution. 299
daring, and
intelligence. Already during the revolution the forces of the cities and of the
wilderness, of civilisation and barbarism, of old order and new violence, were
in a state of tension within the patriot ranks. The authority of the royal
Governors disappeared; the more popular local system of civic government,
already possessing a prescriptive power of self-modification to suit new
conditions, remained. In general these civic bodies faced their strange
responsibilities with a certain wholesome vigour and moderation; but their
limitations of action are obvious and easily paralleled. They were disturbed
and diverted from their natural functions by those wider operations, both
military and political, in which they could share only in a partial and
subordinate manner; and again they were shaken and confused by the disorderly
external forces organised in rivalry or in defence of them, which now
penetrated into tlieir councils.
One point,
which demands separate mention, is best illustrated by a Peruvian episode.
Pachacamac, an Indian cacique, who for his services against Tupac Amaru had
received a colonel’s commission in the Spanish army and had been promoted
brigadier for services against the Argentines in Upper Peru (1811-2), at one
time even acting as Spanish Governor of a province, was induced in 1814 to join
a revolutionary conspiracy in Cuzco; he assembled a force of insurgent Indians,
but was defeated and hanged. This is the only instance of anything like an
organised or distinct Indian movement on behalf of the revolution in South
America; and the official Spanish report on this disturbance states that the
Indians felt more animosity towards Creoles than towards Europeans. This was
natural, since their nearer and more numerous oppressors were Creoles, whereas
the more remote and less familiar power of Viceroys and Governors might
possibly protect them. The Indians, so far as they took part in the struggle,
were naturally divided, following their priests or other leaders who gained
their confidence on either side. But throughout the Continent on the whole they
were royalist, although in Peru many were forcibly impressed as patriot soldiers.
In Colombia the natives, more barbarous in character, did little serious
fighting, though both sides used them in pursuit and slaughter; but some tribes
near Lake Maracaibo, which enjoyed autonomy subject to payment of tribute,
suffered heavily in fighting for the King.
The Indians
in resisting the revolution were defending their own distinct existence, which
depended on the continuance of Spanish authority. The strange rhetoric with
which the revolutionary leaders, ignoring their own European origin, strove to
persuade themselves and the natives that they were redressing the wrongs of the
Conquest, revenging Atahualpa, and restoring oppressed peoples, did not deceive
the Indians. The revolution was rather a completion than a reversal of the
Conquest, since it fixed the possession and dominion of the conquered countries
by the descendants of Spanish conquerors and settlers. Striking testimony
800 The region of the River Plate. Artigas.
[isio-8
to the merits
of the Spanish native policy is found in two decrees by Bolivar (1828); one
aimed at restoring the ruined Missions; another ordered the reestablishment of
Indian tribute and of Protectors, since the new system which subjected the
Indians to the ordinary taxes and nominally equalised them with other citizens
not only exposed them to various wrongs and extortions, but was actually
resented by some of them as a loss of dignity.
The
disorderly course of the tropical Republics after Bolivar’s death need not be
followed. But the two temperate regions of the River Plate and of Chile have a
clearer history. The plains stretching northwestward to the Andes possessed no
city which could rival Buenos Aires, and all those regions depended upon that
port. Hence there was a general impulse in 1810-2 to follow the lead of Buenos
Aires; but that impulse could scarcely create a nation. Governments
experimentally formed in the capital and constantly changed, which retained
with difficulty the adhesion of the capital itself, could not be expected to
command that of the other provinces; and the cities of the interior, while not
claiming complete independence, would not accept subordination. The Gauchos of
the Pampa, exercised in the recent wars and ready under leadership to gallop
against any authority, royal or republican, were at hand, partly to aid, partly
to dominate, this local sentiment. The leader who formed and directed these
various forces against centralised government was Artigas, once a
cattle-raider, bandit, and smuggler on the Brazilian frontier, then (1798) a
commander of mounted police distinguished by the ruthless efficiency with
which he chastised his old associates. When the revolution began, he continued
in the royal service; but, unused to the discipline of regular war and
resenting command, he deserted to the Argentines besieging Montevideo; soon
taking offence against his new commanders, he proclaimed the independence of
the Banda Oriental and made war indiscriminately on Argentine and Brazilian
invaders, so that this able but capricious cut-throat is now revered as the
founder of Uruguayan or “Oriental” nationality. His prowess and success
attracted to him the chiefe of Santa Fe and of Entre Rios, Gaucho caitdiUos
like himself. Thus, partly a bandit chief, partly the head of a loose league of
half-pastoral, half-municipal States, he held three provinces detached from the
Confederation and hostile to Buenos Aires. After the fall of Artigas in 1818,
provincialism, finding a centre in Cdrdoba, was encouraged by the inefficiency
of the unstable central Government, which can only be indicated and illustrated
by the following brief summary.
The municipal
stage of the Argentine Revolution closes with the appointment by the cabildo of
a ruling Junta on May 25, 1810. Then begins a series of brief attempts at administration;
juntas, triumvirates, congresses, and directors, rapidly succeeding one
another,
I814-59] The Argentine
Provinces and Chile.
301
the
cabildo forming a fixed point and repeatedly resuming the task of inventing a
government. In 1814 a mission was sent to Europe to find a King, a Spanish
prince if possible, an Englishman if Spain should prove impracticable; and in
1815 the Supreme Director Alvear wrote to the British Minister in Brazil: “
These provinces desire to belong to Great Britain, to receive her laws, to obey
her government, and live under her peaceful influence ”; but this letter was
never delivered. The Congress which in 1816 decreed the independence of the
Argentine Provinces seriously discussed the enthronement of an Inca as Emperor
in Cuzco—a proposal whose only real interest lies in the implied design to
revive the former union of Peru and the River Plate; others favoured a Bourbon
or an English prince. In 1819 the Director Puyrredon opened negotiations with
France for the coronation of the Prince of Lucca in Buenos Aires. Rivadavia, a
man of high character and capacity, introduced some order and dignity into the
administration (1821-7); but he failed to conciliate the provinces, and even in
Buenos Aires the respite from trouble was brief. .
War with
Brazil (1825-8) for the possession of the Banda Oriental was closed through the
mediation of Great Britain, the disputed region being declared an independent
Republic. The indignation in Buenos Aires over this treaty increased the
confusion; the resulting mutinies, revolutions, and personal quarrels, opened a
way to a Gaucho chieftain, who by his wealth in land and cattle, his splendid
horsemanship, and his mastery of the rude code of Pampa chivalry, had
established a kind of principality on the southern frontier and had organised a
little army of Gauchos and Indians; the step to supreme power was easy, and at
last Buenos Aires sank into uneasy tranquillity under the dreadful rule of Juan
Manuel Rosas (1832-52).
Chile emerged
earlier than the other States from the series of wars between chieftains,
pronunciamientos, and purely personal dictatorships, and established in 1833 a
presidential system, oligarchical, conservative, and sometimes autocratic in
character, which subsisted in comparative tranquillity for fifty years,
supported however by force against several risings, two of which (1851 and
1859) developed into sanguinary civil wars, followed by some modification of
personal government.
The efforts
made to solve or evade the most pressing political problems during the actual
progress of the struggle for emancipation and the first essays at
reconstruction, have been already discussed. But the internal political
movements of the succeeding generation demand some comment. The history of Spanish
America since 1830 is the history of many separate States, varying in number
from ten to sixteen as the centralising or decentralising tendency has
prevailed. The European student of this history seems to be reading a language
whose grammar he does not know; political action moves on an unfamiliar plane;
and in the
catalogue of
names and events it is hard to unravel motives or results. Even the accepted
political vocabulary is here used with a strange sense. “Nationality” cannot
have quite its European meaning in a group of States whose origin, language,
customs, and sentiments, are generally similar. There are indeed sometimes
clear distinctions of character and even some ethnological differences due to
the greater or less mixture of Indian or African blood and, more recently, to
European immigration; but frontiers have been rather defined by geography, by
convenience, by causes almost accidental, by historical jealousies; and the
States are often kept apart by artificial rather than natural ar Mpathies. “
Revolution ” does not mean constitutional change and need not mean change in
methods of administration, but merely a forcible attempt, whether successful or
not, to replace rulers; thus any seditious movement from a sanguinary civil war
to the pronimciamiento of a battalion is called a revolution. “ Constitution ”
does not mean the rule and principle of administration, but merely a frame or
form controlled by personal action; thus among so many States possessing
par’iainentary constitutions it may be doubted whether before 1880 a congress
ever met which was in any essential sense either legislative or representative,
and few rulers have dispensed with the support of bayonets. In fact, these
States might appear to have maintained a certain equilibrium by means of
tension; the chief ruler, if he finds the machinery of state unworkable, having
the prescriptive right to supersede forms by a coup d’etat, and the people,
when Government becomes intolerable* having the prescriptive right of
rebellion. Bolivar declared that the workers for independence had ploughed the
sea, and died exclaiming that he had not found liberty. In 1842 San Martin
wrote to a Chilian: “ The labour and the blood given for the independence of
America have been, if not wasted, at any rate unfortunately spent in most of
the new States, except in your country.”
These
countries, with their medieval atmosphere, came suddenly under the influence of
modem ideas. Their guides were inspired by a mixture of philosophical theory,
of French revolutionary sentiment, and of ill-understood constitutional notions
borrowed from England and the United States. The people, almost indifferent to
the Anglo-Saxon exotic of elected Legislative Chambers, continued to regard
government as a thing to be endured or, if found unendurable, to be forcibly
altered. All the revolutionary leaders at some time or other favoured monarchy
or practised despotism; and it is generally through autocracy that some kind of
order has been or is being evolved. And the real progress which has been
effected should be generously recognised. The large emigration from Europe to
Spanish Amerioa during the last generation shows that in some of the States
political conditions are not usu illy unfavourable to industrious and peaceful
life.
In Mexico—to
use the name taken by New Spain on emancipation -—the revolution, which
promised to be more tranquil than elsewhere,
1808—15] Revolt m Mexico. Hidalgo and Morelos.
303
was diverted
and confused by personal action. On receiving news of the Spanish Revolution in
1808, the Viceroy, acting with the cabildo, summoned to a Junta the royal and
municipal officials with the chief vecinos and declared war against Napoleon.
In view of rival messages from the Juntas of Asturias and of Seville, this
Mexican Junta declared that no obedience was due to any authority not emanating
from the sovereign, and that the Goverhment of New Spain resided in the Viceroy
and actual magistrates; but money was sent to the Sev Jle Junta to aid defence.
The leaders of this early movement were already aiming at independence, either
on principle or from a belief that Spain could not withstand the French; but
these aims could not yet be avowed amid the general sentiment in favour of the
monarchy. The arrival of a French frigate caused a riot in Vera Cruz, and the
despatches which she brought were ostentatiously burnt by the Viceroy. Had
Charles IV succeeded in his design of escaping to Mexico, he would certainly
have been welcomed with enthusiasm. The Viceroy was preparing to call a Congress
of deputies from all the cabildos to settle future government, when the
European party, alarmed by this encouragement of Creoles and acting with the
audiencia, deposed the Viceroy—an act afterwards confirmed by the Central
Junta. The Mexican treasury despatched further large sums to Spain, besides
private contributions; but a request for a loan of twenty million pesos a few
months later somewhat damped this enthusiasm ; and reports of Spanish
disasters raised doubts.
In 1809 a
movement in Valladolid was suppressed. In September, 1810, the arrest was
ordered of a few men who used to meet in Queretaro to discuss revolution under
pretext of literary debate; thereupon one of them, Hidalgo, priest of Dolores,
called upon his parishioners, chiefly Indians, to follow him against the
Europeans “ who were betraying the country to the French.” Booty and the
crusading cry “ Ferdinand and the Virgin of Guadalupe” brought recruits; the
pillage of the rich mining town of Guanajuato increased their numbers; and soon
an undisciplined horde estimated at 80,000, chiefly Indians and mestizos, was
moving upon Mexico. But Hidalgo, who was no soldier, did not attack the
terrified city. Though accompanied by capable officers and a nucleus of troops,
he achieved few regular successes. He raised a great part of the country and
occupied some towns; but the white population was generally against him, and in
1812 he was taken and executed. His forces, already dispersing into parties of
brigands, were reorganised by the lawyer Rayon and the priest Morelos, who
became commander. Morelos proved a better leader than Hidalgo, but pursued a
similar warfare for three years, principally in the south. In 1815 he was taken
and shot. The Spanish guerrillero Mina, who had raised Navarre against Napoleon
in 1808 and had attempted to rouse a Spanish revolt against Ferdinand in 1814,
made an effort to revive the insurrection by leading two hundred followers from
the north into Mexico, but after six months
of guerrilla
warfare he met the same fate. In January, 1817, the remaining leaders
capitulated, accepting an amnesty, and the civil war was over; but many of the
Indians had scattered into troops of brigands, destroying property and
interrupting traffic; and the whole country had been thrown into a disorder
which continued sporadically for many years.
The
insurrection was rather a confused struggle between classes and colours than a
war between rey and patria. Though the insurgent chiefs were separatists, most
of their followers believed that they were serving God and the King; in fact,
led by royal and religious emblems, they were more royalist than the champions
of authority ; Hidalgo is said to have told them that Ferdinand was among them,
shut up in a closed carriage. Mexico was the most orderly, prosperous, and
intelligent of the American kingdoms, the most apt for the tranquil evolution
of decent government. Whatever may be said for Hidalgo’s character and motives,
he shattered this prospect by rousing the forces of ignorance and disorder and plunged
the country back into barbarism. Under Morelos the movement became more regular
and attracted in a great degree the sympathies of reformers, largely owing to
the successes which rendered possible an attempt at republican government in
the south; but its spasmodic origin and barbarous elements limited the range of
action. In the later and successful revolution the Indians took no part.
Meantime the
revolutionary tendency was growing in the towns, and even in the viceregal
camp; Calleja, chief suppressor of the insurrection, was suspected of
independent sympathies until he was appointed Viceroy. The Creole Colonel
Iturbide, while besieging an insurgent stronghold in 1814, confided to a
colleague his desire for independence, adding the words, “ but first we must
finish with these people.” The constitutional restoration in Spain in 1820 and
the election of Mexican Deputies to the Madrid Cortes produced a split in the
European party. In 1821 General Iturbide, one of the chief suppressors of the
insurrection, proclaimed at Iguala his three proposals: (1) an independent
Mexican Empire, the throne to be offered to Ferdinand, or in case of his
refusal to another Spanish prince; (2) the exclusion of all religions but the
Catholic; (3) the union of Mexicans and Spaniards. This scheme satisfied the
army and rapidly gained adherents; the Viceroy Apodaca, appointed under the
absolutist regime, was deposed by the constitutionalists; and the new Viceroy,
O’Donoju, found himself obliged to recognise the “plan of Iguala” by signing
the Treaty of Cordoba. Iturbide, entering the capital, installed a governing
Junta, followed by a Congress. But the Spanish Cortes having repudiated the
Treaty of Cordoba, this Congress was compelled by the populace to proclaim
Iturbide Emperor of Mexico. Ten months later the Emperor was forced to abdicate
by the military revolt of Santa Ana (1823). From that time the stormy history
of Mexico is comprised in the biographies of three men, Santa Ana,
Juarez, and
Porfirio Diaz; the alternation of military pronundamientos and republican or
personal efforts being complicated by the successful aggression of the United
States and the efforts of French ambition. The cycle of disorder and recovery,
of defeat and resistance, closes with the beneficent despotism of Diaz, who
became President in 1877 and has ever since been the ruler of Mexico.
In Guatemala,
as elsewhere, the Spanish revolutions caused responsive movements in 1808-9;
but these subsided until 1821, when Guatemala moved in sympathy with Mexico. Of
the two parties, one favouring union with Mexico, the other desiring complete
independence, the latter prevailed, after one hundred and eighty cabildos had
voted on the matter. In the subordinate provinces of Honduras, Nicaragua, San
Salvador, and Costa Rica, some desired union with Mexico, some union with
Guatemala, and some complete separation. This last question seems never to have
been decisively settled.
The
Revolution of America as viewed from Europe falls into three periods. The first
(1808-14) corresponds to a period of invasion, of rapid revolutions, of
constitutional effort in Spain. During the years 1808-10 the movements in
America were on the whole sympathetic with those of Spain, but were gradually
turned into an anti-European revolt, largely by the hostility of the successive
Governments in Spain, which all professed to find rebellion in constitutional
movements resembling those to which they owed their own origin, and, while
proclaiming national and popular authority, demanded submission and obedience
in America. In May, 1810, the Regency declared American ports open to neutral
trade, but was obliged by the Cadiz monopolists to withdraw that decree; in
fact, the Regency and the Cortes, partly dominated by the municipality and
commerce of Cadiz, which regarded American trade as their perquisite, were
compelled to assume a reactionary and absolutist attitude, which left no choice
between submission and independence. Twice the offer of mediation by Great
Britain, welcomed by the American deputies, was declined by the Cortes. Such
action was not compensated by the liberation of the Press (1810) or by the
Constitution of 1812 which established elective Municipalities and elective
Provincial Councils in America as in Spain. These measures favoured reform;
and, in the conditions which followed in Spain, reform in America meant
revolution. In almost every debate on America in the Cortes European and
American deputies were on opposite sides; an elaborate scheme of reform
presented by the American deputies was shelved by a general declaration that
Americans and Spaniards formed one nation. Even the constitution of the Cortes
was a grievance; the Americans protested against the device of substitutes,
declaring that the assembly should await the arrival of the elected deputies,
and also that representation should be proportionate to
population—an
arrangement whereby Spaniards in the Spanish Parliament would have been
outnumbered by Americans ignorant of Spain and also ignorant of every part of
the Indies but their own.
During this
period considerable reinforcements were sent to Mexico; but in general there
were few European troops in America, and the struggle was mainly between
Americans on both sides, though most of ■the royalist leaders were
European. Yet on the whole the royalists were successful except in Buenos
Aires.
The second
period (1814-20) corresponds to Ferdinand’s absolute Government in Spain. The
King’s promise to call Cortes in which America should have satisfactory
representation was presently followed by an attempt to suppress insurrection by
despatching European troops. But the Spanish monarchy was unequal to this
effort, which would have required two or three strong naval squadrons. The only
decided gain was the conclusion of the civil war in Mexico—a success which
rather opened than closed the door to political revolution. In South America,
notwithstanding some initial successes, the royalist cause lost ground during
this period. At its close the region south of the tropics was practically free
from Spanish dominion; Peru, the centre of royalism, was invaded; and in the
north of the continent only the Isthmus and the coast towns of Venezuela obeyed
the King.
In the third
period (1820-4) the restoration of the Constitution in Spain introduced a certain
moderation into the struggle. Bolivar and Morillo agreed that thenceforth
quarter should be given and that desertion should not be punished with death,
since the war was a war of opinions, with friends and relatives in opposing
ranks; San Martin concluded an armistice with an envoy from Spain; a Colombian
agent even entered Madrid, where he was courteously treated. It was noted that
Spanish officers in Peru were less bitter against the insurgents than were
their Creole colleagues; and during the closing phase of the struggle several
Spanish war-ships passed into American hands through the desertion or easy
surrender of Spanish officers and crews. Although the Cortes in 1822 vehemently
repudiated all notion of recognition, next year it was proposed in negotiations
between Spain and Buenos Aires that hostilities should cease for eighteen
months, and that Buenos Aires should induce the South American Governments to
contribute twenty million pesos in aid of Spanish resistance to the French.
These proposals, which were closed by the French invasion of Spain, indicated a
consciousness that constitutionalists in Spain and revolutionists in America
were really fighting the same battle, and seemed to foreshadow the recognition
of independence by the constitutional Government of Spain.
After the
revolt of the army at Cadiz in 1820 the royalists fought without further aid
from Europe. Spain had despatched 42,000 troops to America, including the West
Indies, between 1811 and 1819. Of these “expeditionary troops” 23,000 remained
in 1820; in that year there were
in America,
besides volunteers, 87,000 disciplined royalist troops, counting both regulars
and militia, 41,000 of them stationed in New Spain, 19,000 in the West Indies
and only 27,000 in South America. Of the 87,000 perhaps about one-third were
Europeans. After 1820 a group of officers, veterans of Saragossa, Albuera, and
Vittoria, fought on for Spain with troops chiefly raised and trained in
America: of the 9000 royalists who fought at Ayacucho not more than 500 were
Spaniards bom in Spain.
Throughout
the war, the first diplomatic object of insurgent leaders and republican
Governments was to obtain British support. In 1809-10 Venezuelan envoys sought
aid in London and are said to have received official assurance of protection
against French interference. Such protection was the natural outcome of British
policy, so long as French ascendancy in the New World was to be feared; indeed,
the chief service of Great Britain to the revolution resulted from the series
of naval victories culminating in Trafalgar, which made it impossible either
for France or for Spain to operate effectively across the Atlantic. But since
alliance with Spain now precluded any aid to insurrection, British commodores
and West Indian Governors were instructed to encourage reconciliation between
the insurgents and the Spanish Junta or Regency. Yet British offers of
mediation were felt to give some moral support to the insurgents; and in 1817
a United States diplomatist, referring to these offers, says that Great Britain
had thrice interfered on behalf of Buenos Aires and adds that the British
Minister in Rio de Janeiro favoured the Argentine revolution. In 1814 Great
Britain by treaty with Spain undertook to prevent her subjects from furnishing
arms, ammunition, and war-stores to the insurgents; yet British subjects
predominated among the European officers of all nations who joined the
insurgents on the conclusion of the great war. British ships, ignoring Spanish
authority and the pretended Spanish blockade, traded with revolutionary ports;
British commodores in the Pacific, who held a kind of diplomatic position,
maintaining amicable relations with both contending parties, generally leaned
in sympathy towards the insurgents.
In 1817-9 the
Spanish Government not unnaturally complained of this attitude of an allied
Power. Agents from the revolutionary Governments raised loans and enlisted
soldiers in London undisturbed; whole regiments were formed in Great Britain,
the officers wearing Venezuelan uniform in public; ships, chartered for the
Spanish Main, were openly loaded with military stores and artillery. Finally
the ablest of British sailors, accompanied by many British officers and seamen,
led a fleet against the Spaniards. The mercantile interest generally favoured
the insurgents, as also did the anxious and growing body of subscribers to the
large loans continually being raised in London by revolutionary authorities.
Not until 1819 was a tardy and ineffective measure passed, after much debate,
to prevent enlistment for alien service.
In May, 1817,
Ferdinand, with the support of Russia, suggested to the Allied Powers that they
should aid him in reducing the insurgents. For nearly a year communications
passed on the proposal. But the attitude of Great Britain, together with the
many and obvious difficulties of arranging the terms of intervention, led to
its abandonment. Great Britain was, however, bound by alliance with the Powers
and with Spain; and, when, in February, 1819, the United States communicated to
her their intention of receiving a Consul from Buenos Aires and expressed a
hope for the recognition of the new States by Great Britain and the European
Powers, Castlereagh replied that the hope of peace on the basis of Spanish
supremacy with improved administration was still entertained by the European
Alliance. In 1817-8 the United States sent Commissioners and soon afterwards
Consuls to Spanish America; and in 1822 they recognised the national
independence of Colombia, Chile, Buenos Aires, and Mexico. Meantime, as the
ultimate success of Spain became more hopeless, particularly after 1820, Great
Britain found her ambiguous attitude more unsatisfactory and was drifting away
from the policy of the European Alliance. Since 1790 or even since 1702 trade
had been the chief motive of British policy concerning Spanish America; and now
the British trade which had recently sprung up suffered much from the confusion
of authority and from the swarms of West Indian pirates, who, calling
themselves royalist or patriot privateers, attacked unarmed ships of all
nations.
At the
Congress of Verona (1822) the British envoy, Wellington, presented a note to
the effect that Great Britain had been obliged to recognise the existence de
facto of several Governments so far as to treat with them; that pirates could
only be extirpated by cooperation with the actual authorities on the coasts;
and that such cooperation must lead to further recognition. To this suggestion
the French envoy returned an ambiguous answer; the other Powers rejected any
suggestion of recognition so long as Spain should maintain her claims. The
subsequent proceedings of the Congress, the proposal of France to send an armed
force into the Peninsula, the adhesion of the other Powers, the protest and
withdrawal of the British envoy, are related in other chapters of this volume.
Great
Britain, now detached from the European Alliance, was threatened with the
danger of French supremacy not only in Spain, but also in the Indies, a danger
similar to that which she had opposed by arms in 1702-13 and in 1808-14. In
March, 1823, just before the French invasion of Spain, Canning intimated to
France that Great Britain considered the separation of the Colonies from Spain
as accomplished; adding that their formal recognition was a question of time
and circumstances, that Great Britain intended no territorial acquisition in
Spanish America, and that she was satisfied that France had no such design. In
August the French army, having traversed Spain, was besieging Cadiz; and in
view of a
proposed conference of the Allies to settle the affairs of Spanish America,
Canning anxiously sought the cooperation of the United States in a policy
which, while leaving the ground open for an amicable settlement between Spain
and the Colonies, should oppose the acquisition of any part of Spanish America
by any other Power. The United States Minister in London undertook to pledge
his Government to this cooperation, if Great Britain would promptly recognise
the independence of the new States. Canning declined immediate recognition; and
accordingly the two Governments, having certain objects in common but differing
in their attitude both towards Spanish America and towards the European
continent, proceeded to take separate action. Cooperation was made more
difficult by Canning’s desire to prevent the United States from obtaining
complete supremacy over both American continents, and also by the determination
of the United States to avoid any engagement which would limit their freedom of
action. In October, 1823, Canning told the French ambassador that Great Britain
would recognise the new States if France should employ force against them, and
clearly signified uncompromising opposition to any such action. In December,
President Monroe addressed to Congress his famous message, aimed not
particularly at France but at the designs of the Holy Alliance and at any
possible European aggression or advance in America. Meanwhile, in the autumn of
1823, Canning had prepared the way for closer relations with the new States by
sending British Commissioners to visit Spanish America and by appointing
British Consuls. Finally in January, 1825, Great Britain recognised the
independence of Buenos Aires, Colombia, and Mexico. Canning, although his delay
in recognition had lost him the cooperation of the United States, had
nevertheless succeeded in his main object of thwarting French designs beyond
the Atlantic. His apprehensions had not been unfounded, for Chateaubriand had
intended that French princes should reign in Spanish America.
Unhampered as
were the United States by European connexions, their official attitude towards
the new States actually constituted was more candid and generous than that of
Great Britain; but on the other hand it should be noted that the United States,
by prohibiting Mexican and Colombian designs for the liberation of Cuba and
Porto Rico, prevented the completion of emancipation and secured Spanish
dominion in the Antilles for seventy-five years longer. The action of the
United States and of Great Britain fixed the status of the new Republics,
although Spain kept up the pretence of prosecuting the war down to 1830. About
that date the Papal See, which at first had denounced rebellion and commanded
submission, established definite relations with the new Republics, a matter
perhaps not less essential to them than the recognition by Spain which in turn
they severally received in thp course of the following five-and-twenty years.
BRAZIL AND
PORTUGAL.
On November 29,1807, the Regent Dom John,
accompanied by his mother, the insane Queen Maria I, his wife Carlota Joaquina,
his two sons and six daughters, with a numerous following of nobles and
functionaries and the treasure of the kingdom, set sail from the Tagus for
Brazil. This event marks an epoch alike in the history of Portugal and of its
great transatlantic Colony.
On the
following day, November 30, a French army under Junot occupied Lisbon. Portugal
had long been an object of special dislike to Napoleon on account of its traditional
relations of friendship with England; and by a treaty concluded at
Fontainebleau between France and Spain (October 29) it had been agreed that the
two Powers should jointly invade Portugal and divide its territory between
them. Feeling resistance to be hopeless, Dom John, after establishing a Council
of Regency, betook himself with the entire royal family on board the fleet,
and, leaving his country to the protection of England, sought refuge in Rio de
Janeiro. The history of Portugal during the eventful years that elapsed between
the date of this event and the Congress of Vienna has already been treated in a
previous volume. It is otherwise with the affairs of Brazil. The transference
of the Court to Rio de Janeiro had such an influence, immediate and
far-reaching, upon the position and the development of the Colony as to demand
a brief notice.
The
importance of Portugal at the close of the eighteenth century rested to no
small extent upon her possession of Brazil. The mere area of Brazil, with its
3700 miles of Atlantic sea-board and inland depth of some 2500 miles, was
enormous; it was rich in fertile territory, in gold, and diamonds; and it
possessed in the River Amazon and its tributaries the most magnificent
navigable river system in the world. That so small a people had been able to
occupy and administer successfully this vast dependency across the seas is one
of the wonders of history; unfortunately, as the Colony had grown and thriven
and had acquired a vigorous life of its own, the distant motherland had never
risen to any
high conception of its duties to the daughter State. Even the ideas of Pombal
upon political economy and freedom of commerce had been no more enlightened
than those of his contemporaries, and his reforms, after his fall, had ceased
to be earned out. The traditional policy, which held that Colonies existed
solely for the benefit of the home country, even after the severe blow it had
received by the revolt of the British North American Colonies, had continued up
to 1807 to govern the relations between Portugal and Brazil. All intercourse
and commerce between Brazil and foreign nations was prohibited. The vessels of
allies were occasionally permitted to visit certain ports; but the crews were
only allowed to land under supervision. All manufactures, except that of
sugar, were forbidden; and the Crown drew vast revenues from the tithes, which
under a Papal Bull it had appropriated, and from the royalties ■ of the
gold and diamond mines. With the arrival of the Prince Regent and the
establishment of the seat of government at Rio, all this was abruptly changed.
A royal decree of January 28, 1808, threw open the ports of Brazil to the
commerce of all friendly nations. Industries were freed from all restrictions;
and the exploration of the interior was encouraged. Supreme tribunals were
created; and a National Bank, a Royal Printing Press, a Military Academy, and a
Medical School were established. These reforms were in no small measure due to
British influence, which was dominant in the Portuguese Court; and there can be
no doubt that the concession of freedom of trade was highly advantageous to
British commerce.
The
Brazilians welcomed the advent of the royal family with no little enthusiasm;
and the measures taken by the Prince Regent for promoting the welfare of the
country gave him at first considerable popularity. But Dom John, though
well-meaning, was weak, indolent, and undecided; and he had to provide for the
crowd of needy adventurers, ecclesiastics, nobles, and officials, who had
followed him. The expenses of the Court were enormous, and compelled the Regent
to raise money by a lavish distribution of offices and honours. Titulary distinctions
had been hitherto almost unknown in Brazil, and they were now eagerly sought;
and native Brazilians vied with emigrant Portuguese in soliciting royal favours
and places. It was said that Dom John conferred more honorary insignia while he
was in Brazil, than had all the Kings of the House of Braganza who had preceded
him.
With the
return of peace the Portuguese hoped that the Court, whose prodigality
continued to impose in its absence heavy charges on the impoverished finances
of Portugal, would return to Lisbon; but Dom John had become attached to his
life at Rio de Janeiro, and preferred to remain where he was. On March 20,
1816, the mad Queen Maria I died; and the Prince Regent, who had already, by a
decree of January 16,1816, declared Brazil to be a kingdom, on ascending the
throne assumed the title of John VI. King of Portugal, Brazil, and the
Algarves.
This elevation of Brazil to the rank of a kingdom, and the resolve of the King
to fix his residence at its capital, caused the pro- foundest dissatisfaction
in Portugal, which saw itself in danger of becoming a dependency of its former
colony.
The position
of John VI in Brazil itself was, however, not free from disquietude. The
additional burdens imposed upon the country had aroused considerable
dissatisfaction in the northern provinces, especially in Pernambuco. The revolt
of the Spanish Colonies found an echo in Brazil, and already in 1814 a secret
organisation was working for the establishment of a republican form of
government. To render his position more secure, Dom John took advantage of the
peace in Europe to summon a body of 4500 veteran troops, who had served in the
Peninsular War, to garrison Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. In 1817 the revolution
broke out prematurely in Pernambuco; but the rebels were unable to make any
stand against the disciplined force sent against them under the command of
Count dos Arcos. The insurrection was harshly repressed; and the leader,
Domingues Jose Martins, with a number of his followers, was executed.
In Portugal,
meanwhile, there was a rising storm of discontent. The King was denounced, not
only for sacrificing the interests of the mother- country to those of Brazil,
but for allowing British influence to be supreme in the councils of the
Regency, which in his name exercised the despotic powers of the Crown. The
services rendered by England during the Peninsular War were forgotten, for the
impoverished land was crushed by the burden of taxation; and a people
intolerant of foreign rule laid no small share of the blame for their
misfortunes upon the malign counsels of Sir Charles Stuart, the British diplomatist,
and Marshal Beresford, who continued to hold the office of Commander-in- Chief.
The resentment felt against the Government was deepened by the severity with
which in 1818 an attempted pronurmanwnto by General Gomez Freire de Andrade,
who had served under Napoleon and had strong French proclivities, was
suppressed by the energy of Beresford. An insurrectionary rising in 1820 had a
different issue. Beresford was temporarily absent in Brazil, when a revolt
broke out at Oporto, August 24, headed by some leading officers of the
garrison; and a revolutionary Junta was formed. A similar outbreak took place
at Lisbon on August 29; and the leaders, acting in concert with those at
Oporto, forced the Regency to yield to their demands. The Cortes, which had not
met for upwards of a century, were summoned for the purpose of drawing up a
Constitution; and the British officers, including Lord Beresford, were deprived
of their posts in the army. The Cortes, which were animated by the most
democratic sentiments, spent four months in preparing the basis for the new
Constitution. All traces of feudalism were abolished; the Inquisition was
suppressed; equality of all persons before the l&w, liberty of the Press,
and the admissibility of
i820-i] Effect in Brazil. John VI returns to
Lisbon. 313
all citizens
to all offices, were established. To a single elective Chamber all legislative
and administrative powers were confided, the King retaining merely a
suspensory veto.
The news of
the events of 1820 caused a great sensation in Brazil. Both the Portuguese
emigrants and the native Brazilians showed strong sympathy with the democratic
principles which had triumphed in the Peninsula. In various parts of the
country and in Rio itself both the militaiy and the people declared for the
popular cause. The weak but amiable King was undecided what course to adopt;
and he had to choose between the views of two parties in his own household. The
Queen Carlota Joaquina, a woman of turbulent disposition and loose morals, had
for years plotted and intrigued against her husband. She was absolutist in her
views, and devoted to the interests of her younger son, Dom Miguel, who shared
her views. Opposed to her was the Prince Royal, Dom Pedro, who in 1817 had
married the Archduchess Leopoldine Caroline of Austria, and was now twenty-two
years of age. Dom Pedro had inherited his mother’s restless and ambitious
temperament, but not her principles; and he now put himself forward as the
champion of Libera1 ;sr.i, and displayed an energy, enterprise, courage,
and activity, which prepared for him a conspicuous, if somewhat tragic, role in
the troubled years that were to follow. The irresolution of John VI was
dominated by the stronger will of a son, with whose character and aims he had
little sympathy. A manifesto, dated February 18,1821, announced the intention
of the King to send Dom Pedro to Portugal to treat with the Cortes, and
promised the introduction into Brazil of such portions of the Constitution as
might be found suitable and expedient. The publication of this manifesto led
to an insurrectionary outbreak at Rio, in which the military joined; but it was
repressed by the personal intervention of Dom Pedro, who read to the assembled
crowd a decree in which the King gave his unreserved approval to the
Constitution to be drawn up by the Cortes, though its terms were as yet
unknown. This was a concession such as no self-respecting ruler should have
granted except under actual compulsion; and, as a matter of fact, the
Brazilians had afterwards grave causes for dissatisfaction with the treatment
which their interests received at the hands of the Cortes. Meanwhile, strong
pressure had been put upon the King by a powerful body of public opinion both
in Portugal and Brazil, and by the British Government, to induce him to return
to Lisbon. Greatly against his inclinations, the unfortunate monarch once more
gave way. A decree of April 22 appointed Dom Pedro Regent and Lieutenant in
Brazil; and four days later John VI set sail for Lisbon. He was accompanied on his
return by a crowd of Portuguese nobles and hangers-on of the Court—some three
thousand it is said—and he carried off vast sums in specie, which were
withdrawn from the Bank. His departure in such circumstances aroused tumultuary
demonstrations, which were, however, suppressed without bloodshed; and
Dom Pedro was
left in a country seething with discontent and in a condition of practical
bankruptcy.
It was a
decisive moment in the history of Brazil. The impolitic and short-sighted
measures adopted by the newly-elected Cortes hastened a crisis in the relations
between the motherland and the colony, which, though sooner or later
inevitable, need not have been immediate. Without waiting for the presence of
the full quota of the Brazilian deputies, a decree was passed (September 29,
1821) which abrogated all the tribunals and institutions created by John VI in
Brazil, and ordered the Regent to lay down his office and return at once to
Portugal. Later decrees gave instructions for the strengthening of the Portuguese
garrisons in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, and for the sending out of provincial
Governors responsible to the executive in Lisbon. The intention was clearly a
restoration of the old colonial system. These decrees produced alarm and
indignation in Brazil. The Patriot party, which had hitherto consisted almost
entirely of those favouring republican institutions, was now transformed into a
national one. The officials, who had lost their posts through the abolition of
the tribunals, became ardent advocates of the cause of independence; and even
the Royalists had no scruples in denouncing the decrees of the revolutionary
Cortes, whose Jacobin tendencies they detested. There was a strong feeling that
Dom Pedro should not be allowed to leave the country; and the Prince himself
was for some time .doubtful as to his course of action. He knew that the chief
towns were strongly garrisoned by the disciplined troops of what was known as “
the auxiliary division and he was averse from taking any step which could make
him appear to be a traitor to Portugal and a rebel against his father. His
whole correspondence during this anxious time of difficulty and uncertainty
proves his sincerity. Between the King and Dom Pedro there had been for some
time a strongly marked' divergence of views; but little doubt remains that
there was a secret understanding between them, when they parted in April, 1821,
by which the Regent was given a more or less free hand, should difficulties
arise. His task was to preserve intact the interests of the Crown to which he
was heir. But he was placed in the dilemma of having to choose between loyalty
to the land of his birth, or loyalty to the land of his adoption. At first, the
claims of Portugal had the upper hand. Despite the pressure that was put upon
him, Dom Pedro announced his intention of obeying the decree of the Cortes and
quitting Brazil. But circumstances became too strong for him.
The movement
for Brazilian independence at this critical juncture of indecision and
confusion found a capable and staitesmanlike leader in Jose Bonifacio de
Andrada. He was in 1821 Vice-President of the Provisional Government of San
Paulo, which province, and the adjoining province of Minas Geraes, had been for
some years the chief centres of Separatism. Jose Bonifacio was the eldest of
three brothel’s, all men of
scientific
acquirements, and was a native of San Paulo. He had been educated at Coimbra,
had travelled much, and had gained a European repute for his learning and
especially for his discoveries in mineralogy and metallurgy. In the Peninsular
War he had fought for his country against the French; but after the peace he
had been disgusted with the corruption and ineptitude of the Regency, and in
1819 he returned to his native land. The result of his experiences caused him
to become an eager advocate of the party of independence. He felt that Brazil
could no longer remain a vassal State of Portugal, but must seek her own
destinies. When the news arrived of the decrees of the Cortes, by an address,
by a deputation, by agitation, in all of which Andrada played a chief part,
pressure was exercised on the Prince Regent; and his hesitation was at last
overcome. He promised to stay and to defend the interests of Brazil, not
against his father, but against the Cortes. This decision had good results in
appeasing public opinion, and was welcomed both by the Royalist and Patriot
parties. The attitude of the Portuguese garrisons at first caused serious
apprehensions; they remained staunch to their flag, and were quite capable of
holding their fortified positions at Rio de Janeiro and Bahia against vastly
superior numbers of undisciplined Brazilians. By a judicious mixture of
persuasion and firmness the troops at Rio were, however, induced to leave the
country. They were promised three months’ pay in advance; and the Prince
himself threatened to open fire upon them from a gun-boat, unless they
immediately embarked. They set sail for Lisbon, February 15, 1822.
Jose
Bonifacio de Andrada and his brother Martin Francisco had meanwhile been
entrusted by the Regent with the principal posts in the Ministry; and the
direction of affairs was placed in their hands. As soon as the garrison had set
sail, a decree was issued (February 16) calling together from the various
provinces a council of representatives. A further step towards separation was
taken (May 13), when, in answer to a supplication from the municipality of Rio
de Janeiro, Dom Pedro accepted the title of “Perpetual Protector and Defender
of Brazil.” This was followed (June 3) by a decree for the creation of a
Legislative Assembly. All this was not accomplished without disorder. In San
Paulo and Minas disturbances arose, which, however, were quelled by a visit
from the Prince in person. The recalcitrant behaviour of the Portuguese garrisons
in Pernambuco and Bahia caused more trouble. Those in Pernambuco before long
yielded to the terms offered them and left the country; but at Bahia a strong
reinforcement of 1500 men reached General Madeira from Lisbon in August; and he
continued to offer a successful resistance to the attacks of a large besieging
force of Brazilians. The breach between Portugal and Brazil had issued, indeed,
in what was practically a state of war. A decree of August 1 declared all
troops quartered in Brazil without orders from Dom Pedro to be rebels. The cb. x.
rupture was
completed by the declaration of the independence of Brazil made at San Paulo by
the Prince, September 7, 1822. At Rio on October 12 (his birthday) he was, in
the presence of a vast concourse of people, acclaimed as Constitutional Emperor
of Brazil.
The next step
was to secure the recognition of the authority of Pedro I throughout the
provinces. The command of the Imperial fleet was entrusted to Admiral Lord
Cochrane, under whom were serving Captains Grenfell and Taylor, and a number of
other capable and daring British seamen. Bahia, the chief centre of resistance,
was blockaded by sea as well as by land; and after an obstinate defence General
Madeira was forced to capitulate and embark with his troops for Portugal, July
2, 1823. Maranham and Par& were next reduced to obedience. The Portuguese
suffered continual losses at sea during this time, their ships being pursued
even across the Atlantic, and captured in sight of their own shores. The garrison
of Montevideo, the capital of the Banda Oriental, which had been conquered by a
Portuguese expedition in 1817, was the last to be expelled; the town and
territory were formed into the Provimcia Cisplatina. By the close of 1823 all
opposition to the new regime had been overcome; and the independence of Brazil
under the rule of the Emperor became an accomplished fact.
While these
events had been talcing place beyond the ocean, the political situation in
Portugal had undergone a complete change. One of the last acts of the
Constituent Cortes of 1820 had been to issue a decree (September 19, 1822), in
which Dom Pedro was ordered to return within a month, on pain of losing his
right of succession to the Portuguese Crown; while all military officers and
others obeying the de facto Government at Rio were proclaimed traitors. The
Legislative Assembly, elected under the Constitution of 1822, showed itself no
less determined to suppress the rebellion in Brazil, but internal troubles
speedily concentrated its whole attention upon home affairs. A date, December
3, had been fixed before which all official persons were required to take their
oath to the new Constitution on pain of banishment. The proud spirit of the
Queen, Carlota Joaquina, would not submit to this. She refused, and sentence of
banishment was pronounced against her; but on the ground of ill-health a delay
was granted, and events decreed that it should never be enforced. The crossing
of the Pyrenees by a powerful French army to support Ferdinand VII against a popular
movement in Spain gave fresh life to the cause of Absolutism in Portugal. A
rising led by the Count of Amarante (February, 1823) in Tras-os- Montes was at
first a failure; but the counter-revolution initiated by him soon gathered
strength. Many of the soldiery were ready to fight against a system of
government which had led to the loss of Brazil. The Infante Dom Miguel placed
himself at the head of a movement with which he was thoroughly in sympathy, and
issued a proclamation calling upon the people to restore to the King his
liberty.
1823-5] Absolutist movement in Portugal. Dom
Miguel. 317
The main body
of the troops joined him. John VI himself, always ready to follow, never to
lead, and now at his wits’ end how to act, left Lisbon. The Cortes, finding
themselves without moral support, dissolved of their own accord. The King,
however, who had imbibed some of the Liberal ideas professed by his elder son,
was not yet disposed to place himself in the hands of the Absolutist party,
whom he distrusted. Acting on the advice of his Minister, the Count of
Palmella, John VI, while declaring the Constitution of 1822 abrogated,
appointed a Junta to draw up a new parliamentary Constitution for a limited
monarchy after the English model. These proceedings by no means commended
themselves to the Queen and Dom Miguel, who determined to take vigorous action.
On April
30,1824, Dom Miguel seized the palace, banished Palmella, and carried on the
government in his father’s name. The King, who was virtually a prisoner, was
obliged to submit, but shortly afterwards (May 9) managed to make his escape
and to fly for refuge to a British man-of-war in the Tagus. His appeal led to
united action being taken by the ambassadors of the Powers for the restoration
of his authority, in which the leading part was taken by Sir William A’ Court,
the British envoy. Palmella was replaced at the head of the Ministry, and Dom
Miguel compelled to withdraw from Portugal. He took up his residence at Vienna.
The result of foreign interference in the internal affairs of Portugal was the
establishment there of a system of parliamentaiy government. The term anarchy,
however, more truly describes the general condition of the country. The King,
always feeble and vacillating, was now in miserable health and subject to
epilepsy. He had no opinions of his own, and had become the mere shuttlecock of
parties, a pliant instrument in the hands of stronger men. On August 29, 1825,
he was induced through British influence to recognise the independence of Brazil
and give up his title to the sovereignty in favour of Dom Pedro. His sudden
death followed six months later.
In Brazil the
experiences of Dom Pedro after his acceptation of the Imperial title had been
scarcely less troubled than those of his father in Portugal. The Emperor made a
great profession of his attachment to Liberalism and democratic views, but he
was at heart dictatorial and arbitrary. Dom Pedro was a man of strangely
complicated character, of high courage but no stability, at once obstinate and
capricious in temper; his restless ambition was coupled with talents distinctly
mediocre, his high conception of public duty with laxity of private morals and
unscrupulousness in action. He lacked conspicuously those higher qualities of
statesmanship which were essential for the successful accomplishment of the
difficult task that lay before him.
The
Constituent Assembly called together to draw up a Constitution for the Empire
met on May 3,1823. The Andrada brothers, by virtue of their commanding
abilities no less than from their dominant position in
the State,
took the leading part in its deliberations. Up to this time the Andrada
Ministry had been all-powerful, and had overridden opposition by methods that
were high-handed and at times vindictive. In consequence they had made many
enemies. It was attributed to their influence that Dom Pedro had declared in
his opening speech “ that in accordance with his oath he would defend the
Constitution, if it should be worthy of Brazil and of himself.” This declaration
provoked loud protests from the Patriot party, A proposal to expel all
Portuguese suspected of hostility to the national independence roused the
enmity of the Royalists. A coalition was formed against the Andradas, which
succeeded in gaining the ear of the Emperor, who had become tired of dictation.
The Ministry was dismissed on July 17; their successors were Royalists of a
moderate type. With them came a change of policy with regard to the Portuguese.
The prisoners of war were invited to enlist in the service of Brazil, and many
did so. The Andradas now threw themselves, both in the assembly and in the
press, into violent opposition to the Government. Dom Pedro was incensed, and
determined on strong action. A new Ministry, more pronouncedly Royalist, was
formed (November 10) and a coup d'etat resolved on. Three days later, the
Emperor surrounded the Chamber with a strong body of soldiers and artillery,
and ordered the immediate dissolution of the Assembly. The deputies were
forcibly expelled; and the three Andradas and some other leaders were arrested,
placed on board ship, and sent away to France. By this despotic act of violence
the Emperor found himself placed in the position of a dictator.
The next step
of Dom Pedro was to issue a proclamation justifying what he had done and
promising to convoke another Assembly, before which he himself would lay the
project of a Constitution, more Liberal than that contemplated by the body just
dissolved. “ The salvation of the country, which is confided to me as Perpetual
Defender of Brazil, has required these measures.” Such was Dom Pedro’s
conception of Liberalism. He was quite willing that the country should have
free institutions, but as a concession from himself, the sovereign. His descent
and his training alike forbade him to admit, what was undoubtedly the case,
that his powers as Emperor had been conferred on him by the people. A Council
of State of ten persons was commissioned (November 26) to draw up the project
of a Constitution; and their task was at once taken vigorously in hand. By
January, 1824, their labours were completed; but, instead of their proposals
being submitted to a new National Assembly, as had been promised, copies of the
project were sent round to the Municipal Councils of the various provinces. The
majority of these were declared to have given their approval; and on March 24
the Emperor took the oath to the new Constitution.
The reception
accorded to this mode of procedure was generally satisfactory, for, though the
Constitution emanated from the Emperor,
its
provisions were, as Dom Pedro had undertaken that they should be, thoroughly.
Liberal in their character. It established freedom of religion, of the press,
and of speech, equality of all citizens before the law, representative institutions—consisting
of two Chambers—a responsible Ministry, an independent judiciary. The members
of both Chambers, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, were chosen by
provincial electors, themselves elected by universal suffrage. The Deputies
were elected for four years; the Senators were nominated by the Emperor from
triple lists submitted to him, and held office for life. The Senators had to be
at least forty years of age and to be possessed of a certain amount of
property. When the two Houses differed, either of them could claim the
summoning of a General Assembly of both Houses for conference. The key to the
Constitution was declared to lie in what was styled the Moderative Power, i.e.
the power placed in the hands of the sovereign, consisting of a suspensory veto
on legislation, the nomination of Senators and of Ministers, the right of
dissolving the House of Deputies and summoning the General Assembly, the power
of pardon and revision of judicial sentences, the nomination of Bishops,
magistrates, ambassadors, and presidents of provinces, and other like
prerogatives. In the discharge of his executive functions the Emperor, however,
acted on the advice of his Ministers, whose signature was required in order
that any act should obtain validity, and who were responsible to the
representatives of the people. The Constitution of 1824 was thus eminently
fitted to offer to Brazil the prospect of enjoying under free institutions the
advantages of a settled and stable Government. In so far as it failed to
effect this, the fault lay not in its provisions, but in the undeveloped
character of the people which was to live under it, and in the political
shortcomings of its administrators.
This same
month of March, 1824, saw the opening of negotiations between Portugal and
Brazil for peace through the mediation of England. Brazilian commissioners were
sent to London, and during the summer were engaged in trying, through the
intervention of Canning, to effect a settlement with the Portuguese
plenipotentiary. Hostilities were suspended during the negotiations. At first,
the Brazilian demand for independence and the Portuguese assertion of
sovereignty seemed hopelessly incompatible. The accomplished diplomatist, Sir
Charles Stuart, who was despatched by Canning first to Lisbon and then to Rio,
was at length able to bring about an arrangement, by which King John, after
assuming, proforma, the title of Emperor of Brazil, resigned it in favour of
his son, and acknowledged the independence of the former Portuguese colony,
while Dom Pedro undertook that the Brazilian Government should be responsible
for a debt of <£! ,400,000, contracted by Portugal with Great Britain in
1823, and should pay to King John the sum of ,£600,000 for his palace and other
private property in Brazil. The treaty was signed at Rio, August 29,1825. In
this document no
320 Death of John Vl.-Pedro's Charter and
abdication. [i826
mention was
made of the succession to the Portuguese Crown; but Dom Pedro openly announced
that he resigned any claim to it.
Events were
speedily to show that the renunciation was accompanied by reserves. On March 6,
1826, John VI was taken suddenly ill, and in four days died, not without
suspicion of poison. A decree, dated March 7, nominated the Infanta, Isabel
Maria, Regent until the legitimate heir and successor (unnamed) should issue
his instructions. The Regency at once acknowledged Pedro IV as King This act
was, however, looked upon as a mere formality—the recent treaty of separation
had made it impossible for a man to be at once Emperor of Brazil and King of
Portugal—and it was assumed that Dom Pedro would abdicate in favour of his
brother Had he done so, there would have been no opposition, for the
revolutionary party of 1820—the vvntistas as they were styled—was at a low ebb
in 1826; and the utmost that they hoped for was to effect the transformation of
the old Cortes of Three Estates into a Constitutional Assembly. But this simple
course did not commend itself to the vanity and ambition of Dom Pedro. He
wished once again to pose as a monarch conceding of his own free will Liberal
institutions to his people. The British plenipotentiary, Sir Charles Stuart,
who had brought over the treaty of separation from Lisbon the previous year,
was still at Rio, and on being consulted by the Emperor upon his project,
expressed his disapproval. This able diplomatist knew Portugal and the
Portuguese thoroughly, whereas Dom Pedro had left his native land when he was
but twelve years of age. But the Emperor persisted in carrying out his ideas. A
Charter was drawn up, which he conferred upon his Portuguese subjects, as a
gift from their King; and then, by a decree dated May 2, he abdicated the Crown
in favour of his daughter, Dona Maria da Gloria, aged seven, upon condition of
her taking an oath to the Charter. This condition being complied with, Dom
Miguel was recognised as Regent, but with the further condition that he should
marry his niece, a child seventeen years younger than himself. Sir Charles
Stuart became once more the intermediary between Rio and Lisbon. He arrived in
Portugal with the Charter, July 2. It met with a chilling reception. No one had
expected the interference of the “Brazilian” with the internal affairs of the
country; and it was resented by the great mass of the population. The Council
of Regency at first declined to publish the Charter, but their hands were
forced by the military jrronunciamento of General Saldanha, who was in command
at Oporto. This officer, a strong adherent of the Liberal cause and popular
with his troops, declared that, if the oath to the Charter were not taken
before May 31, he would march with his army on Lisbon. The Council yielded. The
Charter was published, May 12; and the oath was taken both at Oporto and Lisbon
by all the various authorities on the 31st amidst scenes of popular enthusiasm.
Saldanha was
hailed as a hero by the vvntistas, and became the head
of a Liberal
Ministry, August 3. He was anxious that Dom Pedro should come in person to
Portugal, or at least that he should retain the Infanta Isabel Maria in the
Regency to the exclusion of Dom Miguel. But the Emperor, finding that the
representatives of all the Powers were unanimous in their support of the
Regency of Dom Miguel, would not listen to the proposal. Indeed he had but
little choice. At the very time when the oath to the Charter was taken at
Lisbon, insurrections broke out in Tras-os-Montes, Minho, and elsewhere, the
soldiers acclaiming Dom Miguel as King. These movements were successfully
stamped out by the Government; but thousands of emigrants flocked across the
Spanish frontier, and a strong armed force—under the leadership of the Marquis
of Chaves—for the support of the Absolutist cause was formed with the secret
connivance of the Spanish Government, ready to invade Portugal when opportunity
should offer. Of the Powers, Austria and Russia openly favoured Dom Miguel, but
through the influence of Canning were induced to join with England and France
in adopting a waiting policy. The instructions of Canning to Lord Stuart and to
A’ Court, the British Minister at Lisbon, were that the Portuguese people were
to be left free to .choose their own government. The official policy was one of
non-intervention ; nevertheless, such was the anarchy in all parts of Portugal
at the end of the year, that the British Government despatched a division of
5000 men under General Sir William Clinton for the restoration of order, and at
the same time demanded from Spain the internment and disarmament of the
Portuguese Absolutist bands under Chaves. In March, 1827, the Charter, supported
by British bayonets, had been accepted throughout Portugal; but it is needless
to say that the armed intervention of the foreigner did not endear to the
Portuguese people the liberties conceded to them by their Brazilian King.
Meanwhile Dom
Miguel had been residing at Vienna under the eye of Metternich. His attitude
after the death of his father had been perfectly correct. He had written both
to Rio and to Lisbon, acknowledging Dom Pedro as the legitimate sovereign of
Portugal. On October 4, he took his oath to the Charter; on October 29, he was
solemnly affianced to his niece. This step was taken on the advice of
Metternich under pressure from England. By thus complying with the conditions
laid down by his elder brother for his abdication, Dom Miguel removed all
obstacles to his return to Portugal as Regent during Dona Maria's minority.
That he took the oath as a political necessity and with the secret reservation
of his legitimate rights, is practically certain. His subsequent actions showed
that he did not regard his oath as binding on his conscience; his Jesuitical
training would make it easy for him to rest content with the absolution of the
Church for a breach of faith committed on behalf of the good cause. At the
moment, in his letters to Dom Pedro, the Infanta, and the Kings of England and
of
322
Miguel assumes the
title of King. .[isss
Spain, his
professions of sincere adhesion to the constitutional status quo were all that
could be desired; and it was as Regent in the name of Maria IIj and as an
upholder of the Charter, that Dom Miguel sailed from Plymouth on board a
Portuguese ship of War, to assume the r«!ihs of government. He landed at
Lisbon, February 22,1828.
It was not,
however* the intention of the Queen-Mother, nor of tlie powerful absolutist and
clerical party of which she was the moving spirit, that Miguel should occupy
the position of a Chartist Regent. Carlota Joaquina had inherited vast wealthy
and since the death of John VI had been spending it freely in the interests of
her beloved son and of the “apostolical” cause; and soon all eyes were looking
for the advent Of Dom Miguel, as the saviour of the country. The ha.iJsome
yOung Prince was the idol of the populace, and his reception at Lisbon was
marked by a frenzy of enthusiasm, amidst loud cries of Viva Dom Miguel /, rei
absoluto. Nevertheless, the Infante did not as yet commit himself. In the
present* of the united Chambers, on February 26, he accepted the Regency and
took the oath, once more, to the Charter. But, from the first, public opinion
acclaimed him as King; and as such Dom Miguel acted. The Chambers were
dissolved, March 14, and were not again summoned. No one troubled about them;
they perished without a murmur. With the departure of the British troops, on
April % recalled by the Wellington Ministry, the chief support of the
Constitutional party was removed { and practically no resistance was offered to
an Absolutist restoration.
The Regent,
in May, took the decisive step of summoning the old historic Cortes of the
Three Estates. They met, June 28, and on the proposal of the Bishop of Vizeu
offered the Crown by acclamation to Dom Miguel. The Prince accepted the offer,
assumed the title of King, and, on July 7, took the oath before the Cortes. In
Oporto alone, where the Chartist leaders, Saldanha, Villa Flor, Palmella,
Sampaio, and others had gathered, a Junta was formed and armed opposition was
offered to the acceptance of the new regime. In Lisbon, and generally
thfoughout the land, the proclamation of Miguel I was received with enthusiasm.
At Oporto a number of volunteers from Coimbra and elsewhere joined the troops
which had declared for Dona Maria; but the Junta did not dare to await the
approach of a strong Miguelist force. Palmella, Saldanha, and their friends
fled to London, July 3. Their army, to the number of between 5000 and 6000 men,
retreated in utter disorder into Galicia. A miserable remnants 2500 strong,
penniless and in rags, took ship for Plymouth, where they were interned.
It was
thought safest to send their Queen, Maria II, to London, where she was
surrounded by the exiled leaders of the Constitutional party, foremost amongst
Whom was Palmella. But, though the Queett was received with all the marks of
inspect due to her raak, the British Government under Wellington steadily
declihtd to take any steps to
intervene ita
the intfemal affairs and dynastic struggles “of a free nation*” A Portuguese
historian (Martins) makes on this the sarcastic comment, “ the Court received
Maria II as Queen, and the Government received her troops as brigands.”
Meanwhile, in
Portugal, Dom Miguel’s position had been consolidated. The Absolutist party,
when at length they felt the reins of power firmly in their grasp, determined
to make a clean sweep of their adversaries. The decree went forth that
Liberalism was to be extirpated. For awhile there was a veritable reign of
terror in Portugal. A considerable number of persons, on the ground of being
implicated in revolutionary movements, perished by the hands of the executioner;
thousands of others, sometimes on the merest suspicion, were thrown into
prison. How far Miguel was himself responsible for this vindictive and
barbarous policy it is difficult to say. Naturally pleasure-loving and fond of
applause, Miguel, -though coarse in his tastes, was not by disposition cruel;
but he undoubtedly allowed himself to be the pliant instrument of his mother’s
behests, and was surrounded by a group of men dominated by clerical and
political prejudices of an extreme type. This at least may be affirmed of him,
that despite his faults and the crimes committed in his name, he continued
throughout his troubled reign to be the idol of the nation, the King of his
people’s choice. To the last the Portuguese masses were Miguelist to the core.
The British
policy of non-intervention, carrying with it a recognition of the de facto
Government, was followed by Austria and France. The claims of Palmella to be
the representative of Portugal at the Court of St James’ were not admitted. Dom
Pedro was informed that his abdication was regarded as definitive, and as
debarring him from interference with Portuguese affairs. If he wished to take
active steps to support his daughter’s claims to the Crown, it must be by a
declaration of war on the part of Brazil. Earnest efforts were, however, made
by Great Britain and Austria to heal the fraternal feud by Urging the marriage
of the unde and niece without the Charter. But, though the negotiations
dragged on, they proved futile. With the return of Maria II to Brazil, August
29, 1829, the first chapter in the story of her struggle with Miguel for the
Portuguese Crown is closed.
The second
chapter had already opened in the tiny island of Terceira, one of the Azores.
The inhabitants of the Azores, including those of Tetceira, had in the spring
of 1828, following the example of the people of the motherland, declared
themselves Miguelist. The small garrison of Angra alone remained faithful to
the Liberal cause. For four months (May-August) they remained isolated in their
entrenchments, surrounded by a hostile population. At lafet (September 8) a
number of emigrant officers and some stores were landed by a Brazilian frigate;
a provisional Junta was formed; and the cause of Maria II, which seemed
abandoned by all mM, found a spot on which her authority was recognised, and
her
flag could
fly. Terceira became henceforth the centre for organising armed resistance to
the Miguelist power.
The
authorities at Lisbon did not trouble to make themselves masters of Terceira
during the long months during which the garrison of Angra could have offered no
effectual resistance to a Portuguese expedition. For this negligence a heavy
retribution was to be exacted in the coming years. Palmella and Saldanha in
England were more far-sighted; money was raised; and at the end of 1828
Saldanha set out from Plymouth with a strong force of Portuguese refugees for
Terceira. He was not, however, allowed to land. A British squadron compelled
the expedition to turn back (January 11, 1829), and to seek refuge in France.
During the following three months, despite the vigilance of the British
blockade, small groups of emigrants found their way to the island; and many
also came from Brazil. In June the Count of Villa Flor, nominated by Palmella
Captain-General of the Queen’s dominions, landed and assumed the command of a
heterogeneous force of 2800 men. Arms were plentiful, and the place was well
fortified. A few weeks later a Miguelist squadron, carrying a strong force of
3500 men for disembarkation, at length appeared before Terceira. The attack
however was badly planned and never pressed home; the garrison defended
themselves with spirit and courage; and the fleet withdrew without effecting
its purpose (August 11, 1829). The unaccountable failure of this long- prepared
effort to wrest from the Constitutionalists their one foothold in the
Portuguese dominions had a decisive influence upon later events., Palmella
himself moved from London to Terceira, March 30, 1829, where a Regency was
established in the name of Maria II. The little island, hitherto a place of
arms, was thus transformed into a seat of government.
Nevertheless,
for awhile the prospects of Maria did not grow brighter. Dissensions arose
between Palmella and Saldauha. Pedro recognised the Regency, but he had his own
troubles in Brazil, and declined to give any active assistance to his daughter,
though at the same time carrying on negotiations to bring about a settlement of
difficulties on the marriage basis. The Powers would not commit themselves, but
showed themselves generally well disposed to the de facto rule of Miguel.
The events of
1830, however, effected an entire change in the attitude of the Western
Powers. The revolution of July in France replaced Charles X by Louis-Philippe;
and in England a Whig Government came into power, in place of the Wellington
Ministry, with Lord Palmerston in charge of foreign affairs. Early in this same
year Carlota Joaquina, the moving spirit of the Absolutist reaction, died
(January 7). In February an abortive revolution broke out in Lisbon, which was
cruelly repressed. It was at this time that the reign of terror, the watchword
of which was “Death to the Liberals and Freemasons,” attained its height.
Infatuated in their devotion to Dom Miguel, the Portuguese
people seemed
to have been seized by a blind frenzy. It was the last revival of the old
superstition of Sebastianism. The hero-King, whose return had1 for
two centuries and a half been wistfully looked for, had found his
personification in the young Miguel of 1828, whose advent amongst his people
was openly spoken of as that of a Messiah. To the Absolutist and “apostolical”
principles which lay at the root of Miguelism, the Orleanist monarchy of July
and the Reform Whigs of 1830 were alike opposed; and it was not long before
their opposition was changed into enmity. Dissensions arose with England
concerning acts of violence committed upon British subjects both on sea and
land. The harsh treatment accorded to two French residents in Lisbon led first
to a breach of diplomatic relations, then to the despatch of a squadron under
Admiral Roussin, which entered the Tagus (July, 1831) and compelled the
Portuguese Government to make humiliating reparation and to surrender their
fleet. This strong action met with the tacit support of Great Britain, which
was thoroughly in sympathy with the Government of Louis-Philippe in this
matter, and took no steps to defend its old ally from French attack.
Meanwhile
events had been taking place in Brazil which had brought about the abdication
of Dom Pedro (April 7, 1831). The arbitrary temper of the Emperor, his
extravagance and dissolute life, and, still more perhaps, the disastrous issue
of the war with the Argentine Republic, had disgusted the Brazilians with their
erratic sovereign and made his retention of the crown an impossibility. Leaving
his son, who at the age of six was proclaimed Emperor as Pedro II, under the
guardianship of Jose Bonifacio de Andrada, now recalled from exile, the
ex-Emperor set sail for Europe, April 13. His departure was undoubtedly for the
advantage of Brazil. During the minority of Pedro II the country, in spite of a
number of local insurrectionary movements, enjoyed freedom and made material
progress. Andi iula rendered himself unpopular, and was in 1833 replaced by a
Council of Regency* The following year the Constitution of 1824 was revised by
Congress. No important change; was made in its main provisions, but it was
broadened and extended by the concession of provincial and municipal self-government
on a large scale. This policy of decentralisation in a country of such vast
area and varying physical conditions was a very wise proceeding, and has
probably preserved the unity of the Brazilian State. In 1835 Antonio Feijoo,
Bishop of Maritana, was elected by Congress as sole Regent. He held office for
two years, and was followed by Pedro Araujo de Lima (1837-40). Pedro II at
fifteen years of age was in 1840 declared by Congress; to have attained his
majority. He was crowned July 18,1841. Intelligent, fond of study, and
possessed of tact and moderation, the young Emperor was able during the earlier
years of his reign to secure the love and respect of his subjects. He
successfully devoted his best efforts to the
826 Pedro I in Europe.—Preparations for war.
[i83i-2
maintenance
of political tranquillity and to the development of the immense natural
resources of the country,
DOm Pedro’s
failure in South America had not quelled either the fire of his ambition or his
love of adventure; and he set out with the intention of driving the “usurper”
from Portugal by force of arms. With the young Queen he took up his residence
in London. Here they were joined by Palmella from Terceira, where Villa Flor
had been left in command. This officer was within a brief period able to make
himself master of the entire archipelago of the Azores. The seizure of the
Miguelist fleet by Admiral Roussin in the Tagus rendered his task a light one.
The reception accorded to Dom Pedro and his daughter in London on the part of
the Grey-Palmerston Ministry was friendly; and the ex-Emperor was able quietly
to consult with his friends and mature his plans. Under the influence of the
counsels of Palmella, Dom Pedro determined to enter upon the contest with his
brother in the capacity of defender of his daughter’s rights. Like the
visionary knight-errant that he was, he dreamt that he had only to effect a
landing in the realm, which groaned beneath the tyranny of Miguel, in order to
rally the people round the banner of their young Queen.
In August,
1831, Dom Pedro, taking with him Maria II, betook himself to France. He had
already assured himself of the friendly disposition of Louis-Philippe, who now
received the exiles with open arms, and assigned the Chateau de Meudon as their
residence. Palmella and Silva Carvalho were left in England to raise money. The
task was successfully achieved; and a loan of £2,000,000 at 5 per cent, was
negotiated by the aid of the Spanish financier, Mendizabal (September, 1831).
As the bonds were issued at 48, the rate of interest was really more than 10
per cent. The first necessity was a fleet. Two East-Indiamen were bought and
transformed into the frigates Rainha and Dona Maria II, which were stationed at
Belle-Isle. The crews were English, and a retired British naval officer,
Captain Sartorius, was appointed admiral. About 300 mercenaries were likewise
enlisted in London, and placed under the command of Colonel Hodges. These
formed the nucleus of the liberator army, and were duly embarked, January 3,
upon the vessels at Belle-Isle. All this was done beneath the eyes of the
French Government, who had no scruple in thus espousing the cause of Dona
Maria; bnt in England Palmerston was anxious not to sanction any open breach of
neutrality. “ I counsel you,” he wrote to Palmella, M to let your
vessels depart as quickly as possible, in order to avoid any new difficulties
that the agents of Dom Miguel might raise”; he even threatened that, unless
prompt action were taken, ther British Ministry might find
themselves obliged to recognise officially the Government of Dom Miguel.
On Februaiy
10,1832, the expedition, consisting of two frigates, the Rainha and Dona Mmia,
with two schooners* the Terceira and Amelia,
and
a transport, sailed from Belle-Isle. Dom Pedro had embarked in the Rainha, on
which Sartorius had hoisted his flag. He was accompanied by the chiefs of the
Constitutional party, Palmella, Louie, Freire, Mousinho, but not by Saldanha.
The soldier whose sword had nade the Portuguese nation accept the Charter in 1826
was now debarred by the author of that Charter from taking part in an
expedition whose pvofessed object was its restoration. Saldanha had shown too
plainly that he did not trust the man whose deeds had so often belied his
words. .
The fleet
reached the Azores at the end of February; and Dom Pedro at once concentrated
in his own hands all the powers of government—he became regent, general, and
admiral. His activity was ceaseless ;■ and, though he made many mistakes,
it was the opinion of Colonel Hodges and other competent eye-witnesses, that
without the personal efforts of the Emperor the expedition would never have
left the islands. Under the supreme authority of the Regent, Palmella became
Minister of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior (the duties of the latter
office were for the present non-existent); Mousinho da Silveira took over
finance and Justice. Villa Flor was appointed General-in-chief and Sartorius
Admiral-in-chief. The all-important Ministry of War was placed in the hands of
an incapable man, Agostinho Jose Freire. But all these were subjected to
constant personal interference, even in matters of detail, on the part of Dom
Pedro, who himself was accustomed on all subjects to seek the advice of his
adjutant of the camp, Candido Jose Xavier, and almost invariably to follow it.
At first the
English troops, who had received as yet neither clothes nor shoes, were very
insubordinate and at Angra committed many excesses. When clothes and
accoutrements at last arrived, Freire actually refused to allow them to be
delivered to the troops, for whose equipment he was himself responsible, until
a duty of 15 pei' cent, had been paid upon them. By the exertions of Colonel
Hodges, who has left a most interesting personal narrative of the expedition,
the English auxiliaries, after being placed in a separate encampment for some
weeks at Praia, were brought into a state of thorough discipline, and formed
the backbone of the Constitutional army. A battalion of 500 French mercenaries,
which landed at a later date, were also good troops. The rest of the army,
which in all numbered 6500 men, was not of high quality. About half consisted
of local levies in the A/ores from a population with Miguelist sympathies.
Still less trustworthy were the soldiers of the Miguelist garrisons who had
been taken prisoners and forced to take service with their conquerors. It
seemed a mere act of madness to dream of attempting an invasion with such an
insignificant force; but the Emperor was firmly convinced that, so soon as he
had set foot on Portuguese soil, the entire population would rise en masse to
welcome their liberator; and, when the fleet set sail (June 27), all on
pH- x.
board looked
upon their triumphant entry into Lisbon within a fortnight as a certainty.
How great was
their delusion ! The news of Dom Pedro’s arrival at Terceira and of his
intentions had no sooner reached Portugal, than with a unanimity rare in
history all classes of the people vied with one another in showing their
devotion to the throne and the cause of Miguel, the King of the nation’s
choice. Forced loans were raised; donatives were freely offered; the imposition
of severe taxation, such as that upon doors and windows, was submitted to
without a murmur. Volunteers flocked in by tens of thousands. In this month of
June, 1832, when Sartorius was weighing from St Michael, there were in Portugal
80,000 men under arms, of whom 50,000 formed the army for the field, and 30,000
garrisoned the fortresses. Such was the national enthusiasm, that there would
have been no hesitation to fight, even had France and England openly declared
for the cause of Dona Maria. The thought of defeat at the hands of Dom Pedro
single-handed never entered men’s minds. If the so-called “ Liberator army ”
landed, not a single man should escape.
On July 7 the
fleet of Sartorius sighted the town of Villa-de-Conde. So confident was Dom
Pedro of a favourable reception, that Bernardo de Sa was sent on shore with a
flag of truce to summon the Governor, Cardoso, to submit and to join the
Constitutional forces with the garrison. The envoy was greeted with loud cries
of Viva Dom, Miguel, and barely escaped with his life. The eyes of the Emperor
were now first opened to the fact that he might have to encounter serious
opposition. The coast however was here open and the weather favourable ; and
the whole army was safely disembarked near the village of Mindello, without a
shot being fired. The Portuguese Government had expected the attack to be made
in the neighbourhood of the Tagus with Lisbon as its objective, and had
concentrated their chief attention on its defence. To General Santa Martha,
with a division of 12,000 men, four thousand of whom garrisoned Oporto, had
been confided the task of guarding the northern coast. A great opportunity was
now offered to the Miguelist general. Villa Flor was bound to seize a base of
operations for his army; but it would have been madness for him to advance
against Santa Martha’s far superior force at Oporto with Cardoso from
Villa-de-Conde ready to fall on his rear. Almost equally hazardous would it
have been to attack Villa-de-Conde with Santa Martha’s division behind him.
But, if in the Constitutional army there was confusion of counsels and a
conspicuous lack of military capacity, on the side of their opponents the
conduct of the war from first to last was marked by a dead level of absolute
incompetence. Oporto was evacuated by Santa Martha; even the Serra de Pilar,
which on the south side of the Douro commands the city and its river harbour,
was abandoned. In the afternoon of July 9, the liberator army took
possession of
the town; and on the following day the fleet entered the river. Great however
was the disappointment of Dom Pedro at the suspicion and coldness with which
his entry was greeted. There was no enthusiasm; the inhabitants shut themselves
up in their houses, and clearly regarded him as an enemy. He was equally
deceived in his expectations that the Miguelist levies would at the earliest
opportunity desert the cause of the “ usurper” and flock to the banners of the
young Queen, in whose name he had come to liberate them from tyranny. So far
from this being the case, he was speedily to find himself enclosed within the
walls of Oporto by vastly superior forces.
The first
bloodshed was at Penafiel (July 18), where a body of troops, including the
English battalion under Colonel Hodges, which had been pushed out by Villa Flor
to reconnoitre and collect provisions, repulsed a Miguelist force under
Cardoso. The victors were not however strong enough to pursue, for two
Miguelist armies were already advancing upon Oporto, one under Santa Martha
from the north, another under Povoas from the south. On July 23 a second battle
took place, Dom Pedro in person leading out his entire force to assault the
position of Santa Martha at Ponte Ferreira. An indecisive encounter took place,
chiefly remarkable for the military incapacity displayed by the leaders on both
sides. It dispelled, however, the last hopes of Dom Pedro that the country
would rise in his favour. Two courses only remained to him, either to escape by
sea or to fortify himself strongly in Oporto and to await the course of events.
He decided for the latter. In his desperate position, with powerful armies
encircling him with a ring of steel, the Emperor never lost heart, and
personally superintended the erection of lines of trenches, redoubts, and
batteries, upon the series of hills on which Oporto lies, and upon the
precipitous Serra de Pilar on the opposite bank of the river. By his exertions
and example, slowly but surely the position was converted into an impregnable
fortress.
Meanwhile the
Portuguese armies, now under the sole command of General Gaspar Teixeira, were
gradually pushing their approaches nearer, the sallies of the garrison being
driven back on several occasions with loss. Batteries were erected on all
commanding positions on both sides of the Douro, and a heavy bombardment was
directed upon the town and the vessels in the river. Much damage was done, both
to buildings and shipping, but nothing of a decisive nature. Had the Serra de
Pilar not been allowed to fall into the enemy’s hand through the supineness of
Santa Martha, the Miguelist batteries would have been able to close the river,
and probably to render the town untenable. Gaspar Teixeira, however, as a
general showed himself in no way more capable than his predecessors. He had
around Oporto about 35,000 men; and yet, with this vast superiority of force,
he allowed the besieged to go on quietly entrenching themselves, without
attempting an assault upon any of their positions. When the assault was at
length
delivered
(September 29) it was repulsed with heavy losses. At the news pf this disaster
the. consternation and anger were great in Lisbon. Dom Miguel himself conducted
reinforcements! to the front. Blame was laid upon the hapless Teixeira, who was
removed from hi? command, and was replaced by the previously discredited Santa
Martha.
With the
advent of Santa Martha, an attempt was made to repair Teixeira’s chief
omission, by closing the mouth of the Douro. While the investment of the city
was made closer and closer, the left wing was gradually pushed down the river
towards the Foz, and batteries erected on the banks, which at length made it
impossible for merchant* men tP make, their way up-stream. They had to anchor
in the roads and send their boats to run the gauntlet of the batteries in the
dark winter nights. How great was the error in leaving the bar of the Foz open
so long may be gauged by the fact that between September and December 1400 foreign
mercenaries, English, Belgians, and Germans, with their armament and 300
horses, jpined the garrison.
At the end of
September Palmella had been sent to London to seek another loan, for funds were
exhausted, and further to secure* if possible, the friendly'mediation of the
British Government. But money was not to be had except on ruinous terms; and
Palmerston would take no steps to intervene, though he promised personal protection
to Dom Pedro in case of “a complete catastrophe.” AJ the autumn and winter went
on, the situation in Oporto seemed desperate. Nevertheless, the courage of Dom
Pedro never gave way; and his indomitable energy was the soul of a defence,
which was destined to lead to ultimate victory. In October he took the supreme
command into his own hands in the place of Villa Flar, who was rewarded for his
services vith the title of Duke of Terceira. Provisions of every kind became
very scarce; the foreign troops were half-mutinous for want of pay; the
Miguelist batteries kept up an almost continuous bombard* ment dfty and night;
the bar of the river was swept by' the enemy’s guns and rendered well-nigh
impassable; but through all the dark and dismal months the garrison never
failed. There was much useless bloodshed, On the one side a continual series
of futile sorties, which led to nothing; on the other side a series of equally
futile assaults, chiefly on
the
Serra de Pilar, always repulsed.
Palmella,
accompanied by Mousinho de Albuquerque, left charged with a second mission to
England (November 22). He met with a very cold reception, and was plainly told
that the departure of Dom Pedro from Portugal must be the preliminary to any
mediation on the part of the Powers. Palmella’s failure led to his dismissal
from office. His place was taken by the Marquis of Louie; Silva Carvalho became
Minister of Finance and Justice; and the influential Candido Xavier, Minister
of the Interior. With the new year came fresh changes. Experience had taught
Dom Pedro bis deficiencies as a general; and on January 1 he
I833] The defence entrusted to Solignac and
Saldanha. 331
handed over
the chief command to General Solignac, a Frenchman, who had served with
distinction under Massena. He resolved also to call to his aid the experienced
and popular Saldanha; and the democratic leader, despite the rebuff he had
received from the Emperor in the previous spring, at once responded to the
appeal. He reached Oporto (January 21), and was entrusted with the important
post of the defence of the fortifications at the Foz, which were still in the
hands of the Constitutionalists, and by the aid of which it was still possible
to land at a small bay to the north of the bar of the river, and so keep open a
communication with the sea. By the skill and vigour of Saldanha the efforts of
the Miguelists to cut off this communication entirely, and so to starve out
Oporto, were frustrated. The possession of the defences of the Foz was in
reality the key to the whole position. Had the Miguelist general seized them at
the very beginning of the siege surrender must speedily have followed.
When the
middle of February was reached, both sides began to feel utterly wearied out
and exhausted. The Miguelist enthusiasm and certainty of victory had slowly
evaporated, as the endless siege went on, and the prospect of taking Oporto by
force of arms grew darker. Santa Martha was replaced, as General-in-chief, by
the Count of San Louren^o, but with small advantage to the bes.egers. In the
Miguelist camp money was as scarce as it was in that of Dom Pedro; and their
privations at times were not much less severe. Yet Dom Pedro and his advisers
saw clearly enough that Oporto could not be held much longer. Famine was in the
city; dogs, cats, and rats, were being eaten; there were only two courses
open—surrender or escape to the Azores. At this moment of despair the idea of
retrieving, the situation by a bold counter-stroke took shape. It appears that
Captain Charles Napier first suggested to Palmella in London the proposal to
purchase some steamers and convey in them, under the protection of the fleet, a
strong body of troops to make an armed descent upon Lisbon and the south of
Portugal. This proposal was by Palmella communicated to the Regent. At first it
was rejected as impracticable. Not till the spring was well advanced was it
seriouslj c ijcussed, as a kind of forlorn hope, and finally adopted.
Sartorius
had, during the months which had elapsed since the disembarkation at Mindello,
succeeded in keeping open the sea approaches of Oporto. But, though he had on at
least two occasions been within striking distance of the Miguelist fleet, he
had through excess of caution failed to bring it to a general action or to
inflict any serious damage upon it. He was accused of cowardice, if not of
treachery. The truth is that, though Sartorius was undoubtedly lacking in dash
and audacity, he had extraordinaiy difficulties to contend with. His crews,
which were composed entirely of English mercenaries* were kept for months
without pay, victuals, or clothes, and were frequently on the verge of
332
[l833
mutiny. In
March their pay was nine months in arrear. If Sartorius during the stormy
winter months managed to keep his fleet in being, and from his bases at Vigo
and Bayonne to prevent the enemy from sealing the entrance to the Douro, he by
so doing performed a service of vital importance to the beleaguered forces in
Oporto. But Dom Pedro and his counsellors were dissatisfied with his
inactivity, and determined to deprive him of his command, and replace him ad
interim by Captain Crosbie, one of his officers. But Sartorius arrested the
agents sent to supersede him; and the Regent was informed that, unless the
arrears of pay were at once discharged, Sartorius would sail with the squadron
to Hushing and sell it. There was no choice but to yield. Money was raised by
forced contributions, and was forwarded to the Admiral together with a decree
confirming him in his command. Having thus exacted reparation in the most
humiliating form for the insult that he conceived to have been offered to him,
Sartorius voluntarily resigned his post. Captain Napier, who was still in
London engaged with Palmella in getting a supply of steamers for his projected
expedition to the South, was nominated his successor.
The coming of
Napier, a man of daring character and bold initiative, was the turning-point in
the fortunes of the war. Napier, with the eye of a keen and experienced sailor,
saw that the issue depended upon the command of the sea. He was quite aware
that Dom Pedro’s small fleet of converted merchantmen was inferior to that of
Dom Miguel in the size and the number of ships; but it was manned entirely by
English sailors, and, despite their indiscipline and lack of equipment, he had
no fear of staking the fate of the Queen’s cause upon a pitched battle with the
enemy’s forces. He has left a vivid narrative from his own pen of the brilliant
success that attended his operations.
It was on
June 1, 1833, that Napier and Palmella, with Mendizabal and Rodrigo da Fonseca,
landed at the Foz and made their way to Oporto. They had brought with them five
steamers, 500 English and Belgian mercenaries, and, perhaps most important of
all, a sum of £18,000 for the exclusive service of the expedition. Their
reception by Dom Pedro was chilling. He was suspicious of Palmella, and, after
the rebuff he had suffered from Sartorius, had no very friendly feelings to the
new commander, whose downright speech and brusqueness of manner were not to his
taste. The Council was divided on the subject of the expedition. Solignac
resigned, and was replaced by Saldanha. Napier wanted to make a direct attack
on Lisbon, and asked for 5000 men, and, finding that Dom Pedro would not make
up his mind, threatened to return to England. His firm attitude led to a compromise.
It was agreed that the expedition was to make some point on the coast of the
Algarves, and not Lisbon, its objective, and that it was to consist of 2500 men
only. The Duke of Terceira was appointed to the military command, Palmella to
be civil Governor of the conquered
territory. On
June 21 Napier weighed anchor. He had with him the five transport steamers he
had brought, three frigates, a corvette, and a brig, mounting 176 guns.
The story of
the landing at Mindello and the occupation of Oporto repeated itself. On June
24 the force disembarked in the bay of Cacellas without opposition and occupied
Tavira, which was deserted. The army then marched on Faro, the capital of the
Algarves, where Palmella established a provisional Government. The inhabitants
in the south showed themselves no less hostile than those in the north. They
looked upon the invaders as heretics and bandits. Mollelos, the Miguelist
Governor, had retreated, and was awaiting reinforcements from Lisbon with which
to attack and overwhelm the small invading force.
But the issue
was not to be left to the blundering Portuguese generals. Napier knew his own
mind, and his objective was Lisbon. To reach Lisbon the enemy’s fleet had to be
destroyed, and on July 2 he set sail from Lagos Bay to find it. The Miguelist
fleet at the same time put out from the Tagus to meet him. It numbered two
battleships, two frigates, two corvettes, three brigs, and a schooner,
mounting 378 guns. The disproportion in numbers and in weight of metal between
this naval force and Napier’s was enormous; but the quality and condition of
the Portuguese crews was wretched; the British Admiral was not unaware of this,
and, though his own crews were scarcely more experienced than their
adversaries, they were all daring and reckless British seamen, who could and
would fight. Napier therefore determined to avoid an artillery action; and on
the afternoon of July 5, oft' Cape St Vincent, he bore down upon the Miguelist
fleet, giving instructions to his captains to go straight for the enemy,
grapple, and board. In his own words, he was resolved to make “ one desperate
effort to save Portugal or lose the cause.” “ There was no medium; all must be
gained, or all lost.” The battle began at 4 p.m. and in two hours all was over.
The two Portuguese men-of-war, the two frigates, and a corvette had hauled down
their flags. Two small vessels alone returned to Lisbon. For the second time a
decisive victory had been won by British sailors off Cape St Vincent. The
Miguelist fleet had ceased to exist.
The success
of Napier’s daring venture stirred Terceira to emulation. The Duke had on July
4 withdrawn his small force to Louie on the coast. The army of Mollelos,
already much superior in numbers to his own, was being reinforced; and Terceira
was timid about his communications with the sea. The arrival of Napier with
his prizes at Lagos produced a complete revulsion of feeling. Terceira at once
resolved to take the offensive and advance into Alemtejo. He entered Messejana
July 17. Here he learned that Mollelos had made a flank movement, and occupied
Beja, which had declared for the Queen’s cause, and by doing so had committed
the error of uncovering the road to Lisbon. Without a moment's hesitation
Terceira made up his mind to cast
834 Tcrcdra defeats the Miguelists before
Lisbort. [is3S
caution to
the winds and march straight on the capital. His little band, 1500 infantry all
told, tent the1 air with acclamations on hearing their chief’s bold
proposal, and, having two days’ Start of an army of 4000 men in their tear,
went forward to attack a city, whose garrison was at least three times that
number. It was a stroke of mad audacity, which nothing but success could
justify. And it succeeded.
No Opposition
was encountered, until Setubal was reached (July 22); Here was a small
Miguelist force, which however fled in disorder at Terceira’s approach. His
numbers were unknown, and the mere daring of his march struck his foes with
panic. The fugitives brought the news of their rout to Lisbon, and aroused the
authoritieS to the imminence of the peril. The Duke of Cadaval had already sent
a division to join Mollelos, and had (July 28) despatched a force of 3000
infantry and three squadrons of cavalry undter the command t>f Telles-Jordao
to Almada. With great rapidity Terceira pushed on from Setubal to the shore of
the Tagus estuary, and on the evening of the 23rd encountered the advanced
troops of TelleS'-jol'dSo at Piedade. In the narrow space between the hills and
the river, where manoeuvring was impossible, a battle ensued, which ended in
the complete defeat of the Miguelists. As they fled in the dark with the object
of embarking at 'Caplhas for Lisbon, a great number lost their lives; among the
killed Was Telles-Jordao himself. The following morning Almada surrendered.
Nevertheless,
Terceira was really in a most critical position. Between him and Lisbon lay the
broad Tagus. Close upon his heels, and cutting off Ms retreat, was the army of
Mollelos. In the city the Duke of Cadaval had some ten to twelve thousand men
and abundance of artillery wherewith to oppose a landing. A (continuance of
light northerly breezes prevented Napier from forcing the bar of Hie river, and
coming to the aid of the General. But Tercefra was saved by the action Of
Cadaval himself. The nerves of Dom Miguel’s Ministers had been Utterly
shattered by the shock of the defeat at Piedade following so quickly Upon the
disaster off Cape St Vincent. At a council held at early dawn on the 24th it
was resolved to abandon Lisbon. Cadaval withdrew With the trbops to Loures,
accompanied by his Colleagues and a large number of officials and priests. The
same day Terceira’s army crossed the river in boats from 'Caplhas and took
possession t>f the capital without firing a shot. Even the powerful forts,
which commanded the entrance to the Tagus, Were abandoned; and Napier, to his
surprise, was able on the morning of the 25th to sail in and bring hrs fleet to
anchor before the town, unopposed. He at once took steps to secure the arsenal
With all its stores, and to refit his squadron. Three days later, on “the 28th,
Dom Pedro, who had set out from Oporto as soon as the news of the occupation of
Lisbon Tcached him, disemb&rtoefi. A section of the population of the
capital' had always been attached to the Liberal cause; otfhers, who had
suffered "from the Miguelist
tyranny* or
were weary of the burden of the war, were ready to welcome a change; and Dom
Pedro was warmly greeted as he made his way through the streets to the palace
of the Ajuda, which he now revisited after an absence of twenty-six years.
Dom Miguel,
at the time of the Capture of Lisbon, was with the army before Oporto. The
command of this army had been taken over, on July 13, by Marshal Bourmont, a French
legitimist, an officer of tried capacity. By his orders a fierce assault was
made upon the lines (July 25), which like all previous attacks Was repulsed
after heavy righting with severe loss under the eyes of the King. This was the
last act in this remarkable siege, for the news of the fall of Lisbon reached
Dom Miguel the day after his defeat; thoroughly discouraged, he resolved to
withdraw his forces, and form a junction at Coimbra with the troops under
Cadaval and Mollelos. At last* after a siege of eleven months, Opbrto was
free—“a siege that,” to quote the comment of Naj-'er, “with an enterprising
enemy, ought not to have lasted eleven days.” And now once again, as the same
shrewd observer points out, lack of enterprise lost to Dom Miguel a great
opportunity of regaining Lisbon. By the middle of August no steps, despite the
vigorous representations of the British Admiral* had been taken to fortify the
capital. Had the King with the large force gathered at Coimbra marched vtra’ght
on Lisbon, he would in all probability have carried it by a coup de main. Not
until August 13 did the army, consisting of 24,000 men in three divisions, move
southward; and so slow was its progi*ess that time was allowed to Dom Pedro to
construct fortifications before the town, and to make preparations for defence.
Just as at Oporto, an assault on the lines (September 6) was repelled with
loss; and Marshal Bourmont was forced to content himself with a blockade,
which, as the sea was open, was useless. Conscious of his failure^ Bourmont
resigned his command (September 21) and was succeeded by General Macdonnel, a
Scotchman, who had formerly served in Spain. A successful sortie by Saids uha,
who had left Oporto for Lisbon ort October 23, terminated the blockade.
Macdonnel retreated to Santarem to be in his turn blockaded. For the first time
in the war the roles of besieger and besieged, as played by Miguelists and
Constitutionalists, were interchanged.
The cause of
Dom Miguel was still, however, far from desperate; Except in Lisbon and Oporto,
the whole countiy north and south ecognised him as its King; and the short
experience that Lisbon had had of Pedroist rule was far from favourable. The
Regent posed as a victorious dictator, and, rejecting the counsels of
moderation, which were urged upon him by PalmeUa, and by Lord William Russell
who after the fall of Lisbon, had been accredited as British Minister to the
Court’ of Maria II, preferred to pursue a policy of reprisals and confiscation.
The Jesuits were expelled; the pcpal NunCio was requested
to withdraw;
and all who had served under the Absolutist regime were treated as enemies.
Napier, who was a strong adherent of the party of conciliation, scathingly says
of the new Government, which he had done so much to set up—“ one species of
tyranny was substituted for another; there was a change of men, none of
measures; they were rulers of a party, not of a kingdom....They thought
themselves masters and took no pains to conciliate.” To such an extent indeed
had the hallucination that he was already master of Portugal gained possession
of Dom Pedro, that on October 1 he issued a decree summoning the Cortes,
although his authority did not actually extend beyond the fortifications of the
two towns which he held in military occupation.
Thus passed
the autumn of 1833. The young Queen had arrived (September 22) from France
accompanied by the Empress. Dom Miguel with his main army in Santarem was
contained by the Constitutional army under Saldanha at Cartaxo. The garrison at
Oporto was threatened afresh by the Miguelist army of the north under d’Almar.
Both sides were grievously in want of funds, more particularly the Miguelists.
Both sides, and specially the Government of Dom Pedro, were distracted by
divided counsels and rival ambitions. The year 1834 was marked by more vigorous
operations. Saldanha advanced northwards to Leiria, which he captured (January
14), cutting off the enemy from Coimbra. At Pemes he gained (January 30) a
barren victory over a Miguelist force under Povoas. He followed this up by a
more important triumph at Almoster (February 18). The month of March saw Napier
at the head of a body of English marines and sailors disembarking at Caminha
and making himself master of the province of Minho. Another army under Terceira
penetrated by the Douro into Tras-os-Montes, where he was joined by a Spanish
force. This force had entered Portugal in virtue of the Quadruple Alliance
concluded (April 22) between Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Government
of Queen Maria, for the purpose of putting an end to the war and expelling Dom
Miguel from Portugal. The allied army encountered a retreating body of the
enemy (May 16) at Asseirceira, and after a brave resistance completely defeated
them. It was the last stand of the Miguelists.
Dom Miguel
was still at the head of 18,000 men at Santarem, but their spirit was broken.
He beat a hastv retreat to Evora-Monte, but only to surrender. A Convention was
signed (May 24); and on this occasion Dom Pedro, in opposition to the wishes of
many of his counsellors, showed himself magnanimous. The army was to lay down
its arms; but the officers, on taking their oath to the new Government, were
allowed to retain their posts, and the soldiers were free to return to their
homes. An amnesty was granted for political offence?, of whatever nature; and
there was to be no confiscation without sanction of the Cortes. By the terms of
the Convention Dom Miguel, though condemned to perpetual exile from the
Peninsula, was granted a life pension of sixty
1834] Miguel leaves Portugal.—Death of Pedro*.
337
contos
of reis—or about £1500 per annum. Nothing could have exceeded the incapacity
and errors committed from first to last by Dom Pedro and his adherents except
those actually committed by their opponents. Of the Pedroists the acute and
friendly critic, Napier, observes: “With regard to military measures or plans
they never had any....When they were shut up in Oporto, I am not aware of one
wise statesmanlike decree they issued, or one that had the least tendency to conciliate
the opposite party; and, when they arrived in Lisbon* there was hardly one
political act they did, that Dom Miguel would not himself have counselled them
to do in order to make Dom Pedro unpopular.” If then Dom Miguel, with all the
advantages of the devoted support of a united nation, and the possession of far
superior forces, failed to maintain himself on the throne, some idea can be
formed of the utter lack of all the qualities of successful leadership, in
himself, his generals, and his advisers. The fallen prince was too proud to
accept alms at the hands of his brother. He sailed on May 30, and at Genoa
issued a protest (June 20) against the enforced relinquishment of his rights to
the Portuguese Crown, and refused to take the pension. In thus accepting a lot
of poverty, which he afterwards bore with exemplary patience, Dom Miguel, as he
makes his exit from the page of history, commands a certain measure of respect
in his hour of misfortune.
On August 15
the Cortes assembled. Dom Pedro, who had for some time been suffering from
illness brought on by the excessive fatigues and privations of the past two
years, gave a long address in which he rendered an account of the events of his
regency, of the burden of which he asked on the ground of his health to be
relieved. The Chambers, however, insisted that he should retain his powers
during the minority of the Queen; and on the 29th at the Ajuda palace he took
the oath as required by the Charter. It was his last act. He retired to the
palace of Queluz to seek repose, but rapidly became worse, and, after some
weeks of severe suffering, expired on September 24. He had not yet reached his
35th year. The strangely adventurous career of the ex-Emperor and ex-King,
whose crowded life thus ended, while still in early manhood, in the hour of a
triumph as unexpected as it was complete, had throughout its changing fortunes
an element of the romantic, the eccentric, and the chivalrous. It was probably
a happy thing for Portugal, nay for Dom Pedro himself, that death came so soon.
A temperament so restless as his, after the stonn and stress of such varied
agitations and experiences, could scarcely , have found satisfaction in
retirement.
The short
dictatorship of Dom Pedro had been productive of lasting results. A succession
of decrees had given effect to the reforming and legislative ideas of the
minister Mousinho da Silveira, a really constructive statesman. Tithes were
abolished, hereditary rights and privileges swept away, the numerous
monasteries and convents were closed and
their
property nationalised, judicial and administrative functions were separated,
monopolies suppressed. The semi-feudal Portugal of history and tradition
disappeared in 1884, and Queen Maria II entered upon her, reign in a
transformed land. But there was no master-hand at the head of affairs, and in
an impoverished and backward country, which had just passed through so many
cruel vicissitudes, unrest, party spirit, and general discontent, were for a
lengthened period to hamper progress and render sound and stable government
impossible. The marriage of the Queen to Augustus, Duke of Leuchtenberg, son of
Eugene Beau- hamais and brother to Dom Pedro’s second wife (December 1, 1834),
was unfortunately followed by the speedy death of the new Prince Consort (March
25,1835). A second husband was speedily found for her in the person of the
youthful Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, the nephew of King Leopold I of Belgium; to
whom she was married on April 9,1836. They found themselves confronted by a
troubled situation and grave disorders.
There were
three main parties, whose struggles and intrigues filled up the whole of the
distracted reign of Maria II. The Chartists upheld Constitutional Government in
accordance with the provisions of Dom Pedro’s Charter of 1826; the
Septembrists, or democratic party, wished to revert to the principles of the
Constitution of 1822; the Miguelists. favoured absolutist rule and clerical
predominance in the State. The Queen at the time of her second marriage was but
17 years old, Ferdinand only 20. She was almost a stranger to Portugal, her
husband a foreigner both by race and training. In such circumstances it was but
natural that the young and inexperienced sovereign, though not lacking in
courage or in character, should have been swayed by the advice of a small Court
coterie composed chiefly of foreigners, or that she should have made mistakes
in her efforts to maintain the authority of the Crown amidst the rivalry of
self-seeking politicians, and the ceaseless strife of factions. The decades,
which follow the close of the war of succession, contain a dismal record of
insurrections and counter-insurrections accompanied by the rise and fall of
ministers. The briefest summary of the chief events that marked them must here
suffice.
The Chartist
leaders, Palmella, Saldanha, and Terceira, held the chief posts in the
Administrations of the first two years of Queen Maria’s reign. In September,
1836, a revolution took place at Lisbon, which placed the Septembrists under
Lumiares, Sd-da-Bandeira, and the brothers Passos in power. The Charter was
suppressed, and the Queen was compelled to take the oath to the Constitution
of 1822 (September 9-11). An attempt was made to shake off the yoke by a coup
d'etat planned in the palace of Belem, and known as the Belemzada; but it was
foiled by the energy of Manuel Passos (November 4). A Ministry was formed under
Sd-da-Bandeira, which remained in office until April, 1839, except for a short
interval in the summer of 1837. This year, 1837, was marked by a formidable
Chartist insurrection under Saldanha and
Terceira,
known as the revolt of the marshals. Several actions took place with varying
success, but at length the forces of the Government were victorious, and the
two marshals went into exile. On September 16, an heir to the Crown, afterwards
Pedro V, was born, and the title of King Consort was conferred upon Ferdinand.
In 1839 a moderate Ministry succeeded that of Sd-da-Bandeira under Count Bomfim
as president but with Costa Cabral, the Minister of Justice, as its moving
spirit. The return of a Chartist majority to the Cortes in the following year
was a sign that the ascendancy of Septembrist principles was at an end; but it
was not till January, 1842, that the counter-revolution was effected. The action
of Costa Cabral himself precipitated the issue. The Minister’s bold
pronunciamento at Oporto led to the restoration of the Charter. On February 10,
a decree reestablished the Charter of 1826, and a Cabral administration was
formed under the nominal presidency of the Duke of Terceira, which lasted until
April, 1846.
There can be
no doubt that in bringing about this revolution Costa Cabral by forcing the
hands of the Queen’s Government really acted in accordance with the royal
wishes. Henceforth as Minister of the Interior he wielded almost dictatorial
influence in the country. To him was due the new administrative code of 1842.
Against the Cabral regime there was a coalition of oppositions, Miguelist,
Septembrist, and dissentient Chartist; but for some years the Ministry was
strong enough to hold its own against all efforts to subvert it. But, though
many risings were successfully and firmly suppressed, the growing hostility to
the dictator at length came to a head in the revolutionary outburst of May,
1846; and Cabral, now Count of Thomar, had in his turn to give up office and go
into exile. But the revolution of Maria da Fonte, as this general rising is
usually called, was not to be appeased by the departure of the obnoxious
Minister. An insurrectionary Junta was formed at Oporto; and Saldanha, now at
the head of the Ministry, found himself unable to save the dynasty without the
assistance of a British squadron in the Tagus. The opening of the year 1847 saw
rebellion still rampant in the land, and defying throughout the spring the
efforts of the royal troops under Saldanha. Foreign intervention was invoked.
In June a Spanish and a British force marched upon Oporto and a British fleet
blockaded the Douro. The rebel city surrendered (June 30) and the Junta was dissolved.
The Convention of Gramido (July 24) brought to an end a civil war that had
caused widespread distress throughout the country. It left the Government
discredited, industry at a standstill, the State bankrupt. The closing months
of 1847 saw tranquillity restored in Portugal, but it was the tranquillity of
exhaustion.
THE GERMANIC
FEDERATION.
(1815-40.)
The Napoleonic domination in Germany had
been submerged by the strongest wave of really national feeling which Germany
had experienced since the early days of the Reformation; and for a year or two
statesmen as well as poets thought that this patriotic enthusiasm might find
permanent expression in a free, independent, and national German State, The
quarter of a century which followed the War of Liberation was, however, a
period of disillusionment, of hopes belied, promises broken, and reforms
deferred. Reaction set in; and in 1840 Germany seemed further off from union
and liberty than it had been in 1815. This result was natural, though unforeseen.
The German peasant who returned from Waterloo or Paris was more intent on
rebuilding his ruined cottage than on agitating for a vote; the middle classes
had enough to do in restoring German trade and manufactures ; while Prussian
and other statesmen were amply burdened with the task of assimilating the new
provinces with which recent events had enriched their sovereigns.
There were
other causes for the barrenness of the efforts towards progress and reform. The
chief was perhaps their lack of unity. It is difficult f°r a nation to deal
with more than one great constitutional problem at a time; yet Germany at one
and the same moment was confronted with nearly all the problems which England
took ten centuries to solve—the relics of feudalism, the relations between
executive and legislature, and between Church and State, and the strength of
centrifugal forces. This chaos of conflicting issues produced a similar confusion
of political parties. Some wished for German unity; Mettemich described it as
an “infamous object.” Of those who wished for unity, some desired it under
Austria’s hegemony, and Stein had tentatively suggested a revival of the Empire
in the House of Habsburg; a few saw salvation only in the predominance of
Prussia. Others again, regarding both Prussia and Austria as semi-foreign
Powers, wanted a purely Germanic federation; and a few desired a democratic
republic. Equally divergent were men’s conceptions of domestic government.
There were advocates of bureaucratic absolutism after the Napoleonic model;
old-fashioned
Conf usion of parties in Germany.
aristocrats,
hating both bureaucracy and other people’s liberties, and calling both
indifferently Jacobinism, demanded the restoration of the former system of
provincial Estates; while the Liberals desired popular representation, central
parliaments, and responsible Governments. The fall of Napoleon was interpreted
in two opposite senses; he was regarded by sovereigns as the embodiment of
revolution, by their subjects as the incarnation of tyranny; the former saw in
his ruin a justification of legitimist absolutism, the latter a vindication of
popular liberty. Patriotism was still local rather than national; Prussian
administrators found it easier to rectify the frontiers of a State than those of
a parish; and men whose souls transcended parochial politics became, as a rule,
cosmopolitan.
Yet there had
been a certain simplification of German particularism. The reduction in the
number of German sovereign States from three hundred to thirty-nine was not in
itself a great step towards unity; for the elimination of so many competitors
from the struggle for power sharpened the rivalry among those which survived;
and the vertical lines which divided Germany, while becoming fewer, grew also
deeper and clearer. But this territorial particularism was the Only one which
remained of importance. The horizontal lines were being obliterated; the
knights had disappeared as a political force; the free cities were now reduced
to four—Frankfort, the seat of the new Diet, Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck,
which owed their immunity not so much to any respect for municipal liberty or
conservative feeling as to their fortunate distance from the great acquisitive
Powers. The abolition of serfdom removed the greatest of class distinctions;
and, although the highest of State officials could not bring a biirgerlich wife
to Court, the divisions of caste were losing their political, as distinct from
their social, importance. Finally, Germany had—last but one of the countries of
Europe— destroyed the temporal power and absorbed the temporal domains of the
first of the medieval Estates, the Church.
Thus
territorialism had beaten all its enemies, and particularism had become
geographical and monarchical; for the republican and aristocratic
sovereignties, which had hitherto made up no small part of Germany, had now
been almost extinguished in favour of monarchy— a new-fangled sovereignty, as
Gtirres complained, which despoiled the Church, destroyed the aristocracy, held
the third Estate in bondage, and was the real Jacobinical and revolutionary
element in Germany. The most unpopular of these great sovereignties was
Prussia, who, as the Austrian President of the Diet unkindly reminded her, had
made her conquests at the expense of other German Powers. She had now taken
Austria’s place as the largest occupier of purely German soil. She had, indeed,
failed to secure the territorial continuity after which she hankered; and the
various agreements, not alvvays carried out, into which she entered with
Hanover and Nassau, for the construction
of military
roads, were but slight compensation. But she enveloped Germany as Austria had
never done; and to her, in virtue of her Rhine provinces, would now fall the
national duty of defending the fatherland against a French attack. As Prussia
and Austria had been developed out of the Nordmark and Ostmark by their duty of
protecting the medieval Empire, so the Imperial dignity was the reward of
Prussia s championship of modern Germany. The post of danger was also the post
of honour and profit. But it was not one of Prussia’s choice; Frederick William
III would willingly have bartered Rhine lands for Polish and Saxon territory,
and have thus involved Prussia in that condition of composite nationality
which weakened the rule and distracted the energies of Austria.
Austria was
no less short-sighted in this respect. Deliberately she shirked the duty of
defending the frontier of Germany, and with malicious satisfaction saw it
devolve upon Prussia: she preferred Venice to Belgium, Salzburg and the
Innviertel to Vorderosterreich, i.e. her lands between the Rhine and the Lech:
she recalled her far-flung western line, and retreated south-eastwards to
assume uneasy Italian and Slavonic dominions. She sacrificed her position in
Germany to her ambitions in Europe, and sought to withdraw as much of her
territory as possible from the Germanic Confederation. She was no longer an
essentially German State; and the efforts of her German rulers to control their
Hungarian, Slavonic, Czech, and Italian subjects consumed Austria’s energies
and undermined her position in face of her rivals. Both Prussia and Austria, in
fact, regarded territorial consolidation and scientific frontiers as the chief
bases of political greatness. The tradition of Frederick the Great was still
strong in his land; by drastic administration he had made Silesian and Polish
provinces integral parts of his realm; and his successors thought to extend the
process without any regard to other considerations. Religious diversity had
lost its importance; nationality had barely made itself felt; Europe was
measured out in so many thousand square miles and so many millions of souls,
and the individuality of peoples and provinces was entirely left out of
account.
The settlement
of 1815 had thus to some extent prepared the way for the events of 1866 and
1870-1; but Prussia had still a great work of internal development to
accomplish before she could throw down the gage to Austria, and as yet she
lacked the statesmanship to carry her through such a struggle. There were
Prussians who saw that the contest must come; but for the present subserviency
to, and not rivalry with, Austria was the dominant characteristic of Frederick
William’s policy. Such antagonism as there was in German politics was rather
due to the fear which south-German States like Bavaria, Wurttemberg, and Baden
felt of both Prussia and Austria; and the Liberalism, which these States
somewhat unexpectedly evinced, has been attributed more
to the
dislike of the military monarchies than to any love of constitutionalism for
its own sake. Wangenheim, the Wiirttemberg statesman, regarded Swabia as the
real heart of Germany, and projected a German league to check the semi-foreign
Austria and Prussia. Montgelas, the Bavarian Prime Minister, hoped to make
Bavaria the centre of this league, and tried to find a second Tilly in Marshal
Wrede. Baden, having no hopes of its own in this direction, was more national
in sentiment. The other German States could play but a subordinate part.
Hanover’s connexion with England tempered any German ambitions she might
otherwise have conceived; and a similar result attended the union of
Schleswig-Holstein with Denmark and of Luxemburg with the Netherlands.
Electoral and Grand-ducal Hesse, Nassau, Oldenburg, and the two Mecklenburgs,
followed for the most part the traditional idiosyncrasies of the petty German
Courts; but the Duke of Weimar, one of the four Thuringian-Saxon sovereigns,
made himself prominent as a patron of Liberalism; while Saxe-Coburg was
distinguished for the number of princes it exported.
The
dissolution of the old Empire in 1806 destroyed the last formal bond of unity
between these various States; but the Congress of Vienna called the Germanic
Confederation into being to fill the void. Thirty- eight sovereign Powers made
up the confederate body; Hesse-Homburg, which had been inadvertently omitted,
was included in 1817, but the number remained thirty-nine only until 1826, when
the line of Saxe- Gotha died out; The subsequent extinction of the Houses of
Anhalt- Kothen, Anhalt-Bemburg, and Hesse-Homburg (1866), and the surrender by
Hohenzollem-Sigmaringen and Hohenzollem-Hechingen of their sovereign rights to
Prussia, reduced the number to thirty-three before the dissolution of the
Confederation in 1866. Its object, as stated by its authors, was to guarantee
the external and internal peace of Germany and the independence and
inviolability of the Confederate States. Its members undertook to defend not
merely Germany as a whole, but each individual State in the case of attack, and
mutually guaranteed all those possessions which were included in the Union.
Austria, however, brought only its German States into the Confederation, so
that the Federal body was not pledged to the defence of Venice, Hungary, or
Galicia; and the Prussian and Polish provinces of the Hohenzollems were
similarly excluded. The Confederates bound themselves to make no war on one
another, but to submit their differences to the mediation of the Diet, and in
the last instance to the decision of a Court of arbitration (A
ustragalinstanz).
The organ of
the Confederation was to be a Diet in permanent session at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, in which every sovereign State should be represented.
This Diet (Bundestag) was to have an ordinary and a general assembly; in the
ordinary assembly there were to be seventeen delegates, one each for the eleven
chief States, Austria, Prussia, Bavaria,
the kingdom
of Saxony, Hanover, Wurttemberg, Baden, Electoral Hesse, Grand-ducal Hesse, Holstein,
and Luxemburg; one for the Grand-ducal and Ducal Saxon Houses; one for
Brunswick and Nassau; one for the two Mecklenburgs; oue for Oldenburg,
Anhalt-Dessaja, and the twp Sphwarzburgs; one for another group of petty
sovereigns; and one for the four free cities. But in the general assembly, or
the Plenum, every sovereign State was to have at least one vote; Austria,
Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover, and Wurttemberg had four each; Baden,
Electoral Hesse, Grand-ducal Hesse, Holstein, and Luxemburg three each;
Brunswick, Meeklenburg-Schwerin, and Nassau two each; the total number being
sixty-nine. The ordinary assembly was to pre? pace measures for discussion in
the Plenum, and to decide what business should be submitted to the fuller body.
But the Plenum, alone could determine questions relating to the fundamental
laws of the Confederation, its organic institutions, and “ other arrangements
of common interest.” The Austrian representative was tc preside in both
assemblies, and to have a casting vote; in the ordinary assembly a bare
majority was enough; in the Plenum there mUst be a two-thirds majority. But
whenever it was a question of “fundamental laws, organic institutions,
individual rights, or religious affairs,’- the Federal Act declared that a majority
should not suffice, either in the Plenum or in the ordinary assembly; although
not expressly stated, unanimity would then be indispensable.
Such was the
assembly which some men hoped would solve the problem of German unification.
Its legal and constitutional position was, however,: involved in ambiguity. The
foregoing provisions were embodied in the Acts of the Congress of Vienna, and
as such they were imposed by the authority of the Great Powers which had
assumed, as Wiirttemberg afterwards complained, the dictatorship of Europe,
formerly usurped by Napoleon. It is true that the committee, to which the
Congress had entrusted the regulation of German affairs, was exclusively
composed of German members; but the national committee derived its authority, from
the European Congress. Foreign. Powers sent envoys to Frankfort to watch the
proceedings of the Diet and see that it did not tamper with their work, the
Federal Act; and the Baden Minister, Hacke, welcomed their presence as a
safeguard and support of German sovereigns against Prussia and Austria. When
members began to discuss the Federal Act, as Cromwell’s Parliament did the
Instrument of Government, Count Johann Rudolf von Buol-Schauenstein, the
President, declared that the Act was like the Bible; they might expound it, but
they could not change it; it was fundamental law. Yet the Great Powers were not
the real obstacle in the Diet’s path. The Federal Act had made express
provision for the discussion by the Diet of fundamental laws, and indeed prescribed
the “ redaction ” of fundamental laws, as the first task of the Diet. When,
four years later, a notable addition was
lnade to the
Federal Act, it was done without the intervention or consent of foreign States.
It was not,
however, accomplished by the Diet, but by the German Cabinets; and it was from
them that the real resistance to the Diet came. The Federal Act and the Diet
were in fact a compromise between two conflicting policies. Both the party of
German unity, as represented by Stein, and the German Liberals, looked to the
Diet to achieve the union of the Fatherland. To them the Germanic Confederation
was a Bundes- staat; but Buol, at the opening of the first session of the Diet,
explained that Germany was not a Bundesstaat but a Staatenbund, not a federal
State, but a federation of States. The success of a federation depends upon the
extent to which each federating State is willing to delegate its sovereignty to
the federal authority; but the authors of the Federal Act took their stand upon
the indefeasible rights of hereditary sovereignty and would part with none of
them. The Diet was foredoomed to impotence; it represented solely the
particularist and centrifugal forces of Germany, and the American Congress
would resemble it if it consisted of a Senate only, without a House of
Representatives. It was in fact, like the Polish Diet, a diplomatic congress,
not a parliament. In the German, as in the Polish, Diet there was practically a
liberum veto and a system of mandats vmperatifs. Its members were simply the
nominees of the various Governments, and were absolutely bound by their instructions.
There was no constitutional machinery for executing the Diet’s decrees; and
resort to force was barred by the Federal Act. It was the duty of the Diet,
thought Mettemich, to abjure all intervention in disputes between sovereign
Princes and their subjects, even when those disputes related to such provisions
of the Federal Act as the promise of representative institutions; for “their
rights of sovereignty remain intact” and “the federal union simply tends to
secure to these rights an increase of strength and extent.”
. Such was
the general opinion of the Diet held by Governments which found in Mettemich
their ablest champion. The mere fact that the Liberals regarded the Diet as a
means towards German unity prejudiced Austrian statesmen against it, for unity
itself savoured of the one and indivisible republic. Some sort of federation
was necessary to protect Germany from French and Russian pressure; but it was
an evil to be kept within narrow bounds. To Mettemich the Germanic
Confederation was nothing more than a defensive league of German sovereigns
against toreign and domestic foes. Its external function was to protect the
German monarchs against the Jacobinism of the French and Russian Governments;
its domestic business was to save them from German Liberalism. Its organisation
was certainly better adapted for this puEpose than for those which Stein hoped
to see it accomplish; and, if this is to be regarded as the genuine function of
the Federation, it ivas in £. high degree successful. For more than a
generation Germany
kept
Liberalism at bay and escaped the ravages of constitutional government.
The Federal
Act fixed September 1, 1815, as the day on which the Diet should be opened; but
first Napoleon’s return from Elba, and then the threat of civil war in Germany,
postponed the execution of this clause. Bavaria was the cause of the latter
disturbance; she rebelled against Austria’s appropriation of Salzburg and the Innviertel
on the one hand, and on the other set up a claim to Baden’s share of the
Palatinate. The dispute with Austria, which nearly led to war, was, however,
settled by the Treaty of April 14, 1816, which compensated Bavaria for her
losses to Austria by giving her the Palatinate west of the Rhine and some
districts in the Odenwald. At length the Diet was opened by Count Buol in the
Thum and Taxis palace at Frankfort on November 5, 1816. The business awaiting
its consideration was as extensive as its powers were circumscribed; for the
Act of Federation was a programme rather than a constitution. The Diet was to
determine such questions as the freedom of the Press, the nature of the
constitutions to be introduced into the various States of the Confederation, the
formation of a federal army, the regulation of commerce, and in fact the whole
range of internal and external relations of Germany. But, before it had even
approached a solution of any one of these problems, it was to afford public
proof of impotence. The Elector of Hesse was perhaps the most arbitrary of
German Princes; and his determination to regard, as invalid every act done in
his territories since their incorporation in the kingdom of Westphalia involved
his subjects in intolerable hardships. In the eyes of the Liberals one of the
chief functions of the Diet was to guarantee German subjects against the
tyranny of Princes; and the grievances of the Hessian people were soon brought
to its notice. The Elector at once repudiated the Diet’s right to interfere,
and the Diet replied by ostracising Hesse’s representative at Frankfort and
requesting Austria and Prussia to withdraw their envoys from Cassel. Even Buol
denounced the Elector’s attitude, and asserted the Diet’s supremacy; and the
Prussian representative Goltz concurred. But both Buol and Goltz had acted
without consulting their Cabinets. Mettemich read Buol a lecture on the
impropriety of belittling the dignity of sovereigns; Prussia remained inert;
and the Diet was compelled to swallow its indignation and leave the Elector to
do what he liked with his own.
The Liberals
did not always lose by the Diet’s incapacity. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar had
promptly redeemed his promise by granting his dominions a Constitution in May,
1816, before the opening of the Diet. He was acting in the spirit of the
original draft of Article IS of the Federal Act, which had pledged every member
of the Federation to grant his subjects a representative constitution within a
year. But this promise had been emasculated by the omission of the time-limit,
and the substitution of “will” for “shall”; the clause became a prophecy
and not a
command; and, as Gorres complained, it was mangled and maimed until it
guaranteed to the German people no more than an “unlimited right of expectation.’’
The Diet, however, regarded the fulfilment of this pledge as a matter for its
own discretion, and resented Saxe-Weimar’s precipitancy as a bid for popularity
or a claim to superior virtue. It was still more annoyed when a petition for
the execution of this article was presented to itself. On this point the
Cabinets were almost unanimous; and even those which, like Wiirttem- berg, made
a show of Liberal sentiments to win the favour of the Tsar, secreth intrigued
against the Liberals at the Diet. The promise had been made on the eve of
Waterloo; there was no such hurry now; and sovereigns began to doubt whether
the popular energy, which had been evoked to destroy Napoleon, should be
perpetuated as a check upon themselves. Meanwhile the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar
was being hailed in the press as the only German sovereign who kept his word;
and a prompt and formal repudiation of the pledge would produce a bad
impression. The Diet, therefore, must neither affirm nor deny, but leave this
as a matter to be decided by the individual wisdom of princes.
A like fate
befell the eighteenth article of the Federal Act, which required the Diet to
draft a uniform law dealing with the freedom of the Press and the limits of
copyright. In the summer of 1817 Harden- berg had a memorial on this subject
prepared for discussion with Metternich. In it he made a distinction,
afterwards adopted by Metternich, between learned and scientific works and
journals or newspapers. Complete freedom for the former was to be combined
with an effective censorship of the latter. The Austrian Chancellor again
thought this a question for individual sovereigns to settle; and, although the
Diet appointed a commission to deal with the matter, it came to no decision
until other events had led Metternich to modify his attitude towards that body.
So long as Liberal sentiments found favour in the Diet, Metternich considered
it necessary to hold it in check. When in 1819 the reactionary spirit became
supreme, the Diet might be allowed the exercise of its powers. The one
conclusion of importance at which the Diet during these years arrived was to
deny to the “ mediatised” princes those collective votes in the assembly of
which the Federal Act had Viplrl out hopes. That achievement was not enough to
invalidate Gorres’ description of the Diet as “a central power which does not
rule, bat is ruled by, the separate parts; an executive wholly destitute of
authority, which cannot proceed against the refractory, and is not in a
condition to execute anything whatever because it can never obtain the
requisite unanimity; a legislature which will never investigate its own
competence; a judiciary which no one is bound to obey; an assembly which ever
seeks but never finds authority for its acts in an interminable weaving of
diplomacy.”
' Prussia was
not so obstructive as Austria* but she refused the lead against Metternich; in
Bismarck’s words, “ an open quarrel between their representatives at the
sessions of the Confederation was something Unheard of, and was avoided under
all circumstances as endangering the existence of the Confederation.” Prussia’s
aggrandisement at the expense of the other German States had made her
unpopular; and there was no Prussian party at Frankfort. Her influence was
further weakened by the injudicious action of Hanlein, who, on Stein’s refusal,
had been appointed Prussia’s first representative at the Diet. Convinced of the
futility of the Federation as organised by the Federal Act, Hanlein drew up a
scheme by which the Habsburg was to be always German Emperor and the
Hohenzollem German King; the two Great Powers would thus dominate Germany and
give substance to the Federation. Buol had only to communicate this project to
the smaller Courts to ensure its failure and Hanlein’s recall. He was succeeded
by William von Humboldt, who sought in vain to foster Prussia’s credit and soon
retired in disgust. Prussia’s chief object was the organisation of a strong
federal army. The military resources of the Confederation were considerable,
and a scheme was drawn up showing that the various States could furnish
contingents amounting to 300,000 men. But this was only a paper army, and there
was no guarantee that it would develop into an efficient fighting force in the
field. Prussia’s efforts in this direction were in vain; the minor German
States, and especially those in which Liberalism was strong, favoured a
peaceful cosmopolitanism. They feared that war would inevitably encourage the
preponderance of one or other of the two great military Powers, and consequently
advocated the neutrality of the Federation in European questions.
Particularism
and cosmopolitanism were natural allies against nationalism ; but Prussia
herself was by no means free from the particularism with which she charged all
the other German States. It was Prussia’s fault that two at least of the
unifying schemes which came before the Diet failed. One was the
Austragalordnung by which all the members of the Confederation were to submit
their mutual differences to arbitration—a provision which might have avoided
the wars of 1864< and 1866. But Prussia would only admit the principle of
arbitration so far as legal questions were concerned; political interests must
be determined as hitherto by diplomacy or the arbitrament of arms. The other
conflict arose over the article of the Federal Act which guaranteed to Germans
the right of Freizugigkeit; that is, that citizens of one State should become
citizens of any other State to which they might choose to migrate. Prussia
objected on the ground that civil and political rights could only be acquired
in Prussia by long service, and that it was impossible to concede to immigrants
greater advantages than those enjoyed by Prussian natives. Finally, the
Prussian Government—ip spite apparently of Frederick William’s
opposition—withdrew East and
West
Prussia and Posen from the Confederation. The object was to assure to Prussia
an international position independent of the Bund, and to remove her foreign
policy from Confederate control. Harden- berg even desired to exclude all
Prussia’s provinces east of the Elbe. Prussia, indeed, could not make up her
mind which policy to pursue— whether to identify herself so far as possible
with the Bund, or to hold aloof; and, while Prussian statesmen pursued in some
respects a separatist policy,' they bitterly denounced the indifference of
other German Powers to their schemes for a Federal army and Federal regulation
of commerce; So early as 1816 Humboldt had come to the conclusion that Prussia
could entertain no hopes of the Diet; that her policy must in future be to
interweave her north-German neighbours into her political and administrative
system; and that Berlin, not Frankfort, must be the centre of her 'efforts. . '
■ :
Humboldt was
right in regarding Berlin as more important than Frankfort: not merely because
the administrative activity of Prussia was destined to bear more fruit than the
debates of the Diet, but because Berlin was in reality the pivot of the
constitutional question. Whether Germany was to become constitutional or not
depended far more upon the action of Frederick William’s Government than upon
the votes of the Frankfort delegates. Austria, it was certain, would oppose to
the last any and every step in the direction of popular representation or of
parliamentary control over the executive; but the Tsar Alexander was still in
1815 what Mettemich called a Jacobin. Frederick William, who had not the
strength of mind to pursue a policy of his own, always oscillated between
Russia and Austria; but until 1818 Russian influence was greater than that of
Austria, and the probability seemed to be that Prussia would adopt a Liberal
rather than a reactionary course. In Gennady Prussia was in 1815 regarded as
the champion of Liberalism. Hardenberg, who shared with Stein the glory of
Prussia’s regeneration, was still Chancellor; he was generally supported by
moderate Ministers like Niebuhr and Humboldt, while there were some as advanced
as Beyme who advocated a single-chamber parliament, publication of debates,
representation of peasants, and trial by jury. The army was thought to be a
hot-bed of radicalism, and the landwehr a garde nationale. The terms of peace
had added to its discontent; Bliicher threatened to resign; Gneisenau’s
headquarters at Coblenz were described as a Wallenstein's Lager; Wellington
said that Prussia was in no sounder a condition than France; and the Tsar
thought he might yet have to rescue Frederick William from his own troops. The
liberation of Germany was ascribed to the enthusiasm of the people and not to
the wisdom of Governments, to the Freischaaren rather than to the regiments of
the line; and loud were the demands that these services should be recompensed
by the grant of popular representation and constitutional liberty.
350 Conservative Opposition. The Estates. [1815-8
On the other
hand there was a no less determined Opposition. This party originated in the
resistance to the abolition of serfdom; it was at first feudal and
aristocratic; and, so long as Stein and Hardenberg controlled the Government,
was anti-monarchical. It was also particularist in its resistance to the
national aims of the Liberals; “ a man cannot,” wrote Ferdinand Buchholtz, “ be
both a patriot and a feudal aristocrat.” But their common enmity to the
national German Liberals drew the aristocracy and the monarchy together; and,
while the Liberals grew ever more republican and democratic, the aristocrats
captured the Government and became monarchical in sentiment. Their leader was
Prince Wittgenstein, the confidant of Mettemich; he was supported by General
Job von Witzleben, who shared with Prince Charles of Mecklen- burg-Strelitz the
intimacy of Frederick William, and by Ancillon, who was half a Frenchman and
had been a protigk of Queen Louisa and Stein. Their great objects were to
prevent the fulfilment of Frederick William’s repeated promise of a
representative system, and to interpret in the narrowest sense the thirteenth
article of the Federal Constitution.
Both these
engagements contained various ambiguities; and the snarpest distinction was
drawn throughout the whole controversy between popular representation, such as
that long enjoyed in England and introduced into France by the Revolution, and
the old system of Estates which had existed in Germany since the Middle Ages.
These Estates had invariably been provincial, not national, in character;
voting par ordre and not par tete had been the rule; and their most extensive
privileges had been limited to the right of granting certain taxes. Generally
the Orders in these Estates had been close corporations, but there was every
variety in the numerous provinces, new and old, which Prussia possessed in
1815. In a few the peasants were represented; in some only the prelates, the
knights, and the cities on the royal domain; in Vorpommem the Swedish system of
four Orders prevailed. In the provinces which had come under Napoleon’s sway,
all these Estates had been abolished; in others they had fallen into abeyance;
in some they had never existed; in a few they still dragged out an ineffective
being. Did the promise of Frederick William and the article of the Federal Act
merely mean that Estates were to be confirmed where they existed, and created
where they did not ? Did it further imply that a central national parliament
was to be constructed out of these disjecta membra? Or, finally, was a tabula
rasa to be made, and a new system to be evolved, based on the abstract rights
of individual men and not on the territorial privileges of narrow corporations
?
There was a
fairly general agreement, in Berlin at least, that if there was to be such a
thing as German Liberalism, it must be historical and not abstract, and that
the constitutions, if ever they were to exist, must be linked with what had
gone before, On this point Stein and Gorres were of one mind; and Liberals of
the French school, like the Freiburg
professor
Rotteck, were in a minority. But within these limits there .vas room for wide
divergence. Beyme considered the old Estates as an offspring of medieval
darkness, which could not bear the light of modem days; while Klewitz and
Ancillon advocated their retention. The real controversy resolved itself, like
every other German issue, into a question of particularism against nationalism.
Should the representation of the people be provincial only, or should there
also be a central representative body? Hardenberg’s idea was that
representatives should be chosen from the provincial Estates to form a national
deliberative assembly. This was far enough removed from the Liberal ideals of that
day and from what is now regarded as self-government. It was not suggested that
this assembly should control the executive; it was not proposed that Prussia
should occupy a more advanced constitutional position than England did in the
sixteenth century. But even this was too revolutionary for most of the German
Governments; and, indeed, the obstacles to the practical application of the
scheme were well-nigh insuperable.
The Reichstag
or national legislature could obviously not be established until all the
provinces enjoyed the Landtage from which it was to be elected; and, before the
Landtage were organised, some sort of principles must be laid down for their
composition. Eventually in 1817 three commissioners, Altenstein, Beyme, and
Klewitz, were appointed to perambulate the provinces and ascertain the state of
public opinion on the subject. They were to ask two leading questions: whether
it was practicable and advisable to grant representation to the peasants as
well as to the nobles and citizens; and whether there should be a national as
well as a provincial system of Estates? It was not by any means a plebiscite;•
for, as a rule, only members of the existing Estates and notables were asked
for an opinion. Most expressed themselves in favour of provincial
representation, but many were against the superaddition of a national system;
“the notion,” wrote Kesselstadt, “of belonging to a great State is strange to a
great number of Prussia’s subjects.” Privileged classes wanted their old
privileges and their old provincial isolation. Some favoured, some opposed, the
representation of the peasants. The Polish provinces wanted an assembly which
should have power to decide as well as to discuss political questions; while in
the Rhine provinces there were all sorts of revolutionary ideas about second
chambers and methods of popular election.
Here was a
chaos out of which only a united, determined, and able Government could hope to
evolve any order; and the Prussian administration was divided, vacillating,
and without any statesman of the first rank. Hardenberg’s best days were over;
in 1819 Mettemich declared that he was “morally as well as physically in a
state of weakness bordering on childhood ”; but he clung to office with a
tenacity worthy of a better cause. The decay of Hardqnberg’s influence,
deprived the
Prussian
Government of all unity of direction. Frederick William him* self, whose most
active mental trait was, according to Mettemich, “ the repressive,” came more
and more under the reactionary influences which Stein, Hardenberg, and the Tsar
had temporarily counteracted; and the Austrian Chancellor records with
satisfaction the effect of the measures he took to “frighten” the Prussian Kin«
it the Congress of Aix-la- Chapelle. The retirement of Stein into private life
was emblematic of the fate of the forces which he had evoked. The heroes of the
War of Liberation became suspects of the Government. So early as July, 1815,
Schmalz, a Prussian jurist, had published a vehement attack on Arndt and Stein
denouncing the Tugendbund in the spirit of Mctter- nich, and repudiating the
idea that popular enthusiasm had anything to do with the victories of 1813.
Even the moderate Niebuhr was moved to wrath; and the debate waxed hot, till
the King intervened and imposed silence on both parties. He showed his own
sympathies by immediately conferring a decoration on Schmalz without consulting
Hardenberg. In January, 1816, the Rhenish Mercury, a paper which under Gorres’
editorship had done yeoman’s service in the causc of liberation, was
suppressed; and from that time Liberal dislike of Prussia as “the classic land
of Junkertum and militarism” revived. Through Wittgenstein Mettemich
insistently impressed his views upon the Prussian Government. “ A central
popular representative system,” he wrote in November, 1818, “ means the
disintegration of the Prussian monarchy....The King ought to go no further than
the formation of provincial Diets in a very carefully considered, circumscribed
form.” A constitution, he thought, was incompatible with a strong military
power. In the absence of a steady popular demand for constitutional reform, it
now needed only the conversion of the Tsar and the assassination of Kotzebue to
give the coup de grace to the promises of Frederick William and to the
thirteenth article of the Federal Act.
That there
was no such general demand is clear; it was almost impossible that the
scattered provinces of Prussia should unite for any purpose. Their
consciousness was only local and not national. Liberalism, moreover, has always
been an exotic on Prussian soil; even the most Liberal of Prussian men of
letters and affairs have made the State too much an idol to care for individual
liberty. To them the State is a paramount entity quite distinct from the people
who compose it. The explanation is not far to seek; nature, it has been said,
did not foresee Prussia, and Prussia is the work of man’s hands. Monarchy
created Prussia to an extent to which it created no other State. The monarch,
his army, and his civil servants, were the only bond of unity; nothing could be
done for Prussia as a whole except by them. The constitution itself, says
Treitschke, could not be the people’s work, but the free gift of the King; and
eveiy patriot who wished to serve his country must do so in the civil or the
military administration. Hence the
idealisation
of the State. Prussians preferred good government to selfgovernment, and made
a science of the service of the State, while Englishmen considered it a task
for intelligent amateurs.
It was in
administration that Prussia found her true vocation after Waterloo; and this
task was at least as essential as parliamentary government to German unity. In
1815 five and a half millions had been added to the original five millions of
Prussia’s population; and it took ten years before even the delimitation of
frontiers could be completed. These new subjects had hitherto lived under
eight or nine different systems of law. In the Rhine province—only one of the
nine in which the Prussian dominions were organised—the people regarded
themselves as belonging to four distinct nationalities; and it was circumstances
of this nature which made Prussian bureaucracy possible, justifiable, and even
necessary. In the newly-acquired Saxon and Polish territory Hardenberg had been
inclined to allow a considerable measure of autonomy so long as there was a
prospect of Prussia obtaining the whole of Saxony and the capital of Poland;
indeed, Prussia might in that case have been content with a personal union.
But, when only parts were acquired, they were almost necessarily assimilated to
the Prussian system, to differentiate them from Russian Poland and royal
Saxony. Posen was created a grand duchy, with Anton Radzivil, a Polish noble of
Jagellonian blood, as Governor; but the real ruler was the Oberprasident; and
Posen had no separate legal system. Yet Prussian Poland was happier than it had
been under its independent Kings and more fortunate in the end than the duchy
of Warsaw. Westphalia is compared by Prussian historians to an Augean stable,
the cleansing of which was entrusted to an able administrator in the person of
Vincke. In the Rhine province the Prussian Government made special efforts to
ingratiate itself; the Code Napoleon was retained, and taxation was light. But
the stoical inflexibility of Prussian bureaucracy was never popular. A
diplomatic blessing, wrote Gorres in 1819, had been pronounced on the union of
these provinces with Prussia, but so far Heaven had not confirmed it; and he
bitterly denounced the sale of the last remnants of the spiritual domains, the
suppression of spiritual foundations, and the removal of precious manuscripts
to Berlin. When, in 1818, the Emperor Francis went to the Congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle, the ovations with which he was received were an emphatic
demonstration against the Prussian Government. Some began to sigh for the good
old times of Napoleon, but even they could hardly have sighed for the lot of
their neighbours in Electoral Hesse. There can be little doubt that these provinces
gained immediately by their subjection to Prussia, instead of to their former
lay or ecclesiastical princelings; and they profited still more in the future
from the course of central administrative reform upon which Prussia now
entered.
354
Financial reforms. Internal free
trade. [1817-21
In the
highest sphere of Prussian government an important step was taken by the
establishment (March, 1817) of a Council of State (Stoats- rath) to exeri' se a
general supervision over the several departments, which in Austria still
remained without cohesion or control. It was to comprise the royal Princes, the
Ministers and heads of departments, the Field-marshals, generals in command,
and the oberprdstdenien of the provinces. In Germany, as in England, the first
years of peace were a period of distress; bad harvests and fioods intensified
the evils of an unsound financial system. The Prussian public debt in 1815 was
217,000,000 thalers, and the annual deficit was nearly 2,000,000 thalers.
Innumerable tariff-walls impeded trade more effectively than they protected
manufactures; there were sixty-seven tariffs in the old provinces of Prussia
alone, and they affected nearly three thousand different articles. Germany was
inundated with English goods, and prevented by her own restrictions from
offering effective competition. The nineteenth article of the Federal Act
required the Diet to regulate the commercial relations of the various German
States; and List, Nebenius, and other economists prepared schemes with this
object. But to expect a comprehensive treatment of the question from the
Federal Diet was vain; Hanover was bound to the commercial policy of England,
Schleswig-Holstein to that of Denmark, and Luxemburg to that of the
Netherlands; an international congress like the Diet could not deal with any
problem from a national point of view. Austria, moreover, clung to her old
system of provincial dues and customs; elsewhere, indirect taxes were made the
basis of the State’s finances, or separate classes were sep--< ately taxed
—all fatal obstacles to a national tariff policy.
Prussia must
therefore find a remedy for herself, although from the diversity of her
provinces her difficulties were exceptional. The credit for the financial
reform embodied in the law of May, 1818, belongs to Karl Georg Maassen, a
native of Cleves and a disciple of Adam Smith. His objects were to free
internal trade and so promote fellow-fee’ing among the various provinces; to
provide the State with fresh sources of revenue; and to afford Prussian industry
some protection against English preponderance without destroying the wholesome
stimulus of foreign competition. All internal customs were abolished; and
within the Prussian realm goods might be freely imported, exported, and
transported through the various provinces. Prussia thus became a great
free-trade area. With regard to external trade, import duties were not to
exceed ten per cent, on manufactured goods, and raw materials were to be free.
Further reductions were made in 1821, though transport duties on foreign goods
were kept high, in order to put pressure on other German States to adopt the
Prussian system. The outcry in the rest of Germany was great; smugglers stood
aghast. The smaller States fancied themselves threatened with a sort of economic
mediatisation. Prussia was charged with the grossest kind of- particularism,
with
isolating
herself from the rest of Germany and preventing a united commercial policy. In
reality the law of 1818 was one of the earliest and greatest triumphs of the
principles of Adam Smith; for the com laws and navigation laws were still in
full play in England. Maassen is now almost forgotten; but the free trade
petition from the City of London, presented by Alexander Baring (afterwards
Lord Ashburton) to the British Parliament in May, 1820, spoke of the “ sb ning
example which Prussia had set the world.”
Altenstein’s
administration of educational and ecclesiastical affairs was as intelligent as
Maassen’s treatment of the tariff question, though in education as in every other
department the service of the State was made the supreme object. The decay into
which Luther’s University of Wittenberg had fallen under the Saxon regime was a
good excuse for its incorporation with that of Prussian Halle, which had proved
its devotion to the Hohenzollems during its subjection to the kingdom of
Westphalia; but the chief motive, no doubt, was that the Saxon youth might
imbibe Prussian traditions at Halle, and not Saxon traditions at Wittenberg.
Similar reasons dictated the selection of secular Bonn oather than
ecclesiastical Cologne as the seat of the new University for the Rhenish
province. Altenstein’s transference to Breslau of the remnants of the
University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and his foundation of numerous gymnasia,
were less tinged with particularist motives. Metternich denounced these schools
as seed-plots of revolution, and declared in 1818 that “the whole institution
in every shape must be closed and done away with.” In his views upon elementary
education Altenstein was far in advance of the rest of Europe; his system was
based on three cardinal principles—universal and compulsory education, equal
treatment of religious faiths, and the apportionment of school- expenses among
all the heads of families in the school-district.
While
Prussia was thus laying the foundations of her future greatness, Austria’s
energies were exclusively confined to maintaining her past acquisitions. There
was considerable affinity between Frederick William III and the Emperor Francis
II; and a good understanding prevailed as a rule between Vienna and the
reactionary party at Berlin. But Austria lacked the patriotic enthusiasm which
the War of Liberation had evoked in Prussia. The popular movement against
Napoleon had come too soon in Austria; Stadion and Hofer failed where Stein and
Schill succeeded; and Austria fell back upon the old traditions. Every sort of
enthusiasm, except for the Emperor’s person, was discountenanced; and, when
Francis II was shown the draft of an address of recognition to his troops for
their services in the war, he struck out the word “Fatherland” wherever it
occurred, and substituted “my peoples” or “my State.” Austria was a monarchical
machine and nothing more; she could not be a nation. The territorial
consolidation, to which she had rsaci %cd her German future, was a barren gain,
because the racial ch. xi. 23—2
356
Conservatism necessary to Austria.
elements in
the Austrian dominions were too disjointed for any bureaucratic cement to bind
them in a stable edifice. Made by the marriage of princes, she was marred by
the discord of peoples. Progress along national lines, the only lines possible
in the nineteenth century, was impossible for Austria, for every development of
nationality threatened the Empire’s disruption. What national movements meant
to Austria was shown in 1848 when Croat fought Himgarian, and German fought
Czech, and all fought Italian, and when the Empire was only held together
because one national force neutralised another, and a balance of national antipathies
did duty for Imperial sympathy.
Hence
Conservatism was imposed on Austria by the very conditions of her being. The
force which threatened to disturb the status quo was the Revolution, “ the only
affair in Europe of any moment ”; and Austria, as “ a political body which
rests on uuchanging principles,” was, as Mettemich thought, providentially
charged with the duty of combating Liberalism in Germany and in Europe. The
weakness of the Liberal impulse in Austria made that task easier. Francis had
not hampered himself, like Frederick William, with promises of constitutional
reform. He was, it is true, bound like any other German sovereign by the
thirteenth article of the Federal Act; but according to Mettemich “ it was open
to every sovereign Prince to treat the subject as an affair of internal
administration”; and the way in which the Emperor of Austria treated the
subject is illustrated by his comments on Metter- nich’s draft of the Carlsbad
Decrees. “ I think,” wrote Francis, “ it would be best that every State, which
has still no representation by Diet, should have the bestowal of it
deferred....I hesitate to grant to the Diets a share in legislation, or to
grant the proposed assembly of deputies from the provincial Diets.” Austria was
not, of course, without provincial Estates. “ I also have my Estates,” said
Francis. “ I have maintained their constitution, and do not worry them; but if
they go too far I snap my fingers at them or send them home.” These Estates
were, as a rule, no trouble to the Emperor and no comfort to the people. They
were framed on patriarchal principles; and it was only in Hungary and
Transylvania, where the opposition was rather particu- larist and medieval than
Liberal and modern, that the Government had any cause for anxiety.
Nor did
Austria redeem this antiquated attitude towards constitutional government by
bureaucratic enlightenment. Mettemich was apparently conscious of the evils of
her administrative anarchy; but the only practical remedy he proposed was the
organisation of the domestic government of all the Austrian provinces, except
Hungary and Transylvania, under one Minister. No such thing as a Cabinet in
the Elngl) h sense existed. Each department went its own way or rusted in its
own groove, with an occasional admonition from the Emperor. The vaunted
Austrian “ system ” was systematic ineptitude; and the
Emperor’s
principle of government, it has been said, was to give no service its full
reward, no faculty its complete development, no man his right role. Every force
was discouraged lest it should grow too strong. The army was distrusted; “ It
is right,” said Francis, “ to use a general in the field, but we must not
permit him any influence in times of peace”; the best of his generals,
Schwarzenberg and Radetzsky, and the most capable of his brothers, the
Archdukes Charles and John, were denied the Imperial confidence. The one idea
of the Emperor Joseph II which his nephew firmly grasped was that the Church
was a branch of the civil service; and Mettemich boasted that no Court was
freer from the dictation of Rome, while he regarded Bible-reading among the
masses as a dangerous epidemic, and dreaded Alexander’s mysticism almost as
much as his Jacobinism. Industry and commerce were left to languish; an attempt
at reforming taxation was made, but in the interests of the grtat landholders,
who escaped their proper share of the national burdens. A national bank was
founded in 1816; but for the relief of financial embarrassments Mettemich
preferred to rely on the private favours of the brothers Rothschild. The
schools founded or reformed by Joseph maintained a beneficent activity; and the
proportion of the population in receipt of elementary education, though only
half as great as that in Prussia, was yet greater than that in England. But the
Universities, literature, and higher education met with little encouragement. “
He who serves me,” said the Emperor to the staff of the Laibach Lyceum, “ must
teach what I command ”; and University professors were subjected to the
particular attentions of a detestable police system administered by men of the
dubious character of Count Sedlnitzsky. The charge of neglecting literature is
not refuted by the presence in Austria of competent publicists like Gentz,
Pilat, Adam Muller, and Friedrich Schlegel, for they were governmental servants
enlisted abroad to defend Austrian policy in the eyes of foreign critics. “No
Government,” wrote Mettemich, “can pursue a firm and undeviating course when it
is daily exposed to the influence of such dissolvent conditions as the freedom
of the Press”; and the press in Austria was a department of the chancery. When
Mettemich in 1817 appointed the editorial staff of the Jahrbucher der
Literatur, he informed them that he would look after the political part himself;
and he often dictated the articles in the Austrian Beobachter.'
Both in
domestic and foreign affairs the Austrian conception of statesmanship was
purely negative. “ As for policy,” wrote Mettemich, “Austria frames none...our
policy is exclusively confined to the maintenance of treaties and of the public
repose.” “Govern and change nothing” was a lesson solemnly inculcated in the
will of Francis II. “We follow,” Mettemich explained to Palmerston, “a system
of prevention in order that we may not be compelled to follow
one of
repression....We are firmly convinced that any concession a Government may be
induced to make strikes at the basis of its existence....Concessions properly
so called can only have to do with rights of sovereignty...they can only be
made by a sovereign at the expense of the capital of his own existence.” Both
Mettemich and Francis II had some inkling of the fact that they were defending
a losing cause. “ My realm,” said Francis in an unguarded moment to a Russian
diplomatist, “is like a worm-eaten house; if one part is removed, one cannot
tell how much will fall.” “ After all,” wrote his Chancellor, “ the thought I
secretly entertain is that ancient Europe is at the beginning of the end ”; and
again he wrote: “ I have come into the world either too early or too
late....Earlier, I should have enjoyed the age; later, I should have helped to
reconstruct it; to-day I have to give my life to propping up the mouldering
edifice.”
Prevention
was the sum of Mettemich’s domestic policy; and his foreign policy was its
repetition on a more extended scale. He regarded himself as a European chief
commissioner of police; and the coolness, tenacity, and subtlety of his
diplomacy secured for Austria a temporary I iredominancf; in Europe to which
she was not entitled by material resources. He has been charged with failing to
foresee the revolution of July; no charge could be more unjust. “France,” he
wrote in 1828, “is lost....The institutions she possesses do not suit her, and
they will fall to pieces. But many things, even the throne, may fall before
they do. For France there is nothing but the Republic or the Empire....It is
possible that France may have yet once again to pass through confusion to
arrive at order.” It was not his diagnosis but his prescriptions which were at
fault. From the point of view of means and methods his chief limitation was his
exclusive reliance on diplomacy as the support of the Austrian system; skilled
in the use of his materials, he neglected to render them sound. That, it is true,
was not his department; he was not really a Prime Minister in the English
sense, and it was not entirely his fault that there was such a glaring contrast
between the grandiose schemes hatched in the Austrian chancery and the lifeless
pedantry of the rest of officialdom. Personally Mettemich had many domestic
virtues, and the charges of malversation brought against him after his fall
must be somewhat discounted. He was no bigot, still less an Ultramontane, and
he read his Bible in Luther's translation, “the best,” he said, “which has ever
been made in any country,” The French characterisation of him as Jin, faux,
fanfaron is the verdict of an enemy piqued by Metternich’s complete overthrow
of French domination in Italy.
While Austria
threw her whole weight into the scale against constitutional progi’ess, and
while Prussia halted between two opinions, the south-German States, Bavaria,
Wiirttemberg, and Baden, from various motives took the lead in the Liberal
cause. The complexity of the
problem was
not so great for them as for Prussia; Napoleon had cleared the ground by
sweeping away the old Estates, and revolutionary principles had made some
headway among the population. In Bavaria the accession of the Zweibriicken line
in the person of Maximilian Joseph (1799-1825) had introduced a policy of
religious toleration; and the acquisitions of Bavaria during the Napoleonic
rigime brought fresh elements into the most conservative of German States. The
King himself was popular, had French sympathies, and after 1815 left the French
administrative system almost untouched. His Mi 0 ;er, Mont* gelas,
the founder of the modem Bavarian State, was a cool politician who cared little
for German unity, and wished to sow discord between Prussia and Austria, hoping
to draw profit therefrom for himself and his master. He initiated a reform of
schools and Universities, and abolished serfdom in theory, though many of its
burdens remained. But he was a bureaucrat, not a Liberal; and his centralising
policy weighed heavily on the local independence of the Gemeinden. He regarded
the King and the administration as the real representatives of the people, and
declared that the Germans did not understand lepresentative government. His
constitutional commission reported in favour of an Upper House consisting of
state councillors and a Lower House nominated by the King from a number of
candidates chosen by an indirect and circumscribed method of popular election.
Tenants and peasants were to be excluded as being represented by their
landlords; and in certain cases the King was empowered to levy taxes on his own
authority. This farcical constitutional project was rejected through the
influence of the Crown Prince Ludwig; and Montgelas acquiesced in this
decision, as it afforded an excuse for letting the question drop and leaving
his bureaucracy unchecked. The outcome of his efforts to erect a Bavarian
national Church on the ruins of the Papal system in Germany has been shown in
an earlier chapter of this volume.
The popular
indignation, with which the Concordat was received, suggested that the best way
out of the difficulty was to grant a Constitution and shift the responsibility
on to the shoulders of a legislature. Other motives worked in the same
direction. There was a financial deficit which a parliament might repair; and
Bavaria was competing for popular and Russian support in its contest with Baden
about the Palatinate. She began to dream of seizing the Liberal lead which was
slipping from Prussia’s hands, and of heading a confederation of Liberal States
against the reactionary military monarchies. Baron Zentner, whom Mettemich
afterwards described as “the father of the Bavarian Constitution ” and “ the
first defender in Germany of the representative system,” now took Montgelas’
place. He thought that bureaucratic absolutism could be combined with
constitutional forms; and under his leadership the work of drawing up a
Constitution was completed by May, 1818. This constitution established legal
equality and comparative freedom of
the Press.
The Upper Chamber was to contain some royal nominees, but the majority was to
be elected by the nobility and upper classes. In the Lower Chamber half the
deputies were to be elected by the peasants, a quarter by the towns, and a
quarter by the smaller gentry and clergy. On the other hand the electoral
system was complicated; the Diet was to have no initiative; it was to meet but
once in three years, and discuss the budget but once in six. More important
were the provisions for local government; the Gemeinden were to have the
disposal of their property and the free election of their local officials.
Self-government in some degree was thus granted both for the higher and lower
ranges of political administration. At the same time an edict was promulgated
which “ interpreted ” the Concordat by repudiating its intentions and
reaffirming the previous condition of ecclesiastical affairs. It was a victory
of the temporal over the ecclesiastical power, and for a few months Bavaria
enjoyed the felicity of being celebrated in the press as the most Liberal of
German States.
In
Wiirttemberg the course of constitutional progress was not so smooth, although
it enjoyed greater initial advantages. The old Diet (Landtag) of the country
had exercised quite exceptional powers; its permanent committee at Stuttgart
was the real sovereign of the land; and Charles James Fox declared that no
European constitution deserved the name save those of England and of
Wiirttemberg. Ecclesiastically Wiirttemberg was the strongest hold of Lutheranism;
and Bunsen declared that it was the only country in which the Lutheran Church
had a “ living constitution.” It had inherited almost intact the old
possessions of the medieval Church, administered an excellent system of
schools, and produced an almost puritanic condition of morals. But the
extension of Wiirttemberg southwards and westwards by the grace of Napoleon
brought Catholic elements into the State and destroyed the Lutheran privileges.
The last Duke and first King of Wiirttemberg, Frederick, the worst and ablest
of his race, adopted Napoleonic maxims, abolished the Estates, created a new
army, introduced bureaucratic absolutism, and established religious equality.
His tyranny excited general disgust, which Frederick thought to disarm, on
Napoleon’s fall, by the promise of a constitution. This document was
promulgated in May, 1815, was universally denounced as worthless, and
unanimously rejected by the Estates. In vain the King appealed to England,
Prussia, and Denmark, against his subjects. Even Mettemich withheld support;
and, with the exception of the Munich Alemannia, the whole German press
attacked the King. As a concession to public feeling, Wangenheim was admitted
to Frederick’s Cabinet; and on his recommendation the King promised a revision of
all laws passed since 1806, unlimited right of the Estates to grant or withhold
taxation, and the responsibility of all public servants. The Estates were not
satisfied; they wanted only one Chamber; Wangenheim proposed two. Wangenheim
was something
of a philosophic
Liberal; the Estates were, like the poet Ludwig Uhland, all for das alte gute
Recht; but other men of leading such as Cotta and Hegel now sided with
Wangenheim.
The death of
Frederick, which occurred on October 30, 1816, somewhat eased the situation.
His successor William, capable, ambitious, and arrogant, was nevertheless
popular; and still more so was his shortlived wife, Catharine, the sister of
the Tsar. William wished to emulate the Liberal fame of his brother-in-law, and
in March, 1817, considerably improved upon the last concessions of his father.
But he was now seeking to conciliate, not a people, but an intractable clique;
and, although almost the whole nation was in favour of his scheme, it was once
more rejected by the aristocrats and the clergy who formed a majority of the
Estates. The Diet was thereupon dissolved; and William said that, while carr;
tig out his other promises, he would on the question of the Constitution await
the resolutions of the Federal Diet. This meant a long period of expectation,
and in the meantime the King ruled absolutely. Serfdom was legally abolished,
and some of the lords’ privileges were surrendered; the right of free
emigration was accorded; and effective measures were taken to relieve the
agricultural distress consequent upon the floods and famine of 1817-8. But
William with use acquired a taste for absolutism, and secretly worked for the
nullification of the thirteenth article; while the folly of the Landtag enabled
the German reactionaries to point to Wiirttemberg for a confirmation of their
views, and to say that even under the most Liberal of monarchs a constitution
was unworkable.
Baden, the
last of these three south-German States, had hitherto played an insignificant
part in German history; but the dominions of the margravate had been increased
tenfold under the long reign of Charles Frederick (1749-1811). These
acquisitions consisted mainly of Vorder- osterreich, of gleanings from the
bishoprics of Constance, Strassburg, and Speyer, of the Palatinate on the right
bank of the Rhine, of free cities, and of the lands of mediatised princes. It
was an artificial . creation without a history, and Rotteck was a typical
representative of its unhistorical, doctrinaire Liberalism; but no part of
Germany was so free from particularism or from jealousy of Prussia. Its
position on the Rhine and its own weakness made it look to Federal strength for
protection against France. But its first difficulties were with Bavaria, which
coveted Baden’s share of the Palatinate and set up a claim to Baden itself on
the contingent extinction of Charles Frederick’s issue by his first wife. The
new Grand Duke Charles married Stephanie Beauhamais, but his sons died while
his daughters survived. His father, however, had contracted a second marriage
with the Countess von Hochberg, which Bavaria denounced as unebenbiirtig,
denying utterly the children’s right of succession.
The young
Grand Duke’s position was also confronted with popular
discontent
favoured by the absolutist system which he had introduced with his French wife;
and he was compelled to consider the question of granting a Constitution. A
dispute as to whether it should comprise one or two Chambers caused delay ; and
in July, 1816, Charles announced that he would not commit himself until the
Federal Diet had come to some conclusion in the matter. Public indignation
revived, and the situation was complicated by ecclesiastical disputes with the
Papacy. The Grand Duke was a Protestant, but two-thirds of his subjects were
Catholics. Some of these, like Heinrich von Wessenberg, the Vicar- General of
Constance, dreamt of a national German Church; and at Frankfort a conference of
deputies from the smaller German States was held under the presidency of the
Wurttemberg Minister Wangenheim to press this scheme. But Austria and Prussia
held aloof; a national German Church was almost inconceivable without a
national German State; and in any case the rising tide of ultramontanism would
have made the plan impracticable. Meanwhile the Bavarian danger grew more
threatening. Berstett, the Grand Duke’s Minister, persuaded him in October,
1817, to issue a Hausgesetz asserting the indivisibility of the Baden
dominions, and the succession rights of the Hochberg line, which were
recognised by the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in November,
1818. Metternich thought that this smacked of
French republican ideas; and Bavaria broke off diplomatic relations. Public
opinion, however, favoured Baden; and, to maintain the good impression as well
as to earn the respect of the Tsar, the Grand Duke of Baden improved upon
Bavaria’s example and not merely promised but granted a Constitution. It was
drawn up by Nebenius, and signed in August, 1818. Alexander’s Polish
Constitution was taken as a model. The nobles were gratified by the creation of
an Upper House; the towns were to have 22 representatives and the country
districts 41; and every other year the Diet was to have an opportunity of
discussing the budget.
The
constitutional question in other German States exercised less , influence on
German histoiy. Repeated subdivisions of Nassau had gone So far that at one
time its eighty-five square German miles of territory were governed by
twenty-seven independent sovereigns, two of whom, one a Catholic, the other a
Protestant, ruled over the two halves of the town of Siegen. All these lines
died out except that of Weilburg; but common feeling had been weakened, and
common constitutional action was impossible. The Nassau Diet was first opened
in 1818; Stein was excluded from the Upper House; and the Gememden were denied
the usufruct of the domain forests. This necessitated the introduction of
poor-rates; and the consequent discontent led to violence which afforded an
excuse for the abrogation of the Constitution. “Thus,” complained Gorres,
“there was here established a pattern-State of the new constitutional school by
which all men are made equal in one common servitude.” In Hesse-Darmstadt the
grant of a constitutional
system was
deferred from year to year notwithstanding popular demands. In Hesse-Cassel the
Elector paid even less regard to the feelings of his subjects; the old avarice,
the old military system, the old judicial abuses returned. Saxony and
Mecklenburg had to be content with the merest ruins of a feudal system of
Estates, which possessed only deliberative powers and exercised no control over
the finances; and ir. Schleswig- Holstein agitation centred round a prolonged
dispute between the old Estates and the Danish King, who wished to reduce his
duchies to conformity with his kingdom. A more general representative system
prevailed in Hanover, where the land-tax was equalised, and exemptions and
torture were abolished; but the nobility were supreme and the deliberations of
the Estates were secret. Northern Germany acquiesced in the ancient ways, until
a breath from the Revolution of 1830 passed over the land.
The net
result of the movement for constitutional progress was a bitter disappointment
to that portion of the German people which took an interest in public life. The
Federal Diet had practically confessed its incapacity to justify the confidence
reposed in it by popular opinion; and the individual Governments, with the
exception of Bavaria, Baden, and Saxe-Weimar, had failed no less signally to
solve the problem. Energies which might have been directed into constitutional
channels were diverted into the paths of revolution or retired into abstract
speculation ; and the two were not uncommonly combined. When statesmen and
politicians declined the leadership of progressive opinion, it fell into the
hands of professors and men of letters. The Universities and gymnasia became
the centres of political agitation; professorial chairs were turned into
platforms, lectures into harangues, and classes into public meetings. The
revolutionists, complained Mettemich, conscious that the adult generation would
not serve their nefarious project of German unity, turned “ their attention to
those who are to be educated, a plan which commends itself even to the most
impatient, for the student generation includes at most a period of four
years....A whole class of future State officials, professors, and incipient
literary men, is here ripened for revolution.” The intellectual atmosphere of
Germany was indeed charged with electricity; but it was the repressive conduct
of Governments which gave a political direction to the storm. The dominant
tendency of thought after 1815 was a Romantic reaction against the sceptical
and Utilitarian doctrines of the encyclopedists, and Friedrich Schlegel, Adam
Muller* and Haller, found a vogue for their almost medieval ideas. But the more
Liberal disciples of Fichte were by no means party politicians; and the famous
Burschenschaft system, which gave nightmares to Mettemich, originated in June,
1815, in a desire to place before German youths a nobler ideal of life than was
afforded by the Lamdsmarm- schaften. The virtue of the latter in Mettemich’s
eyes consisted in their provincial and particularist organisation, the vice of
the former in its
neglect of
these distinctions; German students might be allowed to organise in Saxon,
Swabian, Bavarian, and Franconian societies; but to create a national union
savoured of revolution. When the Burschen- schaft first took a political colour
it was merely a Teutonic protest against French fashions and French ideas, an
object which might have appealed even to Mettemich.
The centre of
this movement was the University of Jena, which enjoyed the patronage of the
Liberal Duke of Saxe-Weimar; and Jena, owing to the freedom of its
printing-press, became also the centre of an outburst of journalistic fervour.
Here the Isis of Oken, the Nemesis of Luden, Ludwig Weiland’s Friend of the
People, and Martin’s New Rhenish Mercury attacked the ineptitude of the Federal
Diet and the repressive activity of Mettemich, and preached the doctrines of
liberty and national independence. The effervescence came to a head at the
Wartburg festival (October 18, 1817), which the students of Jena organised as a
joint celebration of the Reformation and of the battle of Leipzig. There were
prayers and sermons, then<a dinner and toasts to Luther and to the Grand
Duke, and finally a bonfire. In imitation of the Reformer, Massmann, the master
of the revels, committed to the flames emblems of reaction, militarism, and
French fashions—Schmalz’ pamphlet, Kotzebue’s German History, and other
obnoxious works, a corporal’s cane, a pig-tail, and a corset. It was for the
most part a youthful indiscretion; but, when professors like Kieser could say
that for genuine significance the demonstration had never been surpassed, there
was perhaps some excuse for the alarm of Courts and Cabinets* Richelieu wrote
from Paris to enquire whether it was a revolution; Frederick William sent
Hardenberg to make enquiries on the spot; and Mettemich experienced the joy of
a justified prophet of evil.
The affair
was not in fact entirely innocuous. Nor did it stand alone; there was a tumult
at Breslau, a sanguinary affray among the students at Gottingen, a religious
disturbance in Saxony, and in Swabia a refusal to pay the taxes; while Karl
Follen had a plan of assembling a mob on the field of Leipzig and proclaiming a
German republic. But the danger was mainly of the Government's own manufacture.
They dammed a river and made a flood, and then, to save their property, were
driven to further damming. In this work they now received the invaluable
assistance of the Tsar, The real cause of Alexander’s change of views is
somewhat of a mystery; possibly the free-thinking tendencies of some German
Liberals alienated him more than their political tenets. At any rate, the
dissolution of religious ideas was one of the principal causes alleged for the
present discontent by the Moldavian Stourdza in his memoir on the condition of
Germany, which so impressed the Tsar that he had fifty copies printed for
private circulation among the sovereigns and statesmen at the Congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle. The immediate cause of the revulsion in Alexander’s
mind is said
to have been his discovery in June, 1818, of a conspiracy among his troops
which reminded him of the fact that his father had been the victim of a
military plot. Whatever the cause, the effect was to remove the only barrier
against repression in Europe, to bring Russia and consequently Prussia into line
with Austria, arid to assure to Mettemich a dominant position in Europe and
almost a dictatorship in Germany.
In the
Universities and the Liberal press the Tsar was regarded as a traitor to the
cause of progress, and the consequent resentment led to an act which
intensified the reaction. The sentimental poetaster, Kotzebue, was at this time
conducting a reactionary weekly journal, in which he announced that Stourdza’s
pamphlet, brought to public notice by the enterprise of the London Times, was
to his certain knowledge an official document. He had been more than once in
Russian employ; he was now denounced in Luden’s Nemesis as a Russian spy on the
journalists of Germany, and, according to Gentz, was even credited with the
principal, if not the exclusive, responsibility for Alexander’s apostasy. He
had himself been a student at Jena, and apparently a Liberal, but now his paper
was filled with attacks on the Universities even more offensive than Stourdza’s
pamphlet; and enthusiasts regarded him as “ a poisoner of souls,” whose removal
was a public duty. On March 23,
1819, Karl Sand, a student of Jena, a lecturer
to the Burschenschqft, and a youth of exemplary conduct and extremely pious
sentiments, called upon Kotzebue at Mannheim, and stabbed him to the heart. The
deed, and still more the palliation of it by men like Gorres, led Gentz and
Mettemich to assert that the real culprits “were Fries, Luden, Oken, Kieser,
and others of the same class, of whom the Universities must be purified at any
price.” But the effects were felt in wider circles than the Universities. A
Prussian constitution, exclaimed Hardenberg, was now impossible. He had
struggled at Berlin against the feelings of the King, and had fought a drawn
battle so long as Frederick William wavered between the influence of Alexander
and that of Mettemich. But now Russia had approached the Austrian point of
view; the Prussian King would never set himself in opposition to the two; and
the prospect of a Prussian constitution vanished.
Mettemich was
at Rome when the news of Kotzebue’s murder reached him. He imposed a dignified
silence upon the Beobachter; others would now be loud enough in saying what
Austria had said all along. But he was prompt to take advantage of the
situation. “You will observe,” he writes, “ a singular coincidence between the
discoveries and arrests in Prussia and Germany, and my passage of the Alps.”
Arndt and the brothers Welcker were suspended from their professorial chairs;
Jahn was imprisoned; and even Gneisenau, Stein, and Boyen were placed under
police surveillance. In the panic of the moment Mettemich was sure of a
majority even in the Federal Diet. The
only
exception was the Duke of Saxe-Weimar—Oberbnrsch as he was nicknamed at the
Diet—who, in spite of recent events, declared through his envoy at Frankfort
that freedom of thought and teaching must continue at the Universities; and
even he was forced by Hardenberg to limit the freedom of his press and
prosecute his professors. The Diet might now be made to serve the cause of reaction.
But it must be impelled by the Cabinets; and Mettemich proposed a meet ig of
the Ministers at Carlsbad. He prepared the ground by a personal conference
with Frederick William at Teplitz in July, 1819. There, reinforced by a fresh
argument in the shape of the attempted assassination of the Nassau Minister,
Ibell, Mettemich impressed upon the Prussian King the necessity for vigorous
measures. According to his own account, he represented Prussia as the centre of
a wide conspiracy; only the subordinates had been discovered, the heads were “
without doubt to be found among the highest ranks of you* Majesty’s servants.”
But Austria would come to Prussia’s rescue “ if your Majesty is determined not
to introduce any representation of the people into your kingdom, which is less
fitted for it than any other,” and if, it was hinted, Frederick William would
only give his confidence to worthy Ministers, like Wittgenstein and BemstorfF.
At Mettemich’s suggestion, these two were associated with Hardenberg in a further
conference, when the programme for the Carlsbad meeting and for a subsequent
gathering at Vienna was arranged. Prussia surrendered to Mettemich’s dictation;
she agreed to the suppression of the licence of the Press, to the appointment
of a commission for the visitation of the Universities and the removal of
recalcitrant professors, and to the creation of a special judicial body to
investigate, in the name of the Confederation, the supposed conspiracy against
the Governments. The subsequent gathering at Vienna was to consider among other
questions the “ correction of the thirteenth article of the Federal Act.”
Prussia also undertook to grant no popular representation; and a few months
later Humboldt, Boyen, and Beyme, who had protested against the Carlsbad
Resolutions, were forced to resign. Hardenberg effaced himself, and died in
1822; and the Wittgenstein party gained almost complete control. “All danger,”
wrote Mettemich, “ is for the moment averted."
Sure of the
support of Prussia, and no longer fearing the Liberalism of the Tsar, the
Austrian Chancellor could view with equanimity any opposition which might be
raised at Carlsbad by Bavaria or Baden. Both those Governments had begun to
relinquish their constitutional zeal as soon as the settlement of the quarrel
between them had rendered them less eager for popular favour; and, as a matter
of fact, the discussions at Carlsbad passed off with so little friction that
at the close (September 1,1819), Mettemich’s colleagues tendered to him a
“unanimous expression of unbounded respect and gratitude.” The labours which
earned this testimonial are held to have fettered opinion and
1819] The Carlsbad Decrees.—Conference at Vienna.
367
postponed
constitutional liberty in Germany for a generation. The conclusions faithfully
followed the lines laid down at Teplitz, and they were recommended to the
Frankfort Diet by identical instructions from the various Cabinets to their
deputies. The model was Mettemich’s despatch to Buol. He called attention to
the prevalent evils and errors, to the various interpretations placed upon the
thirteenth article, to the incorrect ideas of the powers of the Federal
authority, to the defects in Universities and schools, and to the abuses of the
press. “ The grounds,” he remarked, “ which had formerly decided the Federation
not to interfere in the affairs of single States, must now make way for higher
considerations.” The Federal Diet must be recognised as the supreme
legi&'Mive authority, and local legislatures must not oppose it.
After all,
Mettemich could be an opportunist: and even the sacred rights of sovereigns,
when they were Liberal, must bend before the Diet, when it represented the
forces of reaction. So the Diet was to bind the sovereign0 to
appoint civil commissioners to control the Universities ; to prevent the
publication of unlicensed journals or pamphlets, and to hold themselves
responsible to the Federation for any obnoxious publications in their States;
and to dismiss all professors who forgot then duties to their Kings. An
inquisition into the secret societies was to be established at Mainz, with
powers to examine and arrest any subject of a German sovereign; all law-courts
were required to supply such documents as it demanded, and to undertake any
enquiries which it might impose. The inquisitors were not, however, to be a
law-court in themselves, but simply a Federal Commission with enormous powers,
charged to report results to the Diet, which would then create such judicial
machinery as might be necessary. These proposals were considered by the Diet
on September 20; and that body, which had wasted four years in discussing the
Federal Act, sanctioned Mettemich’s code in as many hours.
But this was
only part of Mettemich’s programme. The Carlsbad Decrees were, ostensibly at
least, only provisional and temporaiy; they did not touch the fundamental
constitution of the Federation ; that was, according to the Governments, beyond
the Diet’s competence. The Diet was only a legislative, not a constituent,
body; the constituting authority was the union of Cabinets. It alone could
modify or extend the Federal Act; and for this purpose a meeting was opened at
Vienna in November, 1819. Mettemich would have liked the Conference to be
permanent under his presidency at the Austrian capital; and it would have been
a long step towards the revival in fact, if not in name, of the medieval Empire
under Austrian auspices. The present Conference lasted some six months; it was
opened by Mettemich in an address in which he pointed out that its object was
to fix the functions of the Diet, the extent of its jurisdiction, the limits of
its powers, and even the forms of its procedure.
Beneath this
smooth exterior Metternich concealed the intention of eliminating all elements
of constitutional control from German States. But he met with unexpected
resistance from Bavaria and Wurttemherg. In Bavaria the soul of the opposition
was the Crown Prince Ludwig; and he was supported by Zentner, who declined to
quash his own constitution by a coup d’etat. In Wiirttemberg Wangenheim still
had hankerings after a purely German league independent of Austria and Prussia;
and he had already baulked Mettemich’s plan of empowering a majority of the
Diet to act in default of unanimity. This resistance prolonged the Congress at
Vienna; Metternich was eventually compelled to abandon some of his designs; and
the Constitutions already granted were permitted to exist on sufferance.
Nevertheless, sixty-five articles of a more or less reactionary character were
adopted. The gist of them was to charge the Federation with the duty of
maintaining order and despotic government in States which were unable to fulfil
that function themselves, and of preventing any individual legislature from
asserting supremacy over its monarch; if any German State attempted to do what
England had done in 1688, the Federation was entitled by this new fundamental
law to interfere by force of arms. What is technically known as “ responsible ”
government was to be prohibited throughout Germany by an organic Federal law;
and the Federation was thus converted from a league of States into a league of
sovereigns.
It was at the
same time made clear that the Federal Diet had no independent power, but was
merely the agent of the Cabinets. These fundamental laws were not to have even
the appearance of being promulgated by its authority; and the method adopted at
Carlsbad, of communicating the resolutions of the Ministers to the Diet and
binding all representatives to vote for them, was here rejected on Austria’s demand.
The Vienna resolutions were drafted in the form of Acts ratified by the
Governments belonging to the Federation; the Diet was merely to deposit them in
the Federal archives, and publish them “in the usual constitutional manner.”
This, says Metternich, was to show that “ the Diet was not the sovereign of the
Federation.’’ Another object equally dear to the Chancellor’s heart was
achieved. The Federal Constitution had, as he admitted, been placed under the
express and solemn guarantee of the great European Powers; and Alexander
thought that this gave the non-German Cabinets a claim to be heard in its
modification or extension. He proposed to Castle- reagh that they should take a
hand in this third Congress of Vienna. But Castlereagh was largely under the spell
of Metternich; and Austria was left to work its will within the Federation. “
One word spoken by Austria,” wrote the Chancellor at the conclusion of the
Congress, “will now be inviolable law throughout Germany.”
His triumph
was a little premature. William of Wiirttemberg regarded his small successes at
Vienna as a great victory over Metternich.
In 1820,
Lindner in his anonymous Manuskript aus Suddeutschland revived what was called
the “ Triasidee," that is, the idea of a league between Bavaria, Wurttemberg,
and Baden against Austria and Prussia. Wangenheim was the protagonist of this
policy, and gathered round him a band of ambassadors who played at being a
congress and amused themselves by placing the two Great Powers in a minority.
The chief effect of this move was to ruin the Federal schemes of national
defence. While Prussia was spending huge sums upon its Rhine fortresses, the
contributions to the proposed Federal fortifications were tardily forthcoming
; even the millions, which had been deposited with the Rothschilds for the
construction of a fourth Federal stronghold in addition to Luxemburg, Mainz,
and Germersheim, lay idle, because Austria and the other south-German States
could not decide between the claims of Rastatt and Ulm. A similar barren result
attended the schemes for a Federal army. Prussia desired the division of the
Federal forces into two great arm lies—one led by Prussia for North Germany,
the other led by Austria for the South. The Diet would have none of this
proposal, and decided that there should be one supreme commander-in-chief,
exclusively responsible to the Diet. But he was not to be appointed till war
broke out, and not the least effort was made to secure uniformity or harmony
between the various contemplated army-corps.
The ambitions
of the south-German States were more effectively obstructive than progressive.
They were aggrieved at the gradual restriction of the European concert to the
greater Powers. The original Congress of Vienna had been almost ecumenical; but
invitations to those of Laibach and Verona were only sent to the five Cabinets
of Austria, Russia, England, Prussia, and France; and Wurttemberg drew up a
protest against the exclusion of the minor German sovereigns and against the
idea that the resolutions of a Congress, at which only two German States were
represented, could bind the Gel-manic Federation. Metternich replied that
Austria and Prussia were entitled to the distinction, because they had only
entered the Federation with the express reservation of their rights as European
Powers; and that the resolutions of the Congresses concerned Greece, Italy, and
Spain, and not the Federation. The reply would have been conclusive but for the
fact that Wurttemberg’s protest had been evoked by a despatch drawn up by
Metternich himaoif, recommending these minor States to imitate the measures
taken by the Great Powers to put down revolution. About the same time there
appeared in the Stuttgart Beobachter an attack on the Congress of Verona.
Metternich required the Wurttemberg Government to modify its attitude, and on
its refusal broke off diplomatic relations. Other Powers threatened to do the
same; and the Mainz Commission suppressed the Stuttgart Beobachter without
consulting the King.
Under these
circumstances Wiirttemberg had to yield; and her Ministers, Wangenheim and
Wintzingerode, were sacrificed in the cause
of peace.
Bavaria was alarmed by the discovery of a madcap project among the students at
Erlangen to proclaim a German republic; and the erstwhile constitutionalist,
Zentner, was flattering Mettemich by telling him that without the Carlsbad
Decrees Germany would have been lost, and that his despatch to Buol on that
occasion had been a masterpiece. Buol had now been succeeded as president of
the Diet by the more masterful Munch-Bellinghausen, who practically turned the
Diet into an Austrian committee; and there was a wholesale purging of the less
reactionary members. The complaints of the Holstein Estates against the King of
Denmark were rejected; and the memorials of Dahlmann were branded with the
Federal censorship. In Prussia the last vestiges of Liberalism were eliminated
from the Government. “ Hatzfeldt,” writes Mettemich in June, 1824, “ has made a
terrible clearance at Berlin. They have taken advantage of a temporary illness
of Herr von Altenstein to alter his whole department. The King appears to me to
have acted like a man who only waited for an opportunity to lay about him on
all sides.” Mettemich’s rejoicing over the ruin of Altenstein’s educational work
seems to have been ill-founded; but in other respects there was reason in his
jubilation. Jahn was once more imprisoned; de Wette, editor of Luther’s works,
lost his professorship; and Schleiermacher’s sermons and hymn-books were
subjected to the censorship. A new edition of Fichte was forbidden and even one
of Ulrich von. Hutten. Haller’s Restoration of Political Science, which would
certainly have been considered illiberal even in the Middle Ages, became the
constitutional text-book of Berlin.
It was the
heyday of Metternich’s prosperity. “ They look for me as for a Messiah,” he
wrote of his approaching visit to Johannisberg in the summer of 1824; and
there, on the estate which Stein had coveted as a reward for the liberation of
Germany, Mettemich put the coping- stone on his work of suppression. “ Under
the pretence of visiting my vineyards,” he wrote, “ I shall advance the great
affairs which will come off' at Frankfort.” The great affairs came off at
Frankfort in August. The Carlsbad Decrees, which had been enacted for five
years as a temporary measure to deal with an exceptional conspiracy, were now
established as a permanent bulwark of sovereigns against their people; and a
perennial discontent was taken for granted. The special commission of Mainz had
its powers renewed; and that “ first and greatest of evils,” as Mettemich
termed the publicity of the Diet’s proceedings, was restricted to the
publication of its protocols. The Diet had done its work; it had committed a
practical felo de se, and in 1828 Austria proposed its adjournment sine die. In
Germany, as in Naples, in Piedmont, and in Spain, Mettemich appeared
invincible; at the Court of St Petersburg he had overturned Capodistrias and
persuaded the Tsar to hold his hand in the Balkan Peninsula. While Russia had
thus, on the one hand, as Mettemich said, “ ruined its influence with the Porte
and at
one blow
destroyed the grand work of Peter the Great and all his successors,” on the
other hand it lost all respect in the West; and the mobilisation at
Metternich’s request in 1821 of a hundred-thousand Russian troops to keep watch
on Germany while Austria was engaged in crushing the Italian revolts, announced
to the world at once the power of Mettemich and the determination of the
sovereigns of Europe to maintain at the point of the sword the cause of the
Holy Alliance. And yet there was no peace in the Austrian Chancellor’s mind. “
Public opinion,” he confessed, in 1821, “is absolutely diseased. At Vienna, as
at Paris, Berlin, and London, in the whole of Germany and Italy, as well as in
Russia and America, our triumphs are rated as so many crimes, our conceptions
as so many errors, and our projects as so many follies.” If Mettemich had
despondent moments in 1821, the events of the succeeding years were not likely
to dispel his gloom. Under the influence of his pet aversion, Canning, England
completed its severance from the European System which Castlereagh had
tentatively begun. The accession of Nicholas I in 1825 terminated the
Chancellor’s brief control of Russian policy; the subsequent liberation of
Greece transferred Austrian influence in the Levant to the three victors of
Navarino; and from the accession of Charles X in France Mettemich was full of
forebodings. “ We cannot conceal from ourselves,” he lamented in 1827, “ that
the union known by the name of the Alliance has for some time been little more
than a pretence.” Even at home, in Hungary, the Austrian Government had in 1825
to acknowledge defeat. In defiance of the old Hungarian Constitution, the
Magyar Diet had not been summoned for thirteen years; and throughout that
period the magnates had waged war on the Government in their local assemblies,
where they enjoyed even more rights than they did in the Diet. The coronation
of the Emperor’s fourth wife as Queen of Hungary at length necessitated the
summons of the Diet; and the strength of the Opposition, led by Szechenyi,
compelled the Emperor to abandon the idea of crushing its liberties and to
promise henceforth to summon the Diet every three years. It is true that the
old exclusive, aristocratic spirit of the Diet had little in common with the
Liberalism which Mettemich dreaded, and he was less loath to make concessions
to the former than to the latter. But by 1825 Liberalism had made its appearance;
and Mettemich bemoaned that the two oppositions, the old and the new, were
merged together, and that he “ encountered in Hungary all those things on which
during my whole public life, especially in the last ten years, I have made
war.”
In
Bavaria also the accession of Ludwig I in 1825 seemed to afford a ray of hope
to the Liberals. He began by repealing the censorship law, and recalling the
exile Gorres to a chair in the University of Munich. A patron of art and a
literary dilettante, an enthusiastic Philhellene, and an earnest Catholic,
Ludwig equally hated absolutism, revolution, and unbelief. He publicly refused
to be an unlimited monarch, but he uh.
xi.
24—2
protested in
his letters against the idea of being a king who reigred but did not govern. He
dreamt of a sort of medieval constitutionalism, and when this failed to satisfy
more ardent reformers, his Liberalism cooled and his enlightenment found its
chief expression in building the Pinakothek and the Glyptothek, and the
University buildings at Munich, and attempting to make his capital the artistic
metropolis of Germany. Public life,: even in those south-German
States which retained a Constitution, was a feeble plant. ' The powers of the
Diets were small and their horizon circumscribed; their discussions were
chiefly remarkable for personalities and rhetoric; and the elections were often
decided by hints from the Government. In Prussia the succession of Nicholas I
weakened Austria’s hold, and Bernstorff, the Foreign Minister, lost favour in Mettemich’s
eyes for daring to accept the task of mediating between Russia and the Porte in
1829, and to differ from Austria as to the respective claims of Dom Pedro and
Dom Miguel to the throne of Portugal. “ We shall/’ wrote Mettemich in alarm, “
see Prussia ally itself with Russia.” In domestic affairs also the Prussian
Ministers pm-sued a line of their own which was anything but agreeable to
Austria. It is true that Frederick William held fast to his promise to grant no
national representative system, and the final organisation (1823) of the
provincial system of Estates in the three old orders of nobles, cities, and
peasants, set the seal on Prussia’s constitutional conservatism. But in
administration Prussia was radical in her reforms. More important than her vast
outlay on roads and her improvement of the postal system, was Altenstein’s
conduct of the Ministry of Education. The Pestalozzian method was introduced
throughout the land; realschvlen were started; the first Polytechnic was opened
at Berlin in 1824; and within a period of four years four hundred elementary
schools were founded in the Province of West Prussia alone.
Most
significant of all was the extension to other German States of the tariff
reforms which Maassen had commenced in 1818. The idea of a ZoUverein or
Customs’ Union was not originally Prussian; it had been advocated during the
early days of the Federal Diet by Friedrich List in his Augsburg
Zollvereinsblatt. But the extension of the idea was left to Prussia ; and in
October, 1819, the first tariff-treaty was signed between Prussia and the petty
sovereignty of Schwarzburg-SondershaUsen. It was negotiated by Motz, then
Oberp-asident of the Prussian province of Saxony, and after 1825 Prussian
Minister of Finance, whose name is inseparably connected with the history of
the Zollverein. Prussia’s policy in this direction was odious to most of the
German States; and at the Vienna Conference of 1820 pressure was vainly put
upon the Prussian Government to abandon it. Berstett, the Baden Minister,
thereupon invited Bavaria, Wiirttemberg* Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, and the
Thuringian States to draw up a rival customs’ treaty. The discussions at
Darmstadt proved abortive* but the Duke of puny Anhalt-Kothen, whose
subjects
largely lived ou smuggling, initiated a tariff crusade against his powerful
neighbour. Instigated by Adam Muller, the Austrian Consul- General at Leipzig,
he denounced Prussia to the ■ Federal Diet; and to make still more sure
of Austrian support, he joined the Roman Catholic Church. But Austria had other
things to do; and eventually in 1828 the Duke of Kothen was forced to follow
the example of his smaller ljellow-sovereigns, Bemburg, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt,
Saxe-Weimar, IBchaumburg-Lippe, Dessau, and Mecklenburg-Schwcrin, and make his
fiscal peace with Prussia.
Meanwhile the
south-German States continued their opposition; and in January, 1828, Bavaria
and Wiirttemberg concluded a customs’ treaty of their own, to which their two
tiny neighbours, Hohenzollem- Sigmaringen and Hohenzollem-Hechingen, soon
acceded. In face of these two rival leagues the position of the middle-German
States became important in the last degree; and, when Hesse-Darmstadt showed
some disposition to come to terms with Prussia, Eichhorn and Motz—somewhat against
Maassen’s inclinations—induced their Government to make most liberal
concessions. Hesse-Darmstadt was offered an equal voice with Prussia in
determining the policy of the Zollverein, identity of fiscal privileges,
independent execution of the tariff laws, and apportionment of the proceeds
according to population. On this basis the treaty was concluded in February,
1828, for a period of six years. Saxony now took alarm, and in the following
September negotiated a mid-German commercial union with HesSe-Cassel, Hanover,
Brunswick, most of the Thuringian States, Hamburg, Bremen, and Frankfort. The
confederates bound themselves for six years not to enter into any other
Zollverein, and attempted to prevent that continuity of fiscal frontiers which
Prussia sought. But the endeavour to build a fiscal barrier across the
communications of the Prussian Zollverein failed from lack of means; and Motz
seized the opportunity to make advances to the Wiirttemberg- Bavarian League.
His success exceeded his anticipations; and in May,
1829, an agreement was made between the
northern and the southern Customs’ Unions. They undertook to suspend until 1841
all customs on their mutual interchange of products, to establish duty-free
roads between the two systems, and to enter into no separate treaty with their
neighbours. This was only a customs’ treaty (Zolhiertrag), not a customs’ union
(Zollverein); but it was enough to frustrate the efforts of the mid-German
League, and to afford reasonable prospect of a closer union in the future.
Motz, who is mainly responsible for the wise liberality of Prussia’s policy,
was confident of its ultimate success and convinced of its supreme importance.
The commercial unity of the German States would, he declared so early as 1829,
inevitably lead to the accommodation and eventually to the unity of their
political systems, to the military security of southern Germany through its
union with Prussia, and to the restoration of a strong and free Germany under
Prussia’s protection.
Nor was it
only by administration that the Prussian intellect fostered the growth of a
German national consciousness. History, philosophy, and law, were never
cultivated with more assiduity and success than in Prussia during the years of
her political effacement; and Niebuhr, Ranke, Savigny, Hegel, and Alexander von
Humboldt were rendering services which, though indirect, were no less essential
than the foundation of the Zollverein to the cause of German greatness.
This slow and
silent movement was interrupted by the cataclysm of
1830, The penalty of refusing to progress by
constitutional concessions is progress by revolution. Mettemich was fond of
pointing out the difference between the historical English Constitution and a
doctrinaire continental charter, but he refused to take those steps which had
enabled England to dispense with written constitutions and declarations of the
rights of man. Hence the French revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were followed by
revolutions in Germany. The movements of the former year were, however, comparatively
slight and local, and their chief result was the acquisition by some
north-German States of that modicum of constitutional government which still
flickered on in Wurttemberg and Bavaria.
In Brunswick
the reckless violence of the young Duke Charles proved too much for the
long-suffering of his subjects. In September, 1830, he was forced to abdicate
in favour of his younger brother and a Constitution, and lived till 1873 in
Paris. In Hesse-Cassel the shameless greed and immorality of the old Elector
William produced a similar result; he was compelled to grant a Constitution
drawn up by the Marburg professor, Sylvester Jordan, and to leave the
government in the hands of his son, who had youth, if nothing else, to
differentiate him from his father. In Saxony the nobles themselves rebelled
against the rigid conservatism of the Minister, Einsiedel, set up Prince
Frederick Augustus as co-Regent with his uncle King Antony, and introduced some
modern features into the ridiculously ineffective system of Saxon Estates
(September, 1831). In Hanover the regime of Count Munster came to an end with
the death of George IV and an outbreak after the Paris revolution. Order was
restored without much difficulty; and William IV, who was not averse from
moderate Liberalism, consented in 1833 to the establishment of a Constitution,
drafted by Dahlmann, but modified by aristocratic prejudice. Prussia escaped
any serious trouble, partly because respect for the old King had developed into
a real restraining force, and partly because the beneficent activity of the
Government in internal administration reconciled the average citizen to the
denial of self-government. With the accession of Motz to the Ministry of
Finance in 1825 surpluses had begun to take the place of deficits; the
population had increased by twenty-five per cent, in fifteen years; but owing
mainly to financial and tariff reforms material prosperity had developed with
still more rapid strides. The violence of repression had, moreover, gradually
subsided, and at the worst, it was
only felt by
few. The most intolerable evils of misgovernment were avoided; there was little
religious persecution; taxation was economical; and justice was not denied in
the every-day affairs of life.
It was not
these local changes of monarchs and of constitutions which brought about the
revival of Mettemich’s system in Germany, but the activity of revolutionists
like those who had made, but had failed to profit by, the Parisian revolt.
These were of the cosmopolitan type, who from now to 1848 took ever more the
colour of “ red internationals ”; and a new note of alarm appears in
Metternich’s correspondence. “ The issue at stake,” he writes in 1833, “is the
salvation of the first of all goods —property, the right of possession both in
a material and a moral sense; the contest in reality lies between those who
have and those who wish to have.” This was one of the spectres which haunted
Niebuhr—whom Bunsen compared with Burke—on his deathbed, and made him dread
lest the least disturbance of established order would lead to “ a South
American state of things, revolution upon revolution, usurpation upon
usurpation, and a universal running wild.” The headquarters of this agitation
in Germany was not unnaturally the Bavarian Palatinate on the left bank of the
Rhine, which had for twenty years been incorporated with France and had become
largely French in feeling; and the material which was not French was largely
Polish. Here a sort of press-union was inaugurated by the journalists Wirth and
Siebenpfeiffer, with a common fund for the indemnification of those who
suffered imprisonment or fines under the press laws, and an elaborate
organisation for the distribution of revolutionary publications. Relations were
established with the Burschenschaft, which had been revived at Erlangen in 1827
and had spread to Jena and other Universities; Secret clubs were founded at
Heidelberg and elsewhere; Borne and Heine placed their literary genius at the
service of the movement, which was not, as in 1818, limited to academic circles
; and for a year or two southern Germany seethed with revolutionaiy ferment. In
Baden it produced tangible results under the rule of Leopold, the first prince
of the Hochberg line; considerable freedom of the Press was granted, with popular
participation in legislation and administration, and a real control of State
finance. Elsewhere the agitation produced nothing more than demonstrations—
like that at Hambach (May, 1832), where a motley gathering drank to Lafayette
and resolved to proceed not merely by the methods of the press and platform,
but by those of armed revolt—and reaction.
In the
Hambach affair Metternich found the same satisfaction that he did in the
Wartburg festival and Kotzebue’s murder. The crisis demanded a repressive policy,
and in that case he was indispensable. His earlier intervention had not been
prevented by the moderation of the movements in northern Germany, but by the
necessity of dealing first with the revolutions in Modena, Ferrara, and the
Papal States, the insurrection in Poland, and the situation in the Netherlands.
The Belgian
question had been particularly distasteful to Mettemich because it had driven
him for once from his one great stronghold, the imprescriptible,rights of
sovereigns. “The King of Holland,” he had been forced to write, “ must be
compelled to say Yes or No” [to the disruption of his kingdom]. “If he says
Yes, there is an end of the whole affair; if he says No, his consent must be
dispensed with or set aside.” But the affairs of Italy and Poland had not been
without their compensations. Austria’s success in Italy had once more
vindicated her reputation as the destroyer of revolutions; and the Polish
insurrection had helped to reestablish that union between the three Eastern
Powers on which the success of his reactionary system so largely depended.
Prussia had lately been very restive under the Austrian supremacy; and even
Frederick William’s brother-in-law, Prince Charles of Mecklenburg, had been
heard to say that it would be no great loss if Austria left the Confederation.
But so early as 1830 Mettemich had negotiated with Nesselrode the chiffon de
Carlsbad, which guaranteed the status quo, and formed the basis of the future
understanding between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Its principle was a repudiation
of the idea, now advocated in the West, of non-intervention in the domestic
affairs of foreign States. “ His Imperial Majesty,” wrote the Chancellor, “
recognises it not merely as his right but as his duty to lend to every lawful
authority attacked by the common enemy every kind of assistance which circumstances
may permit him to employ”; and the complement of this maxim was his assertion
that “ the Powers on whom it devolves to watch over the interests of peace in
Europe are not called upon to consider the inclinations or dislikes of
particular regions;”
Further
conferences between the three Powers at Teplitz and Miin- chengratz led to the
Treaty of Berlin in 1883, by the secret clauses of which the Courts of Austria,
Prussia, and Russia recognised “the right of every independent sovereign to
summon to his assistance, whether in the internal or external difficulties of
his country, any other independent sovereign whom he shall deem best able to
assist him, and the right of the latter to grant or refuse such assistance
according to his interest or convenience.” They also declared that, “in a case
where such assistance be given, no Power not invoked or summoned by the
threatened State has the right to interfere, whether for the purpose of thwarting
the assistance thus claimed and granted, or of acting in a contrary sense.”
Mettemich was triumphant; “so long as the union between the three monarchs
lasts,” he wrote in 1835, “there will be a chance of safety for the world.”
The adoption
of these principles involved once more the effacemerit of Prussia and the
repudiation of the part which Dahlmann, Ranke, Friedrich Gagem, and Paul Pfizer
pressed upon her. Ancillon, a faithful friend of Austria, took BernstorfTs
place as Foreign Minister in 1830; and, when Ranke in 1832 started his
HistorischpolUische
Zeitschrvfi
with the object of awakening Prussian patriotism, the only result was to
produce an opposition organ patronised by Wittgenstein, Kamptz, and other
members of the Government. With Prussia’s help the principles of the Triple
Alliance were easily imposed upon the Germanic Federation; and on June 28,
1832, a month after the Hambach demonstration, the Diet unanimously adopted six
articles —the number seems consecrated to reactionary causes—dictated by the
Austrian Chancellor. While Mettemich had previously denied the competence of
the Bund to limit the rights of individual princes, he now denied the right of
individual Parliaments to limit the powers or infringe the principles of the
Bund. Hence the first Article imposed on every German sovereign the duty of
rejecting every petition of his Estates impairing his sovereignty, which was
guaranteed by the Federal Act. The second Article repudiated the right of the
Estates to refuse to any German sovereign the requisite supplies for carrying
on the government, or to use this threat to extort constitutional concessions;
such conduct would justify the intervention of the Bund. The third Article
prohibited any State legislation prejudicial to the objects of the Bund as
interpreted by Mettemich. The fourth established a permanent federal commission
to examine all proposed State legislation and report to the Federation all such
measures as threatened its interests or individual sovereign rights. The fifth
bound individual States to protect the Federation from attack in the various
representative assemblies; and the sixth asserted the right of the Federal Diet
to determine whether State laws did or did not conflict with the principles of
the Federation.
There was much
sound Federal theory in these articles, but it was vitiated by the motive
underlying it. It might suit Mettemich to accept the Federal principle as a
check upon Parliaments, and repudiate it as a check upon princes; but no
permanent advantage could accrue to the Federation from so double-faced an
interpretation of its fundamental idea. For the moment, however, the Diet
adopted Mettemich’s views. Besides the six articles, it passed other repressive
measures in July, 1832. All public meetings and revolutionary badges were
prohibited; suspicious political characters were placed under surveillance; the
edicts against the Universities were renewed ; assurance was given of speedy
assistance to sovereigns in case of need; the sale of German books printed abroad
was subjected to special restrictions; Baden was forced to suspend its Liberal
press laws; and a number of journals were suppressed.
The
revolutionists hoped that these harsh measures would arouse discontent, and
determined to strike another blow for liberty. A body of Poles was to march
from Besanijon; Frankfort was to be taken by surprise, the Diet to be broken
up, the Federal treasury seized. The King of Wiirttemberg was to be compelled
to head the national movement; and a provisional Government was to be formed
of Rotteck, Welcker, Jordan, and other Liberal leaders. It was a crazy plot,
and
was betrayed
before the day of execution, though from sinister motives 110 measures were
taken to prevent its coming to a head. The attempt on Frankfort was made on
April 3, 1833, and not suppressed without loss of life. The affair was, of
course, turned to account by Metternich. The universal conspiracy, which the
Mainz commission had failed after many years’ labour to reveal, had at last
been galvanised into a feeble existence by governmental rigour ; and the
Frankfort conspirators were probably affiliated to the secret societies of
which Mazzini was now the moving spirit. A general conspiracy needed as general
a system of police as possible; and in June, 1833, at Metternich’s instance,
the Diet appointed a central commission to supervise the prosecutions in
individual States, to collect results, and to concert preventive measures. The
particularist sentiments of the various Governments somewhat impaired the efficiency
of this plan ; but instances enough of odious persecution occurred; and many of
the Liberal leaders, whose names had been used by the Frankfort conspirators
without their knowledge, were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. A fresh
scries of ministerial conferences was held at Vienna in the spring of 1834, the
results of which were kept secret for ten years owing to the hostility of
France and England to this repressive policy. The principal suggestions appear
to have been the appointment of five committees to act as probouleutic councils
for the Diet, and the institution of courts of arbitration—to be selected by
the sovereigns—to decide in legislative and financial disputes between the
sovereigns and their Estates. The death of the Emperor Francis II on March 2,
1835—hastened, the Court pretended, by the proceedings of the Transylvanian
Diet, which had become almost as intractable as the Hungarian—produced no
change in Austria’s policy, although under his successor, Ferdinand, Metternich
had to share its direction with the Emperor himself, the Archduke Ludwig, and
Count Kolowrat.
Reaction
fortunately did not hinder the gradual transformation of the Prussian into a
German Zollverein under the direction of Maassen, who succeeded Motz as
Minister of Finance in 1830. The desertion of the mid-German commercial union
by the Thuringian States in 1830 undermined its position; and Saxony began to
make approaches to the Prusso-Bavarian system. The opposition of vested
interests made its progress slow; and meanwhile, in August, 1831, Hessc-Cassel
under its new Government came to terms with Prussia, despite the outcries of
its confederates. In the same year Prussia induced Holland to suspend the heavy
tolls levied on the products of the Zollverein passing down the Rhine. Bavaria
was now brought into closer communion with the Prussian Zollverein; but, to
achieve this great object, Prussia made concessions which departed to some
extent from its original conception and converted the Zollverein into an almost
national union. Its meetings were to be held at different centres, and not
always, as
heretofore,
at Berlin; unanimity instead of a mere majority was to be requisite for
alterations of the tariff; and special treatment was accorded to Bavarian
goods. The treaty was to last for eight years from January 1, 1834. Saxony was
obliged to yield in May, 1834; and ten vears later the Zollverein included
practically the whole of Germany except the Austrian dominion, Hanover,
Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, and the three Hanse cities. The area of the Zollverein
then contained a population of twenty-five million souls; and within ten years
the value of its exports and imports increased from 249 to 385 million thalers,
while the expenses of the collection fell from 44 to 16 millions. At last
Germany was in a position to compete on equal terms with other nations, though
it still seems to be open to dispute whether this result was mainly due to the
tariff walls which were retained or to those which were removed. Politically,
the completion of the Zollverein was an all-important victory for Prussia over
Austria; of the seventeen votes at the Diet only seven, complained Mettemich,
were independent of Prussian influence. The Zollverein was a menace to the Bund
in that it sacrificed the looser union of the whole to the closer union of the
part; but, while the Bund under Austria’s direction looked solely to the past,
the Zollverein under Prussia’s looked forward to the future. When in 1840 the
aggressive attitude of Thiers produced a fear of war, and an answering outburst
of German patriotism stimulated Schneckenburger’s Wacht am Rhein, it was to
Prussia that Germany trusted for defence.
The glory and
popularity of this achievement were, however, marred by Prussia’s attitude
towards the constitutional crisis in Hanover, and by her treatment of the
religious question on the Rhine. By a stroke of singular good luck for Great
Britain and for Germany, the personal union between Great Britain and Hanover
was severed at the death of William IV in 1837 ; and by the operation of the
Salic law the German kingdom passed to Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the
fifth but eldest surviving son of George III. The new King, a Tory of the
Tories, had taken a prominent part in opposing his brother William’s government;
and perhaps in return for this compliment William IV had introduced the Liberal
Constitution into Hanover without consulting the wishes of the
heir-presumptive. No sooner had Ernest succeeded than he declared this
Constitution null and void, and released his officials from the oath of
fidelity they had sworn to its provisions. Financial necessities as well as
Tory principles contributed to this step; for Ernest was in the hands of the
money-lenders, and wished to satisfy them from the State domains, which by the
Constitution he was prohibited from treating as his private property. In his
University of Gottingen alone was there any serious opposition; seven
professors, Dahlmann, Jacob and William Grimm, Gervinus, Ewald, W. Weber, C.
Albrecht, all men of great distinction, protested on moral grounds against the
repudiation of an oath. In December, 1837, they
380 Mixed marriages in Prussian territory,
[1834-40
were all
deprived of their professorships, while Dahlmann, Jacob Grimm, and Gervinus,
were expelled the country. A new Constitution was then arranged as a cloak for
Ernest’s absolutism; but this met with opposition in the towns, and an appeal
was lodged before the Federal Diet. Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, Baden,
Hesse-Darmstadt, the Thuringian States, and the free cities, all voted in
favour of the Hanoverian opposition; but Mettemich once more secured Prussia’s
support for the prin™'pies of monarchical absolutism; and the Diet came to the
remarkable decision that the Hanoverian Constitution of 1833 was invalid’ and
that the King was justified in overthrowing it. Fortified with this verdict,
Ernest in August, 1840, imposed a Constitution of his own; the legislative functions
of the Assembly were reduced to the right of expressing opinions, its sittings
were to be held in private, and Ministers were to be independent of its
control. Last but not least, the State domains were to be recognised as the
private property of the King. This outrageous affair seems for the first time
to have stirred general indignation in Germany over a constitutional question;
even the most respectable Conservatives were shocked; and it gave Liberals
occasion for representing that no trust was to be put in princes and that the
Bund was a national disgrace.
Still more
troublesome to Prussia was the religious question. The problem forced upon her
by the acquisition of some millions of Catholic subjects in the Rhine Province
and Westphalia was not exactly novel, because Prussia had had to deal with
Catholic subjects in Silesia. But her difficulties were increased, if not
mainly created, by the rising tide of Ultramontane feeling, illustrated by the
conversion to Rome of Haller, Friedrich Schlegel, and Adam Muller, by the
failure of Wessenberg’s attempt to free the German Catholic Church from Papal
rule, by such utterances as Adam Muller’s ascriptiqn of all the revolutionary
tendencies of Germany to the original sin of the Reformation, and by the
growing dcclesiasticism of men like Gorres, who, wrote the Princess Mettemich
in 1834, “ from being an abominable Jacobin has become one of the best men in
the world.” The chief disturbance arose over the question of mixed marriages,
which were frequent in the west between immigrant Protestant bureaucrats and
the Catholic daughters of the land. In these cases Prussian law gave the
control over the children’s education to the father, and forbade him to make
any stipulations surrendering this right before marriage. The Roman Catholic
Church on the other hand refused to recognise such marriages and prohibited her
priests from assisting at the ceremony, unless the Protestant bridegroom gave
an undertaking that his children should be brought up in the Roman Catholic
faith. The Prussian Government at first attempted to negotiate with individual
Bishops, but found that they were powerless and disinclined to act; for
independent action of that kind would have been a long step towards that
independent German Catholic Church which Hermes, Wessenberg, and many Catholics
in Baden and Bavaria desired.
Resort was
then had to Rome, and the conduct of the affair was left to Bunsen. The Pope in
1830 made some concessions, but the Brief in which they were embodied was so
ambiguously worded that the Prussian Government declined to accept it as a
solution of the controversy. At this juncture Pius VIII died, and with the
election of Gregory XVI the Jesuits* who after their expulsion from Rome in
1820 had been admitted first to Austria and then to other parts of Germany,
regained their influence in the Papal Curia. In 1832 Gregory, in a Brief to the
Bavarian Bishops, prohibited what had hitherto been the Prussian practice; and
Prussia, seeing no prospect of success at Rome, revived the negotiations with
the Bishops under her authority.; At length in 1834 a compromise was accepted
at Berlin by von Spiegel, Archbishop of Cologne; but in the following year he
died, and with extraordinary folly the Crown Prince secured the appointment of
Freiherr von Droste- Vischering as his successor.
The new
Archbishop had already signalised himself by waging war on Hermes’ teaching,
forbidding his theologians to attend the University of Bonn, and opposing the
measures of the Prussian Government. He soon became the protagonist of the
Ultramontane party; he refused consecration to all ecclesiastics who would not
promise him unlimited obedience without appeal except to Rome, declared the
laws of the State to be incompatible with the rights and privileges of the
Church, and prohibited his clergy from countenancing mixed marriages without the
promise that the children should be educated in the Roman Catholic faith. All
efforts at accommodation failed; relations between Berlin and Rome grew
strained; while in the Rhine Province the agitation reached a dangerous pitch.
Misled by Bunsen’s declaration that vigorous measures would alone make any
impression on the Curia, the Prussian Government suddenly arrested the
Archbishop of Cologne on November 10, 1837, and conveyed him out of his
diocese, never to return. Bunsen was thereupon refused audience at Rome and
compelled to leave his post. In three successive allocutions the Pope denounced
the conduct of the Berlin Government. The Archbishop of Posen, Dunin, followed
Visch^ring’s example, and was in turn imprisoned; and, with the exception of
the Bishop of Breslau, the Roman Catholic Bishops in the eastern provinces took
the Roman side. The situation was more dangerous in the west, because the
Rhinelands had never completely reconciled themselves to Prussian rule. The
clericals received support from Paris and from Munich; and Catholic Belgium
dreamed of making a material conquest of the discontented province. The most
serious symptom of all was perhaps the sympathy which Prussia’s anti-popular
tendencies secured to the opponents of the Government from thousands who had
nothing else in common with the Ultramontane party.
Compared with
this contest the difficulties which Prussia encountered in the Protestant
Churches were slight. The union of the Reformed and
Lutheran
Churches was an object dear to Frederick William’s heart; and in this project
he was assisted by the Berlin theologian Schleiermacher, the Lutheran historian
Marheineke, and by Bishops Sack and Eylert. The movement spread in Baden and in
Hesse; and Bunsen busied himself with drawing up a sort of German Book of
Common Prayer. But rigid Lutherans refused to compromise the doctrine of
consubstan- tiation; and the Reformed Churches objected to the Royal supremacy.
The opposition was strengthened by a revolt of orthodox Lutheranism against the
mystic pantheism of Schelling and the philosophic efforts of Schleiermacher to
harmonise reason and religion; and, though the King professed to abhor any
compulsion in the matter, the opponents of the union in Prussia were subjected
to harsh treatment. The orthodox themselves invoked the secular arm against the
rationalistic tendencies of Baur, of Strauss, whose Life of Jesus was published
in 1835, and of the famous Tubingen school, and even against the milder
heresies of the Halle professors, Gesenius and Wegscheider. But Altenstein
confined himself to the promise that for the future only such men should be
appointed to teach theology as acknowledged allegiance to the doctrines of the
Church interpreted in the sense of the Augsburg Confession.
This was not
a measure adequate to the growing divergences of religious faith in Germany.
But the political importance of the questions was soon lost in the reviving
insistence of the constitutional struggle. The outward signs were not yet
numerous. Metternich and the Austrian system still seemed to be holding their
own against the local discontents in Hungary and Transylvania; and in 1840 few
would have prophesied a revolution in Vienna and the Chancellor’s flight for
safety to a constitutional country. But there was little faith in the stability
of the thrones of Louis-Philippe and the Italian despots; and even in Germany
itself the continuance of repression depended as much on Prussia as on Austria.
Prussians felt for Frederick William something of the same respect that
Englishmen felt for George III; and the personal desires of the former were as
effective in delaying constitutional development as those of the latter in
retarding Catholic Emancipation. When on June 7, 1840, the long reign of the
monarch, who had survived Auerstadt and Jena, came to a close, it was felt that
the beginning of a new era was at hand. Germany had repaired the material
ravages of a generation of war and prepared the soil for a new intellectual
harvest. The political system, which had suited that age, had waxed old like a
garment, and the last efforts to patch up its rents were ending in failure.
LITERATURE IN
GERMANY.
There is no
political or social explanation of the phenomenally rapid development of German
literature in the eighteenth century. In 1700 the German people, only slowly
recovering from the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War, were still in general at
a very low ebb of intellectual and political life; and throughout the whole
century they remained, as a corporate social organism, far behind France and
England. Even the reigns of Frederick the Great in Prussia and of Joseph II in
Austria, were, so far as the history of literature is concerned, stimulating
episodes rather than epochs of preeminent achievement. In other words, the
factors which were at work in raising German literature from insignificance to
the leading position it occupied at the close of the century, were in great
measure independent of political conditions.
The most
obvious explanation of the phenomenon lies in the relative chronological
position of German classical literature; we have here the exceptional case of a
new literature growing up under the shadow of two greater literatures, and in a
cosmopolitan age which, in matters of taste, knew no national boundaries.
Germany rose to greatness with extraordinary rapidity on borrowed ideas; she
sought out, first in French literature, then in English, what she was able to
utilise for her own development, and built up her classical literature on the
foundation thus acquired. In accordance with the needs of this process, the
type of mind exemplified by Germany’s intellectual leaders in the eighteenth
century was of a peculiarly assimilative character; the eminence of men like
Lessing and Herder, even of Goethe and Schiller, was not of that uncompromising
original kind, which regards all that comes in its way either with sovereign
indifference or as legitimate prey. These men became great partly by the
conscientious study of models which they admired, and by the systematic
absorption of ideas which had been handed down from their predecessors. It is
this growth by imitation and assimilation which, in the first instance,
explains how Germany arrived at so rich a poetic efflorescence amidst, on the
whole, poverty- stricken intellectual conditions, how her high poetic
achievement is to be reconciled with the uninspiring and even sordid
provincialism of the nation.
At the
beginning of the eighteenth century, German literature had virtually reached
the standpoint of Boileau; the poets of the day, such as they were, were “court
poets” according to the French ideas. Before long, however, the influence of
English thought and literature found its way in—either directly by way of
Hamburg, or indirectly through the agency of the Huguenot refugees, who were at
this time opening up cosmopolitan paths across Holland and France. The first
sign of returning vigour in German literature was the famous contention in 1740
between Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700-66), who had established himself as
literary dictator in the metropolis of German taste, Leipzig, and the two Swiss
reformers Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698-1783) and Johann Jakob Breitinger
(1701-76). The controversy was more or less a repetition of the French querelle
des widens et des modemes; Gottsched representing the strictly classic
principles of the French seventeenth century, Bodmer and Breitinger a more
specialised and modem form of the doctrine championed by Perrault and his
friends. But in one important particular the analogy breaks down: the German
quarrel arose before there was any German literature to dispute about; it was a
controversy about first principles, about the place of imagination in poetry,
and the free exercise of genius. This precedence of theory to practice, which
is characteristic of every step forward in the German literature of the
eighteenth century, is often quoted as a peculiar trait of the German mind; but
it is incident to the assimilative growth of a literature. The quarrel of
Leipzig and Zurich could not, however, have had more fruitful results, had it
concerned German poets of the day, instead of a foreigner, Milton, whom Bodmer
had a few years earlier introduced to the Germans in*a clumsy prose
translation. For from this quarrel dates the birth of modem German literature;
the first practical issue of it is to be seen in the work of Lessing and
Klopstock. Gottsched himself had not, it is true, the breadth of mind to
benefit by his discomfiture, but the younger members of his party were
willing, under the cogency of the Swiss arguments, to modify their opinions.
Lessing owed to them his introduction to the literary life, and Klopstock was
himself a contributor to their organ, the so-callcd Bremer Beitrage.
The position
of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-81) in the movement of his century maybe
summed up by saying that he carried the Auf'Mdrung in literature and criticism
to its fullest development. In this respect his place is with the German
“ancients” rather than with the “modems,” with Gottsched rather than with the
Swiss; but his standpoint, thanks in great measure to the decisive victory of
Bodmer and Breitinger, is so far in advance of Gottsched’s that he appears as
the bitterest antagonist of the last-named. With his marvellously balanced
mind, Lessing was admirably fitted to reduce the intellectual chaos and
uiiassimilated foreign ideas of his time to order; he gave the movement of
German rationalism a broader basis than either WolfF or Gottsched
1748-1813] Lessing, Klopstock,
and Wieland.
385
had dreamt
of; he was a critical rationalist who had room in his system for the mystic
pantheism of Spinoza and for a religious faith, and he was a classical critic
who could judge without undue bias unclassical poets like the Klopstock of the
Messias; he introduced to the German stage the biirgerliche Tragodie, and,
first of his nation, showed genuine understanding for the greatness of
Shakespeare. But in all this Lessing did not for a moment sacrifice the
fundamental tenets of rationalism and classicism. He took his standpoint on the
dogmas of eighteenth century humanism, which regarded the history of the human
race as a gradual progress towards perfection, an Erziehung des
Menschengeschlechtes; if he proclaimed Shakespeare a greater poet than
Corneille or Racine, it was because he grasped the continuity between
Shakespeare and Sophocles, and held Shakespeare to be a more faithful observer
of the spirit of Aristotle than were the French poets; and the opinion, which
he shared with Winckelmann, that Greek sculpture was the ne plus ultra, of art,
was something wholly different from the narrow classic prejudices of the French
seventeenth century.
As Lessing is
thus virtually Gottsched’s successor, so Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
(1724-1803) is Bodmer’s. The Messias (Cantos' i-m, 1748) is the religious epic
on which Bodmer set his hopes; it was Klopstock who justified in a German way
those pleas for the rights of the imagination which the Swiss critics had
borrowed from Addison and Muratori. Even more important, however, is
Klopstock’s share in the reawakening of the German lyric; the promise of the
unhappy Gunther, who died in 1723, and the beginnings of nature poetry to be
found in the amorphous outpourings of Brockes, lead up unmistakably to
Klopstock’s Odes, which became the fountainhead of all that is best in the
German lyric poetry of the century. Less easy is it to define the position of
the third of the great “liberators” of modem German letters, Christoph Martin
Wieland (1733-1813). He began as an imitator of Klopstock and a friend of
Bodmer’s, but all his riper work and influence belong to “classicism.” He had,
it must be admitted, little enough understanding for the true classic spirit,
and he was wholly deficient in the high seriousness of Lessing or Winckelmann;
but his light and often frivolous tone served as a wholesome antidote to the
sentimental excesses of Klopstock and the later Sturm uni Drang. Except in his
early novels—Agathon (1766-7) is a landmark in the evolution of German fiction
from the mediocre imitations of Richardson in the fifties and sixties to the
typical classical novel, Wilhelm Meister—Wieland contributed little to the
movement of his time and he left behind him few disciples.
A more
important force than either Klopstock or Wieland in the development of German
poetry was Johann Gottfried Herder (17441803). While Lessing brought the
rationalistic and classic movement to its fullest perfection, and stretched the
intellectual and poetic principles of
the
Ilenaissan-jo to their utmost limits, Herder entirely renounced the classic
dogma; in his writings the ideas, which had germinated in Bodmer and had been
put into practice by Klopstock, first took definite form as the literary creed
of the future. To say “definite form” is perhaps incorrect, for Herder was one
of the most inconsequent and nebulous thinkers of the eighteenth century; he
was a pioneer without being himself aware of it. And yet none of his
contemporaries had so many ideas of vital importance for the coming time as he.
All that is best in the next hundred years of German intellectual history—and
much that has made for progress in that of Europe as a whole—may be traced back
to Herder’s stimulating initiative. He, for instance, first clearly understood
the principles of the organic evolution of national life; and, with the help of
this conception, he revolutionised the methods of historical science, and
defined the principles of modem aesthetics and literary criticism. In a higher
degree than Lessing, Herder made clear the real nature of Shakespeare’s genius
and greatness; and in Strassburg he inspired the youthful Goethe with his own
enthusiasm for the English poet, until Goethe felt—to use his own words —“like
a blind man upon whom the power of sight had suddenly been conferred.” Herder
defined the conception of Volk as it had never been defined before,
rediscovered and named the Volkslied, and formulated the idea of German
nationalism, which he found reflected in the fabric of the Strassburg Minster.
He was the pioneer of the Sturm und Drang, and a guide and teacher to whom even
the Romanticists at the beginning of the nineteenth century looked up with
respect.
Sturm
und Drang is the name that a later generation gave to that wonderful ebullition
of the German spirit which, foreshadowed by daring thinkers like Hamann and
Gerstenberg—like Herder himself in his Fragmente (1767)—burst forth in the year
1773 with Goethe’s Gotz von Berlichingen. It seemed as if the German intellect
which for thirty years had been struggling ineffectually to free itself from
the rales of Latin classicism, had here at last attained its object. The
literary ideals of this period of fermenting genius allowed the poet, and
especially the dramatic poet, an opportunity for less shackled expression than
he had known in Germany since the century of the Reformation. Goethe was the
acknowledged leader of the group, the exemplar of unfettered genius; but hardly
less original, and certainly more immersed in the current, were his followers
and contemporaries, the dramatists Lena, Klinger, Heinrich Leopold Wagner, and
Leisewitz. What this age meant for the history of the drama may be learned from
a comparison of Gotz von Berlichingen with Schiller’s Rduber, which, appearing
in 1781, influenced no less powerfully the later development of the movement.
Die Rduber is inferior to Goethe’s motley Ritterdrama in the broad outlook on
human life; Schiller shows himself infinitely less conversant with the world,
his judgment is more juvenile and less ripe;
1773—87]
387
but progress
is to be discerned in the better-welded scenes and in the more dramatic grasp
of character. The evolution of a national type of tragedy—and it may be added,
of a national theatre—from the unreasoning Shakespeare-worship of the first members
of the group, is one of the chief services Germany owes to her Sturm vmd Drang.
But this
period also produced notable work in other fields. The Sesenheimer Lieder
proved not only Goethe, but also Lenz, to be a lyric poet of a high order; and
at this time there was in Gottingen a little band of singers who adapted the
spirit of Klopstock to the needs of the new age; they, no less than Herder and
Goethe in Strassburg, had discovered the secret of lyric power in the simple
songs of the people. Goethe and his friends did not neglect or despise the
Volk; they were too loyal disciples of Herder for that; but they were also too
intent on giving voice to Titanic ideas, too enamoured of the Raritaten- kasten
view of life, to efface themselves in the essentially contemplative world of
the peasant. In this respect the Gottingen Dichterbwnd (or Hat i, a designation
suggested by a poem of Klopstock’s) supplemented them; many of the members of
that circle, and notably its leader, Johann Heinrich Voss (1751-1826), had
themselves sprung from the peasant class; they had, with few exceptions, lived
the narrow life of the north- German countryman of the eighteenth century, and
their poetry never lost touch with the soil. Thus their folksongs are less
influenced by bookish traditions than Herder’s, less even than Goethe’s lyrics,
in which at this time something of the Anacreontic artificiality of the earlier
decade was still noticeable. It is to the Gottingen poets, and, above all, to
that strange wayward genius, Gottfried August Burger (1747-94), rather than to
Goethe, that we owe the finest ballads of the epoch. Burger’s Lenore (1773),
the best known and, on the whole, the finest example of this popular poetry,
which arose in imitation of the English Percy ballads, drew, together with
Goethe’s Werther, the attention of Europe to the new movement.
In fiction
the Sturm vmd Drang produced one great book, Die Leiden des jungen Werihers
(1774); but this stands somewhat apart from the general literary movement in
Germany. Compared with the lengthy family-novels, or with Wieland’s Agathon,
which preceded it, it obviously belongs to a different type of fiction, a type
as far removed from what was then called a novel as the modem German Novelle is
from the Roman. Werther profoundly influenced the development of the German
national novel, but it is not, strictly speaking, itself a link in that
development. In point of fact, the Sturm und Drang failed conspicuously in its
search for a type of novel that was suited to its needs. It was no solution to
the difficulty to deluge the didactic family romance with sentimentality, as
did Johann Martin Miller in his Siegwart (1776); still less was anything
attained by imbuing the older fiction with philosophy, as did Friedrich
Heinrich Jacobi—the
Jacobi who
)iad made of Goethe a life-long Spinozist—or Klinger in his later period; and
the most vital novel of these years, Karl Philipp Moritz’ Anton Reiser (1785),
in which, adopting the methods of the Gottingen school, the author turned his
own life into a novel of sentimental education, hardly crossed the boundary
that separates autobiography from romance. The novelist who in this age wrote
the most distinctive form of fiction was the Thuringian, Johann Jakob Wilhelm
Heinse (1749-1803); he alone set about his task in what now seems the right
way; that is to say, he took as his model not the formless imitations of the
English family-novel, but the romances of Wieland, and infused into them the
enthusiasm and sentimentalism of the new period. Heinse’s best novel,
Ardimghello oder Die gluclcseUgen Inselm (1787), forms the connecting link
between Wieland on the one hand and Jean Paul on the other; it is the
forerunner of Wilhelm Meister and of the “artist novels” of the Romanticists.
In passing
thus summarily in review the literature of this revolutionary movement, we
cannot but feel disappointed that so brilliant and promising a decade should
have left behind it so little of permanent value. For even Gotz von
Berlichingen and Werther, Die Rduber and Kabale und IAebe—monuments of genius
though they be—remain the expression of a very definite epoch; they are not
permanent and satisfying achievements such as appeal to the national mind in
all its phases and in all its periods. They are read to-day less as masterpieces
of German national literature than as the youthftd creations of two great poets
and as symptomatic phenomena of their time. The movement of Sturm und Drang,
which Goethe had hailed in its first stage as an epoch of “ Deutschland
emergierendfailed to lay the foundation for a new and vigorous national
literature; its strong dramatic beginnings dwindled away in shallow sentimental
plays like IfHand’s, or in blustering medieval dramas; its fiction degenerated
rapidly into worthless sensational stories of sentiment and chivalry, of ruins
and moonlight. The Geniezeit had but a small share in that movement towards
classic achievement which is associated with the work of Goethe and Schiller in
the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The question thus forces itself
upon us: Why did this movement, which for a time seemed the development towards
which Germany’s best national life was striving, prove so barren, and why was
it so short-lived ?
The question
is one which the historian of German literature has not often faced, and yet it
is too important for the understanding of the classical period and the
subsequent Romantic movement to be ignored. A possible explanation is that the
Sturm und Drang was too exclusively destructive and negative in its tendencies;
its plan of attack, the instruments of demolition which it brought to bear on
the Aufklarung, were in the highest degree effective; and the earlier
classicism of the eighteenth century found it difficult to resist the assault.
Frederick
1775-88]
Goethe's early years in Weimar.
389
the Great’s
tract De la littSrature aUemande (1780) was easily laughed to scorn, and
Lessing himself was summarily refuted when he attempted to protest. But not one
of these young poets, not even Goethe and Schiller in their early years,
stopped to consider how this outburst of national feeling in poetry might be
turned to practical, constructive account. The Sturm, vmd Drang in its
youthful, irresponsible spontaneity, was content to be merely iconoclastic; it
knew not and cared little whither it was driving. And it is after all very
doubtful whether the movement, even if it had been planned and carried out with
deliberation, could have achieved more lasting results as the expression of the
German national spirit in poetry. The German revolutionists were as little able
as was Rousseau in France to stem the triumphant progress of the Aufklarwng
towards the ideal of perfected humanism which finds its noblest expression in
the classical poetry of Goethe and Schiller. The time was not yet ripe for a
reversion to unrestrained individualism of thought and feeling.
The last
outstanding work which still bears on it something of the stamp of the Sturm
und Dramg epoch is Schiller’s drama Don Carlos (1787); in the same way, it
might be said that the epoch of German classicism was opened by Goethe’s
Iphigenie auf Tauris, which appeared in the same year, although it had been
conceived and written in prose at least ten years earlier. The transition in
Goethe’s life from Sturm vmd Drang to classicism is a chapter which, still
awaits exhaustive and conclusive treatment at the hands of the poet’s
biographers. Goethe’s decisive break with the literary ideals of his youth was,
in the first instance, occasioned by the change in his life: at the close of 1775
the Duke of Saxe-Weimar invited him to his Court, where before very long the
poet became not only the intimate friend, but also the adviser and minister of
his patron. The new conditions brought with them more varied responsibilities;
they meant a less self-centred life than Goethe had led in Frankfort; he
learned to look upon his own poetic production in a more objective and critical
spirit. Works like Die Geschwister, Iphigenie, Tasso, are still “confessions,”
but in a less personal sense than Gotz von Berlichingen, Clavigo, Werther, and
Stella had been; the poet has succeeded in dissociating to a greater extent
than before his personality from his poetry.
Goethe’s
journey to Italy in the years 1786-8 was the central event of his life; it
formed the culmination of his first classical period, which must be clearly
discriminated from the second period of classicism—that of Hermarm vmd Dorothea
and Die naturlnche Tochter. In Italy, far removed from the atmosphere in which
he had grown up, Goethe acquired for the first time that wonderful power of
self-judgment which henceforward distinguishes him among the great poets of the
world. It was not merely that he had left behind him the Sturm und Drang of his
youth; but so objective did his standpoint become towards his early
masterpieces
that he was able to revise them without bias, to complete Egmont (1788) and to
add scenes to Faust (first published as a fragment in 1790). To Goethe Italy
was a revelation of sunshine and colour; the months he spent there were given
up to calm reflexion and unperturbed optimism. In looking back, the contrast
that presented, itself to him was not one of differing literary or artistic
principle, but of the serene outlook upon life as opposed to the unsatisfied
cravings and melancholy brooding of the German poetry of the time. The serene
greatness of the antique as interpreted by Winckelmann and its reflexion in the
Italian art of the Renaissance, became in Goethe’s mind not merely the
art-canon of a definite age, but an intellectual dogma of universal
application. He arrived at no conscious decision—as in his later classical
period—in favour of a classical as opposed to a Romantic or German art; he was
only firmly convinced that a truly great art should express, above all things,
tranquillity of soul. In Torquato Tasso (1790) we find the quintessence of
Goethe’s reflexions on his own life and mission as a poet; in Wilhelm Meisters
Lehrjakre (1795-6), which had been begun in the early years at Weimar, his ripe
conclusions on the great problems of life and art. This novel—and it is not
often regarded under this aspect—is the immediate product, the fullest summary,
of Goethe’s Italian experiences; neither in form nor in substance is it a
“classic” work, but it has in common with .'lassie literature that calm
optimism which henceforth Goethe prized above all else.
Schiller’s
poetic development in these years epitomised, no less clearly than Goethe’s,
the movement of the time. Born in 1759, he was ten years younger than Goethe,
and his early dramas stood in a relation to the second half of the Geniezeit
comparable to that in which Goethe’s Gotz von BerUchingen and Werther had stood
to the first. He, too, soon felt the need of more satisfying ideals than those
which had inspired Die Rimber and KabcHe und Liebe; and, like Goethe, he in his
turn was irresistibly attracted by the serenity of classicism. But it is
significant for the mental character of the two poets that, whereas Goethe, in
his first excursion into the classic field, Iphigenie cwf Tauris, adapted to
the needs of German poetry classic ideas drawn more or less directly from Greek
poetry itself, Schiller solved the problem in a way more in keeping with the
traditions of his centuiy; in Don Carlos he turned his back on the restless drama
of his youth and became a disciple of the French theatre. Goethe’s reversion to
classic form had been the natural result of his choosing a classic subject;
Schiller allowed himself, on the other hand, to be influenced by the
neoclassicism oi the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The national
characteristics of Greek literature, which appealed so strongly to Goethe and
stimulated him to imitation, were acceptable to Schiller only in a generalised
Latin form; and the fervour of Schiller’s Hellenism, as it
is expressed
in the wonderful philosophic lyrics of his Jena period, implies a mind less in
sympathy with the Greek poets than with the rationalistic thinkers of the
eighteenth century.
At every
stage of his career Goethe impresses us with the independence and universality
of his genius; he belongs to no one epoch, he commits himself to no single
tendency of thought. In every movement in which he takes part he has the art of
rising above the strife of the moment, and sifting out and utilising those
elements which are of universal application and abiding worth. No poet ever
belonged in the same full sense as Goethe to two centuries. Schiller, on the
other hand, was essentially a poet and thinker of the age of “Enlightenment.”
The philosophy of rationalism had formed his chief mental training as a
schoolboy, and he erected his own ethics and aesthetics on a basis, part of
which he owed to Kant, part to Shaftesbury. He carried German aesthetics a
stage further than Kant, but he did not, like Herder, attempt to revise the
problem of the relations of the individual mind to the manifestations of
beauty. Rationalistic, too, was his conception of history; and he wrote his own
works Der AbfaU der vereinigten Niederlande (1788) and Der dreissigjahrige
Krieg (1791-3) in the rhetorical style of the masters of the eighteenth
century; he had little understanding for the new ideals of social evolution and
the precise scientific methods which were adopted by the historians in the
following age. In the same way, the optimistic ground-tone of his poetry
harmonised with the best elements in eighteenth centuiy classicism; he retained
to the last that wide- hearted humanism and cosmopolitanism which were
characteristic of the best thought in Europe before the French Revolution.
And yet,
mutually antithetic as the standpoints of Goethe and Schiller were, time
gradually brought about an understanding between the poets. The dissatisfaction
which the older poet felt with the condition of German literature on his return
from Italy led to the conviction that the only hope for its future lay in the
complete abnegation of all that savoured of Sturm umd Draung, of uncouth
nationalism. Schiller, too, soon left behind him the crude utilitarianism of
the Aufklarung; and a truer classicism began to take the place of the methods
he had followed in Don Carlos. The real obstacle to an understanding lay, not
in matters of literature, but in the attitude of each poet towards philosophy;
Schiller, the idealist, had become a confirmed disciple of Kant and a champion
of the new transcendentalism, while Goethe, the realist, whose starting-point
had been Spinoza, looked with distrust on metaphysics as a useless key to the
riddle of the universe. Irreconcilable as these standpoints were, the difficulty
was surmounted by the discovery, which both poets made in 1794, that they were
really at one as to the ultimate object of their striving. They were in
essential agreement concerning the aims of a national art and literature, and
were
both filled
with the same lofty ideal of “ perfect humanity ”; only they had reached their
conclusions by different processes. Schiller had solved the problem
deductively, that is to say, he had set out from the “ idea,” while Goethe had
proceeded inductively, basing his standpoint on nature and the actual facts of
experience.
Apart from
the correspondence of the two poets in these years, the work which gives us
most insight into the nature of their relationship is Schiller’s treatise, Uber
naive uni sentimentalische Dichtung, which appeared in 1795. On the basis of
that dualism, which the transcendental philosophy had introduced into every
province of the intellectual life, Schiller conceived of literature as grouping
itself round one or other of the two poles, the “ naive ” and the “
sentimental.” Naive was, according to him—and in this he was only following the
views of his century on the subject—the poetry of the ancients; na'ive, too,
were poets of the modem world like Shakespeare and Goethe, whose attitude
towards poetry was intuitive, immediate, unreflective. This dogma once
accepted, the logical antithesis to the naive was clearly the type of mind
which reasons and reflects, the “sentimental” mind; and, according to Schiller,
this type predominated in modem poetry. Such was the central idea round which
the poet’s philosophic theory of literature turned, and it may be regarded as
fundamental for the whole classical a/rs poetica. Even more interesting and
suggestive, however, are the subjective aspects of the treatise; Uber naive und
sentimentalische Dichtung is the key to the friendship of the two poets. It is
Schiller’s justification of a type of poet directly antithetic to that
represented by the Greeks, Shakespeare, and Goethe—a sentimental or modem type
of which he regarded himself, and rightly, as a characteristic example.
The
friendship of Goethe and Schiller was thus based, not so much on mutual
concessions, as on a common agreement that there were several ways of attaining
the end both poets had in view; that it was possible to look at life and
literature differently and yet be at one on the essential issue. It was hardly
in the nature of things, however, that two men should live in such close
intellectual companionship for eleven years and not each take on to some extent
the colour of the other; this is to be seen most clearly in the gradual
approximation of their views with regard to what is “ classic ” in poetry. If
Goethe’s second period of classicism differed so profoundly from that of
Iphigenie, if he demanded still more emphatically the expression of the type,
the perfect form and the impersonal note in literature—if he abandoned the more
or less subjective warmth of Tasso, with its slightly veiled portraits, for the
complete and almost repellent objectivity of Die natiirUche Tochter and
Pandora—if the typical figures of Hermann und Dorothea take the place of the
individualised characters of Wilhelm Meister, and if the generalising methods
with which Faust was continued form so abrupt a contrast to the personal note
of the earlier fragments—all this was due, in some
measure at
least, to the influence of his friend. On the other hand, the influence of
Goethe on Schiller is even more marked. It was clearly Goethe who removed the
metaphysical hindrances which in 1794 still separated Schiller from poetry; it
was he who facilitated a return to the drama and taught Schiller to write
ballads that have won a warm place in the nation’s heart. It was, above all
things, Goethe’s naive, plastic, unmetaphysical outlook upon life that revealed
to Schiller the worth of reality and broadened his whole conception of
humanity.
The
friendship of Goethe and Schiller, that is to say the eleven years from 1794 to
Schiller’s death in 1805, represents the summit of German literary achievement,
the culminating result in the long process of eighteenth century development
towards classicism. As in all classical epochs, the dominant note of the time
was one of conscious achievement; the men of the age were proud of having
brought humanity and art “ so herrlkh weit,” and they doubted—with the horrors
of the French Revolution fresh in their memories—the possibility of the younger
generation advancing beyond them. What was written by the great German poets in
these years was a ripe, not a ripening, literature; the nation was no longer in
the position of Goethe’s Iphigenia in that unforgettable line,
Das Land der Griechen mit der Seele suchend;
the land of
the Greeks was found; Hellas was in Weimar. This selfsatisfied, conclusive
character of the age is exemplified by its leading personalities—Goethe and
Schiller, Kant and Wilhelm von Humboldt; and it is to be read out of all the
great books that were written at that time. Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, for
example, is the climax to which the fiction of the eighteenth century, since
its first awakening to life under Richardson’s stimulus, had steadily advanced;
it is the most national of all German novels, and it became the model of the
representative German fiction of the earlier nineteenth century. Hermann vmd
Dorothea (1797), again, is perfect of its kind, harmonious, irreproachable; it
is a classic poem, although its classicism is clearly different from that of
Goethe’s Iphigenie. In the earlier drama the poet had created complicated,
individualised personages conceived by an essentially Germanic imagination
without too careful a consideration for the classic canon; whereas in Hermann
und Dorothea he has openly accepted the doctrine that perfect literature deals
not with individuals, but with more or less abstractly constructed types. It is
this generalisation—making the personages of the poem true not so much to
themselves as to a whole class, selecting for treatment not peculiar or
exceptional incidents, but events of universally human significance— that
renders Hermann und Dorothea a classical poem, in comparison with which
Iphigenie and Tasso still belong to a comparatively unclassic art. Indeed, we
might even claim for Goethe’s idyll the honour of
being the
most perfect manifestation of German classicism. Final, too, although not in
any exclusive sense classic, is Fa/ust, which was revised and continued under
Schiller’s stimulus. The completed “ First Part ” was not published until 1808,
three years after Schiller’s death, the second part not until 1833.
When we
return to Schiller’s writings, we find in them similar “ final ” qualities. His
treatise On naive and sentimental poetry is virtually the last word on the
subject of classical literary theory; his WaUenstem (1798-9) is the finest
historical drama of the eighteenth century; and there is the same mellow
quality in the classic ballads of 1798. None, it is true, of Schiller’s later
dramas touches quite so high a level as Hermann und Dorothea or Faust; but the
reason is to be sought in the genius and temperament of the younger poet. On
the one hand, the schism in Schiller’s nature between what might be called the
national needs and the cosmopolitan ideals of the centuiy was more marked ;
and, on the other, Schiller’s knowledge of Greek literature was wanting in that
depth and sympathy which is characteristic of Goethe’s. It was manifestly
harder for him to discover his “ form ” than it was for Goethe; and there is in
consequence something tentative and experimental about all the dramas of his
last years. Not until 1804, the year of Wilhelm Tell, did he create a national
historical drama which occupies a position in the poetry of the period
analogous to that held by Hermann und Dorothea.
There is,
however, another side to this picture of German classicism which is apt to be
overlooked. We allow ourselves too readily to be dazzled by the achievements of
Weimar, and forget that the general body of German literature at the turn of
the century stood far below these models of classic excellence. Works like
Hermann und Dorothea, Wilhelm Meister, and Wilhelm Tell, were not, after all,
representative of the German epic, novel, and drama at this epoch; and the
masterly ballads of Goethe and Schiller found no capable imitators among their
contemporaries. The average literary production of the time is approximately
represented by poems like Kosegarten’s Jvcwnde (1808) and Tiedge’s didactic
epic Urania (1801); the drama of the period, in spite of Schiller, lay mainly
in the hands of belated representatives of the Sturm und Drang, of effective
masters of stage-craft like August Wilhelm Iffland (1759-1814) or of
playwrights who showed little respect for the dignity of poetry, like August
von Kotzebue (1761-1819) and the rationalists of Berlin ; lastly, the most popular
German fiction of the classical age was not Wilhelm Meister but the voluminous
writings of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825), who had more Sturm und
Drang in his veins than Weimarian classicism. The floundering, confused, and
formless novels which Richter wrote are more characteristic of a literature of
decay and disintegration than of one of achievement. Not that he was deficient
in genius of a higher sort—to find so kindly
and genial a
humorist we have to go back to Sterne—but his gifts only threw into more
glaring contrast the clumsiness of the vehicle by means of which he expressed
himself. It would thus seem as if the class distinctions of the social life of
the eighteenth century were also characteristic of its literature; there is the
same wide gulf between the leaders of poetry and their followers as there was
between the absolute rulers of the petty German States of the time and the
subjects over whom they ruled. When we look into the actual facts of literary
history more closely, we are forced to the conclusion that the general
condition of German poetry at the zenith of the classical period was, if
anything, less promising than in that age of Sturm und Drang, when an
optimistic enthusiasm had inspired all forms of German literature.
This consideration
is of importance, if we are to understand and justify the extraordinary
outburst of Romanticism which at the very close of the eighteenth century
disturbed the equanimity of German classicism. To realise what the Romantic
revolt meant we must look beyond Goethe and Schiller, and study the lower
manifestations of German poetry at this time; beneath the noble classicism
associated with Weimar there lay appalling depths of cynical rationalism, which
the Xermn of Goethe and Schiller (1796)—effective enough in their gibes against
the coming men of the new movement—were powerless to destroy. Clearly the “
time-spirit ” looked at German classicism with other eyes than its great poets;
and the future lay not here, but in a reversion to those subjective ideals, in
which at all times the German spirit has sought healing and recovery from its
wanderings into the alien world of Latin classicism. The new century belonged
in the first instance, not to Schiller and not to the classic Goethe, but to
the Romanticists.
The period of
Romanticism stands in a relation to that of Sturm und Drang analogous to that
in which Goethe’s and Schiller’s classicism stands to Lessing’s; just as, owing
to the intervening outburst of Sturm und Drang, the literature which centred in
Wallenstein and Hermann und Dorothea was a fuller expression of the national
life of the German people than Minna von Bamhebn and the poetry of the
Frederician age, so now the Romantic movement showed how enormously the
national spirit had benefited by the discipline of Weimar. German critics of
the earlier half of the nineteenth century, and especially those who had come
through the Hegelian school, found a difficulty in discriminating between the
epoch known as Sturm tmd Drang and that of Romanticism. And it must be admitted
that the points of similarity between the periods are more striking than the
points of difference. Both movements stand out in sharp contrast to those which
they superseded by virtue of their pronounced individualism; both claim the rights
of poetry to adopt a purely subjective standpoint. They are at one in their
contempt for rules and for regularity of form; they are determined opponents of
all kinds of
boundaries and restrictions. Both claim the right to widen the domain of poetry
beyond the limits imposed by the classic canon. But there were also profound
differences between the epochs. The Sturm und Drang was, as has been shown,
essentially destructive and negative; the Romantic School, on the other hand,
.was constructive and affirmative. It built up where the earlier movement had
been content to tear down and destroy; it attacked the same problems, but with
a different object and from a different standpoint.
Before
attempting to formulate a definition of Romanticism, it is of importance to
learn what meaning the Germans at that time attached to the word “romantic.”
This, however, is not easy; for even the Romantic School itself was not at one
as to the use of the term. Friedrich Schlegel, who, of all the members of the
first Romantic School, was most qualified to speak with authority, once
informed his brother that he had written 125 pages of manuscript dealing with
the meaning of the word “romantic”; and presumably he did not reach a satisfactory
conclusion, as we hear no more of the essay. That a similar confusion reigned
in the minds of his contemporaries everyone knows who has attempted to
disentangle the mesh of Romantic criticism. Perhaps the most helpful aid to a
definition is to consider the idea of “ romantic * as an antithesis to “
classic.” The meaning which the Germans attached to the word “ classic ”
remained tolerably constant throughout the century, Schiller’s interpretation
of it not differing materially from that of Gottsched. “ Classic,” however,
must not be confused with “ Greek ”; for the attitude of the German mind to
Greek art and poetry changed with every phase of the rapidly advancing
intellectual development of the eighteenth century. The Germans did not, even
in their least “ classic ” periods, admit any serious antithesis between German
and Greek ideas. The heroes of the Sturm und Drang were all warm enthusiasts
for Greek poetry. Werther’s favourite book is Homer, Karl Moor finds his ideal
heroes in Plutarch, and the most tumultuous German dramatists were as fervent
admirers of Greek tragedy as Elias Schlegel and Lessing had been. Not only
Winckelmann and Lessing, but Herder, Lenz, and the Strassburg Goethe, Voss and
Burger, Schiller and Goethe in their riper years, Holderlin and Friedrich
Schlegel, all loved Greek poetry and insisted on as close an approximation as
was possible in the German tongue to the Greek spirit; but, needless to say,
those writers differed widely in their attitude to the classic-romantic
controversy. The antithesis “ classic ” and “ romantic,” about which so much
was written in those days, is to be traced back to Schiller’s famous Kantian
antinomy of “ na'ive ”—according to his view, the equivalent of “classic”—and
“sentimental,” which, after some modification, was regarded as synonymous with
“ romantic.” But the Romanticists themselves were very far from accepting
Schiller’s distinction in its entirety; for they were as little disposed to
exclude
naivetS
from their own artistic creed as they were to see in classic art and poetry the
only legitimate expression of that quality.
Romanticism—to
attempt some manner of practical definition—was a revival of individualism, of
a literature of personality, as opposed to the objective, theoretically
grounded literature of classicism. It aimed at reconstructing the imaginative
world on the basis of the “ ego." It repudiated all systems of law, of
belief, of criticism, which were not based on and adapted to the needs of the
individual. The Romanticists laid it down as the bounden duty of every man to think
out afresh his relationship to God and the universe; they disliked nothing more
than dogmas and rules, forced upon the individual by minds which were of
necessity differently constituted from his. Such principles led, for instance,
to a reconstruction of religion, and to its reestablishment on a basis of
purely personal faith and of the immediate relationship of the soul to God;
thus arose a new pantheism, akin to that of Spinoza and Jakob Bohme, in which
one of the first articles was the spirituality of the universe, the presence of
God in all things. In the domain of literature, the first task of Romanticism
was to sweep away the boundaries which hindered the full expression of the
individual. If a poet wished to express in his verse his feelings for nature,
no Lessing was allowed to forbid the abuse of descriptive poetry; if he would
call music or painting to his aid, he found no theoretical obstacles in his
way. Above all things, “ Romantic ” meant that these young reformers were
determined, to the best of their ability, to counteract that dissociation of
poetry from life which is characteristic of every classic epoch. The new poets
demanded the same right that the Sturmer und Dranger had demanded, to transfer
their experiences and emotions to paper exactly as these phenomena presented
themselves to them; in other words, literature, according to this school,
became not the expression of a regularly defined literary creed, but the
immediate reflexion of the soul and its relations to the outside world.
Such are some
of the more salient features of the intellectual movement which opened the
nineteenth century in Germany and dominated it for more than thirty years; but
they afford, admittedly, no clear and satisfying definition of the scope and
aims of the Romantic School. The literary historian is baffled by that elusive
character of the Romantic ideas to which reference has already been made; it is
almost impossible to say what—irrespective of the worth or worthlessness of the
literature itself—was at any given moment vital to the movement. The
progressive development of Romanticism is equally obscure. We are familiar with
certain groups of writers in German literature, who are included in the
category of Romantic; but we are still far from seeing the organic connexion
between the groups, and understanding the life-history of the whole movement.
It is not yet clear how analogous and simultaneous phenomena in other European
literatures are to
be
correlated; we have no working hypothesis of the growth and decay of
Romanticism, and are even at a loss to say what really had to grow and decay.
Above all, we miss a satisfactory coordination of the two phases in German
literature, which have now to be considered, known as the “Romantic School” and
the “Heidelberg Romanticists.” If the relations of these two important phases
were understood, and the metamorphoses made clear which the Romantic ideas
underwent between 1805 and 1813— years of extraordinary importance for German
national life—the subsequent history of Romanticism would become a simple
logical deduction.
The Romantic
School, which may be said to have come into existence with the Athenaum
published by the brothers Schlegel between 1798 and 1800, forms a
self-contained phase in German literature. Chief among its members was Ludwig
Tieck (1778-1853), who began his career as a bitter opponent of the insipid,
unimaginative literature of the Ayfklarvmg, endeavouring to rescue what was
vital in the old Sturm und Drang from its deadening, materialistic grasp. It is
questionable, however, whether Tieck, left to himself, would have been more
than a negative force in the Romantic movement; at best, he might have been the
warm advocate and interpreter of those masters of foreign literatures whom the
Romanticists took to their hearts, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Calderon. To use a
familiar phrase of the time, he was a “talent” rather than a “ genius.” But he
had the good fortune to become the intimate friend of the most original
thinkers and poets of the school, Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder (1773-98) and
Friedrich von Hardenberg, who was known to literature as Novalis (1772-1801);
and under the stimulus of these two men he became a power of the first
magnitude in Romantic poetry. Both these writers were frail and sickly, both
were cut off by an early death before they had reached their thirtieth year;
but each in his own way threw out naively and unconsciously ideas which
revolutionised the intellectual life of Germany. Wackenroder’s Herzens-
ergieswngen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders (1797) is the primary cell from
which the whole Romantic movement in painting sprang, from the German circles
in Rome and the Diisseldorf school down to that last efflorescence of Romantic
painting, the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood in England. Here art was reinstated as
a vehicle for religious feelings and spiritual aspirations; it became the
expression of the Divine in the human soul. Together with Wackenroder, Tieck
gave voice to this new faith in the earliest of the purely Romantic novels,
Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen (1798), in which the form of romance cultivated by
Heinse is treated with the ethic seriousness of Wilhelm Meister. li Tieck now
appears as a warm enthusiast for art, if a Romantic milieu of medieval colour
and unearthly music takes the place of the sullen discontent and pessimistic
realism of his first novel, William Lovell (1795-6), it is the gentle,
unassuming friend of his school and college days to whom we owe the change.
1798-1804]
Novalis.—The brothers Schlegel.
399
Tieck’s
personal debt to Novalis, whom he met in 1799, a year after Wackenroder’s
death, is less conspicuous, although Novalis was the more gifted poet of the
two; indeed, a more inspired poet, a more penetrating thinker, is not to be met
with in the entire literature of this epoch. In Novalis’ Hymnen an die Nacht
(1800) the religious lyric of Romanticism touches its highest point; in his
fragments of fiction, Die Lehrlinge xu Sais, and Heinrich von Ofterdingen
(1802), we find the quintessence of that unworldly Romantic idealism which the
Romantic School professed and tried to realise; here we have in its most
concentrated form the poetry of the Middle Ages—not the real Middle Ages, for
Heinrich von Ofterdingen is even less historically “real” than Gotz von
Berlichmgen had been—but the Middle Ages as seen through the idealising
mysticism of a Romantic faith, which spumed the boundaries between the real and
the ideal, between past and present, poetry and prose.
The critical
foundations of this new school of poetry, which Tieck and his friends
inaugurated, were laid by the brothers August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel
(1767-1845 and 1772-1829). Both writers had written poetry, but without
attaining any very conspicuous success. Friedrich is especially remembered as
the author of a fragmentary novel, Lucinde (1799), which throws valuable light
on the efforts of the school to carry into the province of practical ethics its
iconoclastic ideas. No less than the authors of Franz Stembald, Friedrich
Schlegel was in Heinse’s debt; here, too, although in a very different way, the
latter’s moral laxity was brought into the service of Romanticism. Unreadable
now, Schlegel’s novel left its mark on the development of that fiction of
social problems which bulks so largely in the German literature of the later
nineteenth century. The elder Schlegel, again, more than atoned for the cold
metrical exercises of his lyric poetry by the magnificent translation of
Shakespeare (1797-1810), which remains the one abiding literary achievement of
the Romantic School. So far, however, as the history of Romanticism itself is
concerned, both men were in the first instance critics; they were the founders
of that Romantic criticism which rendered the attitude of the nineteenth
century towards literary production profoundly different from that taken up by
Lessing in the preceding century.
The fact has
already been emphasised, that what distinguishes the Romantic movement from the
classicism which it overcame is not that it moved in a new world, or chose as
the themes of its poetry different things, but rather that it approached the
same subjects and the same problems from a wholly original point of view. What,
for instance, makes Wackenroder’s art-theories so radically opposed to those of
Moritz or even Goethe, is only the method of approach; Franz Stem- bald,
Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Lucim.de, are novels about milieus not dissimilar
from those in which Ardinghello, Titan, and Wilhelm Meister
move, but the
method of treatment is new. In the same way, the critical work of the Schlegels
may be compared with that of their predecessors. Friedrich Schlegel began his
career as an enthusiastic apologist of the Greeks; his early essays form the
theoretical complement to the writings of that most Greek spirit of the
Romantic age, the Swabian, Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843). We have, however,
only to place this Romantic Hellenism of Schlegel and Holderlin beside that of
Goethe and Schiller, to recognise the complete incompatibility of the two
conceptions. Friedrich Schlegel saw in Greek literature just what Goethe and
Schiller overlooked, and he attached but little importance to those elements
in it which they singled out for imitation. Holderlin’s lyrics, the splendid
prose dithyrambs of Hyperion (1797-9) —a novel which, for poetic intensity,
deserves a place beside Heinrich von Ofterdingen—are permeated by the Greek
spirit; but it is a Greek spirit free from the self-conscious rationalism or
studious imitation to be found in Die Goiter Griechenlcmds or Pandora. In
other words, Romantic Hellenism endeavoured to get at the soul, the emotion
underlying Greek manifestations of art, while that of the eighteenth century,
from Winckelmann and Lessing to Schiller and Goethe, demanded rather the
impersonal and objective reproduction of the Greek masterpieces.
The same
irreconcilable attitude towards the preceding generation is to be seen in the
critical doctrines of the brothers. Obviously, both had learned from Schiller;
but they differed from him profoundly in their general outlook upon literature.
Schiller, the heir of the Aufklarung, regarded poetry as the great theorists of
classicism, from Boileau to Lessing, had regarded it—from a superior
vantage-ground; he employed in his criticism the deductive and legislative
method of his master Kant. The younger men, on the other hand, filled with a
reverence for genius as a kind of “ God-intoxication,” demanded respect and
humility on the part of the critic. The supreme function of criticism,
according to the Schlegels, was not, as it had hitherto been, to sit in
judgment, but to appreciate and “ characterise.” Men of strongly-marked
personality themselves, they demanded for creative genius every privilege; in
other words, they discarded the classical ideals of Goethe and Schiller, and
went back to the freer principles of the Sturm vmd Drang-, they reduced
Herder’s vague dreams and Lenz’ unmeasured extravagance to the law and order of
a well-weighed system. In no field of Romantic activity is the epoch-making
character of the movement more, clearly indicated than in its criticism.
It may be
objected, however, that the Romantic School, regarded as an abiding factor in
German literary history, is even less conspicuous than had been the Sturm vmd
Drang; it might be argued that the one movement was quite as much a movement of
broken endeavour as the other. Novalis’ works are of high quality, but they
180©—8]
401
are only
fragments; and Tieck’s writings—not to mention Wackenroder’s -have long ceased
to be read even by cultured Germans. But the positive value of Romanticism is
not to be measured by tangible results. We may owe to the movement no supremely
great drama or romance, at most, perhaps, a handful of matchless lyrics; but we
do owe to it ideas—ethical, social ideas, ideas in art and philosophy—of an
extraordinarily suggestive character. The Romantic School produced the yeast
which fermented the whole intellectual life, not merely of Germany, but,
through Madame de Stael’s De VAUemagne and the later French Ecole romantique,
that of Europe. The Romantic ideas were not restricted to the little band of
men whose work has just been considered; they are to be seen permeating, by
means of the influence of the Romantic theologian, Schleiermacher, the
religious life of Germany, Catholic as well as Protestant; the philosophy of
Fichte is essentially Romantic, and, in a still higher degree, that fervid
gospel of the “world- soul" which was preached by Schelling.
The Romantic
School, however, was short-lived; it was only a matter of a few years, or even
months. Novalis died of consumption in 1801, and the little circle which had
met together in Jena in 1798 was soon scattered; Friedrich Schlegel went to
Vienna, Tieck, somewhat later, to Rome. The next group, in which Romantic ideas
found concentrated expression, gathered round the University of Heidelberg in
the years 1806 to 1808. Here, again, the men whose voices counted, were few in
number—in the first instance only three, Klemens Brentano (1778-1842), Ludwig
von Amim (1781-1831), and Joseph von Gorres {1776-1848). There was no talk of a
“school,” no formulating of principles, in Heidelberg, but the Zeitung fur
Einsiedler (1808) formed a bond not unlike that formed by the Athendwn in
Berlin and Jena. A noticeable feature of this second phase of Romanticism is
its apparent independence of the first; there is no question of these younger
men being the docile pupils of the earlier Romanticists, and still less of
their continuing the work begun by the latter. It would seem rather as if they
purposely ignored the high poetic ideals of the Romantic School, and had gone
back to the earlier, more primitive stage of the movement to be found in
pioneers like Herder. A closer study of the Heidelberg writers shows, however,
that the disp?7ity between the two phases of Romanticism is more apparent than
real, and that we have to deal with a clearly thought-out advance on the first
phase, effected with the aid of the older Sturm tend Drang. A brief comparison
will make this relationship more apparent.
Tieck had in
his early writings broken a lance for the old Volks- biicher, which the
unimaginative Aufklarwng had spumed as fit only for childish, uncultured minds;
but in practice Tieck regarded the VolJesbuch rather as a source of poetic
possibilities, as a framework on which to hang the rich creations of his
Romantic imagination, than as an end in
402 Comparison of the two phases of Romanticism.
[i798-i8i7
itself. He
loved the Volksbuch for what it could suggest, not for what it actually was;
his own Marchen are decked out with an unreal poetic mysticism and rendered so
piquant by that Romantic irony on which the school set store, that they cease
to be Volksmarchen. The younger generation, on the other hand, proclaimed the worth
of the popular literature in its original form; they preferred it—as is to be
seen in Gorres’ Teutsche Volksbucher (1807) and the Kinder- und Hausmarchen
(1812-5) of the brothers Grimm—deprived of all the magic light and music with
which Tieck and Novalis surrounded it. The same contrast is to be seen, if we
compare the somewhat sparing lyrics of the first school with Des Knaben
Wvmderhorn (1805-8), that magnificent collection of folk-songs with which the
Heidelberg poets enriched German literature. Amim and Brentano were in their
day accused of having tampered with the originals of their Volkslieder, yet Des
Knaben Wunderhom is a faithful, if not always literal, reproduction of the
lyric spirit of the people. Here, too, the spiritual idealism of the first
school descends to earth, and a poetry of simple realism takes the place of
purely imaginative flights. Lastly—to take still another example— there is an
exactly analogous relation between the dreamy and wholly unhistorical
medievalism of Novalis and the more or less definite historical outline of
Amim’s novels, and particularly of Die Kronenwdchter (1817), which, like so
many masterpieces of the fickle romantic temperament, has remained a fragment.
Here are to be found the beginnings of a national form of German historical
fiction, the development of which was unfortunately checked a few years later
by a new force, which no nation in Europe was strong enough to resist—the
influence of Sir Walter Scott.
In the drama
alone did the Heidelberg writers fail to make any conspicuous advance on their
immediate predecessors; they have nothing to place beside Schlegel’s monumental
translation of Shakespeare, and, when they tried to write original dramas,
these were, like Brentano’s Die Griindung Prags (1815), only echoes of the
formless Romantic plays of Tieck. But, outside of all schools, the Romantic
drama was making significant progress, and finding a way for itself between the
epic fairy- plays of Tieck and the classic tragedy of Schiller. In the
historical or pseudo-historical dramas of Zacharias Werner (1768-1828), for
instance, a writer who has been somewhat harshly treated by the literary
historian, we may detect an advance upon the Octaviamus and Genoveva of Tieck,
which has much in common with the reforms introduced by the Heidelberg poets
into other forms of Romantic literature. The great dramatist of these years,
however, was not Werner, but Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811); and Kleist’s
drama, without being specifically or in any narrow sense Romantic, is strictly
parallel to the literary movement in the second phase of Romanticism. Like the
Heidelberg writers, he was in entire sympathy with the subjective principles of
the Sturm
1803-18] Heinrich von
Kleist.—The patriotic lyric. 403
und
Drang', his first drama, Die Familie Schroffenstein (1803), might have been a
direct imitation of Klinger’s restless tragedies, and there is more of the old
Ritterdrama in Das Kathchen von Heilbronn (1810) than of Tieck. Kleist’s own
life was, on the other hand, too bitter a struggle with untoward circumstances
for him to feel attracted by the unworldly idealism of the Romantic School.
Both by temperament and education he was a realist; his masterly novel Michael
KoMhaas (1810) is in actuality and poetic strength superior to the best of
Amim’s stories; and his graceful one-act comedy, Der zerbrochene Krug (1808),
delights in the minute details of every-day life. Even in his relations to the
antique, as seen in the passionate tragedy of revenge, Penthesilea (1808), his
attitude towards the theme is—to use Schiller’s term—“ naive,” not, like
Friedrich Schlegel’s and Holderlin’s love of antiquity, “ sentimental.”
Kleist’s all too short life—he died by his own hand in 1811—culminates in the
historical drama, Prinz Friedrich von Homburg and the tragedy of Die
Hermamnschlacht (neither published till 1821), in which the national and
political aspiration of the German people is reflected as in no other German
tragedy up to this time. Thus, although in the literal sense of the word, not a
Romanticist, Kleist demonstrates in a very marked way the development of the
movement towards realism and practical common sense.
The political
spirit, which has just been mentioned as characteristic of Die Hermarmschlacht,
appears in its most pronounced form in the patriotic lyric, inspired by the
national rising against Napoleon. Theodor Komer (1791-1813), Max von
Schenkendorf (1783-1817), Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769-1860), the chief
representatives of this lyric, were none of them poets of the first rank—an
intense political poetry is rarely, when judged by the calmer aesthetic
criteria of a later age, of a very high order—but, better perhaps than any
other group of writers at this time, they show the metamorphosis which the
Romantic spirit was undergoing. Taken all in all, this literary transformation
was no less phenomenal than the political development of the German people; the
short span of years between the birth of the Romantic School in 1798 and the
battle of Leipzig in 1813, is in both these respects unique in the life-history
of the German, and perhaps of any, people.
It was a long
way from the unworldly, musical lyrics of Tieck or the personal outpourings of
Novalis to the “ Gott der Eisen wachsen liess ” of 1813; from the poetic
medievalism of Franz Stembald’s Italy, or of Heinrich von Ofterdingen,
wandering with his chorus-singing merchants to Augsburg, to the every-day
realities of Seume’s Spaziergang nach Syrakus (1803), or the practical
political spirit of Arndt’s Geist der Zeit (1806-18). The idle dreamers and
idealists of Heinse, Goethe, Novalis, and Wackenroder, had given place to very
real and active heroes, to men who were incited to action by the mighty figure
of Napoleon; the dolce far niente of the early Romanticists, the contemplative,
personal
poetry, the
ecstasy of medieval Catholicism, all disappeared in the second phase of the
movement, or were at least adapted to other and more utilitarian ends. The
idealism of an art that altogether ignored the world of reality had given place
to a poetry of the German Volk in the sense of Herder and Justus Moser; the
brilliant phantasmagory of medieval Catholicism had paled, not perhaps before
Protestantism—the Heidelberg school was still for the most part Catholic in its
tendencies— but at least before a common-sense view of religion, which
contrasted with Schleiermacher’s mystic spiritualism. And, although Fichte and
Schelling still dominated philosophy, one must at least recognise in both
thinkers, and more particularly in Fichte, whose Reden cm die deutsche Nation
(1808) helped no less than the songs of Komer and Arndt to awaken the German
national consciousness, a tendency towards practical endeavour and national
utilitarianism. The Romantic medieval world —a world as vague and undefined as the
“ Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ” itself—chs appeared, one might say,
with the last fiction of that Empire and gave place to a feeling the Germans
had never known before in so intense and peculiar a sense—patriotism. At the
same time a deep-seated and serious desire to know and understand the Middle
Ages took its place; and from this desire arose the new sciences of medieval
scholarship, law, and history, in which throughout the nineteenth century
Germany has led the way. Karl Lachmann, the brothers Grimm, Savigny, Niebuhr,
Ranke, are the great names in this new academic movement.
When the
little Heidelberg group separated in 1808 its chief members, Amim and Brentano,
found their way to Berlin, where their later work was, to some extent, merged in
that of the literary group dominated by the rather uninspired imagination of
Friedrich de la Motte Fouqu£ (1777-1843), and Adelbert von Chamisso
(1781-1838). Both in the novels of Fouque and in the ballads of Chamisso there
are frequent concessions to that uninspired homeliness of tone which, in all
ages, has had a peculiar attraction for the German mind. In Berlin, however,
there was a good enough soil for Romantic poetry; there were literary societies
and “aesthetic teas” enough, which joined in the enthusiastic admiration of
Goethe, an essential element in Berlin Romanticism; the old Frederician “
enlightenment ” was for the time forgotten in the wider intellectual ideals of
the Prussian capital. To the Berlin circle, or at least to the north-German circle,
belonged one great singer, the Silesian Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857),
perhaps the greatest lyric poet of the whole Romantic movement. The lyric of
Eichendorff is even still fresher, more “naive,” more in harmony with the
voices of nature than that of the Heidelberg circle; it bears additional
testimony to the fact that under Romantic influence the German lyric was
finding its way back to that elemental expression of sympathy between man and
nature, which is characteristic of the early Minnesang. As a
novelist,
Eichendorff illustrates what the members of the Heidelberg circle—if we except
Brentano’s youthful and immature romance Godwi —had not illustrated, the
development of the “ artist novel ” under the new conditions; the equivalent of
Franz Sterribald and Heinrich van Ofierdimgen in the later Romantic period is
EichendorfFs Ahmung und Gegenwart (1815), and—most concentrated and delightful
of all—Aus dern Leben eines Taugenichts (1826). Here the real, every-day world
has taken the place of the Middle Ages, and the natural magic of the forest has
ousted the mystic supematuralism of Tieck and Novalis. But in one respect
Eichendorff remained a Romanticist of the old type; he was a faithful adherent
of the Catholic Church, a fact which blinded him to the importance of the
north-German Protestant spirit for the later developments of the movement.
Forebodings
of Romantic decay are to be traced at an early stage; the theatrical effects of
the so-called Schicksalsdramatiker, the curious delight in the oriental lyric,
the influence of Byron in Germany, the cynical irony of Heine, are phenomena
which emphasised the effeteness of Romanticism. Decay, too, is to be traced in
the morbid, although powerful, fantasy of Ernst Theodor Wilhelm (Amadeus) Hoffmann
(1776-1822), whose novels combine a fertility of imagination with a realism and
a power of plastic reproduction never excelled by any German writer. Hoffmann’s
real greatness lies not in the weird horrors and daring fancies he conceived,
but in his manner of reproducing them; he discovered what Arnim and so many of
his contemporaries had sought for in vain, the art of telling a story simply
and directly. And it was precisely this quality that made him one of the few
creative artists of German Romanticism who influenced the literary movement of
Europe.
The Romantic
traditions continued to dominate literature in southern Germany long after
disintegration had set in in the north. In Swabia a group of writers, several
of whom were immediate disciples of the Heidelberg school, remained staunchly
faithful to the Romantic ideals, and kept them alive all through the epoch of
“Young Germany.” This was the true mission of Uhland and his friends, one of
much more importance for the history of German poetiy than the literature they
produced. To them we owe it, for instance, that the traditional Romantic novel
was not forgotten, and rose, a generation later, in Keller’s Der grune Heinrich
to heights it had never touched before; it was Swabian influence that brought
German literature back again so rapidly to the Volk, and inspired the
sympathetic literature of peasant life from Auerbach to Anzengruber. The
Swabians, too, were the real mediators between north-Germans like Theodor Storm
and the early phases of Romanticism. Even Friedrich Hebhel looked up to Uhland
as the inspirer and master of his early manhood.
Ludwig Uhland
(1787-1862), the head and chief literary personality
of the group,
was a lyric and ballad poet of exceptional gifts; he adapted the ballad-form as
it had been handed down from Goethe and Schiller, to the popular tone of the
Vollcslied, and introduced into it a characteristically Romantic note of
medieval wonder; he attempted to create a historical drama in accordance with
the new creed; he devoted himself to the study of the German Middle Ages with
an ardour and zeal to which Amim and Brentano could not pretend, and he
published a collection of Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder (1844),
which, as a literal reproduction of the popular tradition, is superior to the
Wunderhorn. But, in spite of these merits, Uhland’s attitude towards literature
was in many respects that of the amateur who has other and weightier pursuits
in life; he was a university professor, and for a time a practical and even a
leading politician. And what is true of Uhland was true in an even higher
degree of his Swabian colleagues. All the members of the group, with the
exception, perhaps, of the unhappy Wilhelm Waiblinger (1804-30), were only
poets by the way; this was forced upon them by the fact that literature,
nowhere at that time a lucrative pursuit, was virtually impossible under the
provincial conditions which prevailed in Wurttemberg. They were doctors,
lawyers, professors, clergymen—Romanticists, who, in strange contrast to the
earlier school, had nothing of what we now call Bohemianism in their blood.
This explains perhaps a certain practical, matter-of-fact tone in their poetiy,
but it is also responsible for the provincial dilettantism which at times makes
itself felt in even the most gifted of these poets.
The two men
who were perhaps furthest removed from this reproach were Wilhelm Hauff
(1802-27), whose career, cut short at the age of twenty-five, was full of such
extraordinary promise, and Eduard Morilce (1804-75). Morike has left one novel,
Maler Nolten (1832), which is worthy of a place beside the best subjective
novels of German Romanticism; he has written a few short stories of the first
rank, and, above all, a volume of lyrics, the intensity and unsophisticated simplicity
of which justify us in regarding him as a lyric poet of the first rank. But his
genius was cramped by the provincialism of Stuttgart; and one feels that in a
more liberal atmosphere, like that of Weimar, he might have risen to greater
things.
In Austria,
which was further removed from the Romantic focus, new elements make their
appearance in the literary development. From the Romantic movement, which
reached Vienna before that capital had time to forget the glamour of the age of
Joseph II, the Austrians extracted what appealed to their temperament; but they
were far from accepting Romanticism as a whole. They listened with respectful
attention to Schlegel’s famous lectures on the drama (1809-11), applauded his
enthusiasm for Shakespeare, and took specially to heart his words on the great
Spanish dramatists. But Gottsched’s classicism was still too near them; they
had, as a nation, participated too little in the classicism
of Weimar to
see eye to eye with the Romanticists in Germany; and consequently much in
Tieck’s doctrine, and still more in that of Novalis, Wackenroder, and Friedrich
Schlegel, meant nothing to them. The best in the Austrian literature of this
time was peculiarly Austrian. Nikolaus Lenau (1802-50), for instance, obviously
learned from Uhland and his friends; however, it was not through them that he
became Austria’s greatest modem singer, but by virtue of a pessimism, which
circumstances outward and inward had stamped upon his supersensitive soul; his
lyric coloured as it is by the melancholy landscape of the Hungarian pusta,
expresses a despair no less intense than that of his Italian contemporary,
Leopardi. Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872), again, Austria’s chief dramatist, and
one of the master-dramatists of the nineteenth century, had at Schlegel’s feet
learned to love Lope de Vega and imitate Calderon; but he saw the Spanish poets
with Austrian, not Romantic, eyes, and introduced a Spanish element into German
tragedy which the northern poets, with all their admiration for Calderon, could
neither have understood nor approved of. It is manifestly unjust to regard
Grillparzer, as has often been done, merely as a belated follower of Goethe and
Schiller; he did not, it is true, break rudely with the classical poets, as
Kleist before him and Hebbel after him did; but his drama is no less peculiarly
his own. He gave his countrymen, in Konig Ottokars Gliick tmd Ende (1825), a
national historical tragedy; in Des Meeres wnd der Liebe Wellen (1831), Der
Traum ein Leben (1834), and Libussa (published 1872), dramas of marvellous
poetic beauty, filled with the quintessence of the Austrian national spirit;
and he wrote in Weh diem der lilgt (1838) a comedy which surpasses all that the
Weimar epoch produced in this genre. Compared with Goethe and Schiller, Grillparzer
thinks in a specifically modem way; and he was profoundly influenced by the
great wave of pessimism which swept across Europe in the early decades of the
nineteenth century.
Goethe was a
contemporary of the whole of the vast Romantic movement. At the first glance
the testimony to his relations with the Romantic circles and the Romantic
literature is strangely at variance. On the one hand the old poet was
unanimously accepted by the school itself as its leader and model; the brothers
Schlegel learned more, as critics, from Schiller than from Goethe; but they
were instinctively repelled by Schiller’s attitude to their methods and
theories, whereas for Goethe their respect and admiration never wavered. Tieck,
again, passed through many phases of sympathies and antipathies, but he
remained always constant to Goethe, from his delight as a child in Gotz and
Werther to the rapt Goethe-worship of the hero of his story Der Mondsiichtige;
while Novalis, despite much that was unsympathetic to him in Goethe’s work, saw
in Goethe what he finely called “den Statthalter der Poesie auf Erden.v'
The later Romanticists accepted Goethe almost as a matter of course; Amim and
Brentano dedicated
the first
volume of Des Knaben Wunderhom to him and received from him kindly and
appreciative encouragement; and, as has already been mentioned, Goethe’s name
was the watchword of the many Berlin coteries which pinned their faith to
Romanticism. This unreserved admiration of Goethe was one of the essential
points in the Romantic credo.
That,
however, was only the Romantic side of the question. On the other side we find
that, in those very days when the principles of the new school were being
enunciated in the Athenaum, Goethe was discussing in his correspondence with Schiller
doctrines which formed the most uncompromising antithesis to those principles.
Nowhere, indeed, is the sharp and even embittered conflict between Classicism
and Romanticism more significantly expressed than in these letters; there is
no question that the Romantic innovations were a thorn in the flesh of both
Schiller and Goethe, when they formulated their demands for law and order in
the world of art, and proclaimed with a zeal worthy of a Boileau or a Gottsched
the crying need of an absolute criterion of good taste. If they insisted on
what seems to-day the strangely one-sided and reactionary dogma, that the
highest in modem literature is only attainable by the imitation of the Greek
classics, it was because they saw in such imitation the only hope of salvation
from the confused [ihantasmagories of the Middle Ages, in which the
Romanticists revelled. Hermamm und Dorothea and Pandora were written as
bulwarks against the Romantic barbarians; and Goethe’s art review, Die
Propyl&m (1798-1800), was founded to counteract the spirit which finds its
expression in the Herzensergiesmngen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders.
Clearly, so far as such testimony is concerned, Goethe’s opposition to the
Romantic movement stands beyond question. Tieck and his friends .night worship
him as they would; Goethe’s own criticism and creations in the years of his
friendship with Schiller were the complete abnegation of Romanticism. He may
have viewed the Wunderhom with goodwill, but he was himself a denizen of the
Europe before the French Revolution and had little sympathy with what seemed
to him only the national Chauvinism—if we may use the word of a later age—of
Germany’s rising against Napoleon. And when his long life had almost reached
its close, he uttered to Eckermann the significant and unambiguous words: “The
Romantic I call the sick, the Classic the healthy.”
But to infer
from this that Goethe repudiated all that the new movement fought for and
achieved, would be to ignore his many-sided character; it would be to forget a
feature in Goethe’s mind which has already been mentioned, and which
distinguishes him from all his contemporaries without exception, that is, his
complete independence of party and faction. There was undoubtedly much in the
Romantic movement, especially in its early manifestations, of which Goethe
could not approve, which he regarded as unhealthy, but Goethe was far too
liberally
minded a critic to be oblivious to its vital significance for the new century.
None of his contemporaries—not even the Romanticists themselves—saw so clearly
as he just what was of abiding and inestimable worth in the Romantic ideas.
And the proof of it is to be sought in the poet’s extraordinarily varied
activity during the last twenty-five years of his life; the ground-tone of
Goethe’s life in this epoch—an epoch that still awaits adequate treatment at
the hands of Goethe’s biographers—is assuredly in harmony with the best
aspirations of Romanticism. It is impossible here to dwell on the importance of
Goethe’s scientific investigations for the theory which Darwin was to formulate
a generation later, or even on the significance of his theory of colour; it
would be equally impossible to do justice to the critical sympathies, which no
classical-romantic controversy was allowed to warp; but one need have merely a
superficial acquaintance with his writings on these subjects to see that they
were in essential agreement with the wider aims of nineteenth century
Romanticism. And it is no exaggeration to say that all his poetical creations
in these years fitted without exception into the general scheme of a Romantic
German literature. Die Wahlverwandtschafien (1809), for instance, bears ample
testimony to what Goethe had learned in the school of classicism; it is planned
with architectural symmetry, and each character and motive is viewed in the
perspective of the whole; but, on the other hand, it treats one of those
delicate psychological problems in which the Romanticists delighted, and it is
written from a subjective and personal point of view, which the older classical
critics would not have approved. Or, to take Goethe’s autobiography, Aus meinem
Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit (1811-4)—none of his books was better fitted than
this to be a corner-stone of the new Romantic literature; here the younger
generation found portrayed with ripe literary art that young Romantic genius of
Frankfort, Strassburg, and Wetzlar, whom each of them cherished in his heart as
the ideal of the man of letters. Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (1821-9)—fragmentary
and disappointing be it compared with the Lehrjahre—is, in its attitude toward
questions of social and individual ethics, above all to that problem of
“renunciation” which had exerted so strong a fascination over the Romantic
mind, a book entirely after the heart of the Romanticists. In the same way the
splendid outburst of lyric poetry, Der vestostliche Divan (1819), opened up to
German poetry a new oriental world when the Middle Ages had begun to lose their
power to thrill. Lastly, the completed Faust, which has been already referred
to, was an essentially Romantic product, and demonstrates perhaps more clearly
than any other of Goethe’s riper works the desire which dominated the last
twenty years of his life, to attain a harmonious ideal of national poetry by
the fusion of Classicism and Romanticism. Thus, to regard Goethe as an
antagonist of the Romantic movement in German poetry
either
implies a very narrow conception of the meaning of Romanticism, or it is unjust
to one of the most catholic-minded of all the great poets of the world.
But, long
before Goethe’s death in 1832, the disintegration of Romanticism had set in;
the philosophical movement of the time—just as in the later days of Sturm und
Drang—was opposed to the Romantic outlook upon life; in other words, the rise
of Hegelianism was fatal to it. In recent years Germany has been strangely
silent on the subject of Hegel; there has been little attempt to view his
philosophy from a modem standpoint, to understand why this extraordinarily potent
thinker, who himself sprang from the heart of Romantic idealism, should have
exerted so blighting an influence on the literature of Romanticism. Rightly
understood, this phenomenon is perhaps the best proof of how intimately the
literary movement was bound up with individualism. For notwithstanding his
Romantic training, Hegel had an essentially synthetic type of mind; he was no
less of a system-builder than Christian Wolff; his transcendentalism advanced
by means of generalisations which recall the methods of Kant, and the centre of
the world to him was not, as to Fichte or even Schelling, the individual man,
but the human race. The individualism and subjectivity which was so vital to
German Romanticism found little favour in the eyes of this master of metaphysic.
Even so early as 1819 Germany was so completely bound by the spell of
Hegelianism that she had no interest in a book which, a generation later,
helped to dethrone Hegel and to reinstate the Romantic ideas—Die Welt als WUle
und Vorstellung, by Arthur Schopenhauer.
While the
Hegelian metaphysics was thus undermining Romanticism, the actual death-blow to
the movement in Germany was given by a political event, the Revolution of July,
1830. This was the first convincing proof that the intellectual and political
freedom which, since the Carlsbad Decrees, had been regarded by the advanced
German theorists as an unrealisable dream of their more simple-minded
countrymen, was after all within the realm of possibility; what France had
done, Germany too might do. The Revolution in the streets of Paris was the
signal for the young German writers of the day to throw themselves into
politics, to devote themselves to social, economic, and political questions, to
look at life nationally and socially, instead ot, as hitherto, subjectively and
personally. The men of the new generation—Heinrich Heine (17971856), whose
Bitch der Lieder (1827) and Harzreise (1826) had already spread like wild-fire
over Germany: Karl Gutzkow (1811-78), whose first famous or rather notorious
novel, Watty die Zweiflt rin (1835), shows unmistakably its descent from
Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde; and the quick-witted, unromantic, Ludwig Borne
(1786-1837)—had all begun in a somewhat half-hearted way in the train of
Romanticism, but no sooner did the tidings of the July Revolution reach them
than with one
accord they
threw Romanticism to the winds as effete and out of date. A new trend was given
to their intellectual life, and the possibility was opened up to them of a
mission and a career in accordance with their tastes. Romanticism was not so
much killed by the writers of “Young Germany,” as neglected, pushed into the
background, left to retiring, old-fashioned poets who laid no weight on being
modern or “ in the movement.” And with Romanticism Goethe went also; indeed,
the only elements of the rich literature of the earlier generation which were
retained as something better than useless ballast, were those which could be
brought into harmony with social and political problems. Jean Paid, for instance,
stood high in favour as a kindly and sympathetic delineator of simple folk and
a champion of the oppressed proletariat; Friedrich Schlegel was recognised as a
pioneer in a kind of fiction dealing specially with the relations of the sexes
and the emancipation of women—questions which, partly owing to the influence of
French writers like George Sand, were of great interest to “ Young Germany.”
Lastly, Schiller, rather than Goethe, the aristocratic hater of the mob, rose
rapidly in favour; he appealed especially to the new generation as the poet of
freedom and German patriotism, and as the classical justification of their own
radical strivings.
The
abandonment of the Romantic faith implied far-reaching changes in the kind of
literature which Germany henceforth produced. The Young German School did not,
like their predecessors, write for themselves alone; the enunciation of a
subjective opinion or a personal experience was in their eyes of minor
importance; the essential thing was that their opinions and sentiments should
be acceptable to a wide circle of readers. For the first time in its history
German literature took general and constant cognisance of the public; it not
only wrote for the public, but it also wrote about the public. The German man
of letters was forced into the role of journalist; and the best literature of
the period, such as Bome’s vivacious Briefe aus Paris (1830-3) and the
incisive, witty criticism of Heine’s prose writings, was journalism. The German
novel, which twenty or thirty years before had been a mirror of unworldly
idealism, a personal “confession,” became branded with a purpose, and—for the
Romanticists had also written with ulterior aims—with a markedly practical,
utilitarian, and missionary purpose; the new novel was a Tendenzroman. In the
same way, the German drama, abandoning the medievalism and fairylore of
Romanticism, became a channel for practical political ideas, or—like Gutzkow’s
Uriel Acosta—for the philosophic or pseudo-philosophic tendencies of the day.
From the
point of view of the literary historian, the era in German letters which
followed Goethe’s death is a period of depression. Except for Heine, little
that Young Germany wrote is readable to-day; and in Heine’s case it is the
wonderful lyrics of his still predominantly
Romantic vein
that appeal to us, or his literary feuilletons, not the satire and cynicism
which he employed so freely in the service of the Young German school. Heine,
no less than Immermann and Platen, suffered under the transitional character of
the age into which he was bom; his essentially unromantic intellectual outlook
was mated with an imagination no less intensely Romantic than that of Novalis
himself, and his whole life long he oscillated between these extremes. He wrote
lyrics that hold a place with the very finest of EichendorfFs, and there are
pages in his prose works which belong to the most brilliant that Young Germany
produced; but it was not given to him to reconcile the extremes, and the
constant clashing of opposites resulted in a negative and scathing cynicism
from which neither Romantic dreams nor Young German principles were safe.
But there is
also a valuable side to the Young German epoch. It may not be the mission of
the highest literature to descend, as these writers did, to the level and
methods of daily journalism; but it must at least be said of the Young German
period that it marked a very important stage in the evolution of German
journalism. For the first time the Press in Germany learned to assert itself
beside that of France and England; from this period dates the birth of the
modem German newspaper as a serious social and political factor. The new point
of view, that is to say, the endeavour to write always with an eye to the
public, meant a change for the better in German prose style; the German writer
was forced to express himself attractively, he had not merely to satisfy
himself as to clearness and lucidity; he had to be clear and lucid to all men.
Then again, great as was the loss to German poetry, when the Middle Ages were
forgotten, or left to the universities to explore and expound, it was an
enormous gain to the breadth and scope of German literature when the leading
writers were at last prepared to treat problems and subjects from the eveiy-day
life of the German people. Lastly, the social aspects of the change must not be
overlooked. Young Germany did more than the whole Romantic movement for the
national education of the German people; did more to make the Germans a
politically thinking people; and it took the first step towards preparing them
for the responsibilities that fell to them when the German Empire was
reconstructed after 1870.
RUSSIA.
In
1815 Russia reached the zenith of the rising orbit, in which as a European
Power she had been moving during the century that had elapsed since Peter the
Great. She had shown in the struggle with Napoleon immense endurance and
tenacity, and, at the same time, she had acquired a moral ascendancy as the
champion of liberty among the European nations. She had definitely established
her western frontier, and had considerably extended her limits towards the east
and south. Alexander I, in the course of his fifteen years’ reign prior to
1815, had carried on more wars than any Russian monarch in the same space of
time. Besides his struggle with the French under Napoleon, he had waged war
with all his neighbours around him—China alone excepted: with Sweden, Poland,
Prussia, Austria, Turkey, the tribes of the Caucasus, and Persia. Everywhere he
was successful; he took Finland from Sweden, the grand duchy of Warsaw from
Poland, the district of Bialystok from Prussia; from Austria the province of
Tamopol, from Turkey Bessarabia, from Persia Georgia, Dagestan, Imeretia, and
Goria. Catharine II had left to her successor 18 million square kilometres of
territory and 33 million inhabitants; in 1815 Russia occupied 20 million square
kilometres of territory and had 45 million inhabitants. Such a sudden and
remarkable expansion, however, brought in its train considerable burdens, the
effects of which were apparent in all aspects of the internal life of Russia.
In the first
year of the reign of Alexander I, according to the budget for 1802, confirmed
in December, 1801, the estimated imperial revenues amounted to 77 millions, the
expenditure to 79 million roubles (the rouble being then worth about three
shillings sterling). In 1810, according to the computation of the Secretary of
State, Michael Speranski, the revenues reached 127 millions and the expenditure
193 millions, showing a deficit of 66 millions; the internal State debt reached
577 millions, and the external debt 100 millions, making a total of 677
millions of roubles. The recent wars with Napoleon had thus brought about an
enormous aicreast in the budget. The budget
estimates for
1814, drawn up by the Privy Council of Finance in November, 1813, contemplated
a revenue of 312^ millions, and an expenditure of 405 millions, showing a
nominal deficit of over 92 millions of roubles; the actual deficit, however,
proved to be considerably larger, owing to the fictitious nature of many items
in the estimated receipts. The estimates for 1815 balanced revenue and
expenditure at the sum of 316 millions respectively. Of the estimated revenue
the following were the principal items: the poll-tax and land-dues (obrok)
collected from the Crown peasants, 74^ millions; the poll-tax from the peasants
of private proprietors, 81J millions; taxes levied on merchants, 11 millions;
the poll-tax on the burgher-class and guilds, 6 millions; taxes paid by landed
proprietors, not more than 2 millions; duties on vodka and other spirituous
liquors, altogether 104J millions; and customs on imports, 20 millions. Of the
expenditure the principal items were: the Court, 13J millions; the Army, 120
millions; the Fleet, 15 millions; the Ministry of Finance, 102J- millions; the
Police, 7-J millions; and Education barely two millions. For the last year of
the reign of Alexander I (1825), the budget estimates, confirmed by the Emperor
in December, 1824, •eached the total of 393 millions. In this total spirituous
liquors figured for 121 millions, of which the 29 provinces of Great Russia
contributed no less than 108 millions, and customs duties had increased to 48
millions. The chief items of expenditure were: the Court, 17^ millions;
interest on the State Debt, 54 millions; the Army, 145 millions; the Fleet, 21
\ millions (out of which 12J went to the Baltic Fleet and 8 to the Black Sea
Fleet); the Ministry of Finance, 88£ millions; the Ministry of the Interior, 15
millions (of which 8^ millions were for the Executive Department, i.e. the
Police); and Education, 3£ millions.
The currency
was in a deplorable state. In 1810 there had been in circulation gold to the
amount of nearly 25 million roubles, silver 195, copper 98, and notes 577
millions—in all, paper and coined money amounting to 895 million roubles. In
the following years of war the gold and silver were almost entirely withdrawn
abroad; copper underwent an enormous appreciation in value—a pood of copper,
which in Catharine’s time was worth eight roubles, in 1815 cost 40 paper
roubles; on the other hand, the amount of paper money issued reached, in 1815,
700 millions, and, towards the end of 1816, 836 millions of roubles. During the
last war there had been a decline of three-fourths in the value of paper money,
which practically meant the bankruptcy of the State; the paper rouble was
reckoned from that time to be worth 25 kopecks in silver. In order to check its
further depreciation, the issue of fresh paper money was stopped from 1817, and
steps were taken to call in the notes to the extent of 30 millions annually; in
the space of five years (1817-22) 240 millions of notes were, in fact, called
in; but this operation had soon to be stopped, since, with the constant
deficit in
the budget, it was affecting prejudicially the new State loans, inasmuch as the
notes, bearing no interest, were being extinguished by the issue of bonds
bearing interest at the rate of over 7 per cent. The rate of exchange of the
paper rouble remained unaltered, at about 25 per cent.; and only long
afterwards, in 1843, an adjustment of the paper currency took place by the
issue of new notes exchangeable for silver, on the basis of the exchange of one
new paper rouble for old.
The land
army, the principal instrument of the country’s supremacy, and the main object
of the solicitude of the Government, swallowed up about a third part of the
revenue and was a great drain on the strength of the nation. Military service
lasted for 25 years, under conditions with respect to clothing, quarters, and,
above all, food, that were almost intolerable; while an iron discipline was
maintained, especially for the common soldier. During the period of incessant
wars, 1805—15, it has been estimated that the Russian army had lost about
1,200,000 men, of whom, undoubtedly, only a small proportion fell on the field
of battle, while the majority perished from sickness and other hardships of the
campaigns. During those years 1J millions of fresh recruits, not counting the
Cossacks, were levied. In the year 1812 alone there were three levies of
recruits: the first of two men out of every 500 men, women and children, the
second of ten, and the third of eight, so that, in that single year, there were
taken in all 20 recruits from every 500—which, in many localities that were
already exhausted, amounted to the half, or more, of the whole male population
between 18 and 35 years of age. Altogether, from 1812 to 1815, there were
enrolled for the forces of the line over 900,000 recruits, not including the
general war levy. Recruiting was carried on in time of peace just as in time of
war, and in the most unsparing manner. If there was not a recruit fit for
service in a village, a boy of twelve years of age would be taken in his place
for one of the military orphanages. Criminals and vagrants were also enlisted
for service, to the number of about 2500 annually. In some provinces as, for
example, in the province of Astrakhan, there were districts where only women,
children, old men, and cripples remained in the villages, since all the
able-bodied males, who had not been impressed, had run away before the levy to
the steppes or into Persia. Here and there, the country people offered an
active resistance to the conscription, particularly in the Baltic provinces;
in many cases, men mutilated themselves in order to avoid service. Of such “
damaged ” recruits there were over 15 per cent, at a levy made in one district
of the province of Novgorod. Jews were originally exempted from military
service, upon the payment of a large sum of money; but from 1827 they were
included in the conscription. Desertions, in spite of very severe punishments,
were frequent; it is computed that there were about 5000 deserters annually.
The military
colonies were a terrible feature of the system. They were devised by the
Emperor Alexander himself and introduced in 1810.
His intention
was partly philanthropic—that the soldiers, in time of peace, should not be tom
away from their families and occupations; but economy was also a motive, for
the cost of supplying food and forage fell directly on the peasants, and the
Treasury was thus relieved. Still more, this design, modelled on the Austrian
military frontier colonies and the Swedish military settlements in Finland and
carried out on a vast scale, was prompted by the desire of the Tsar to create
for himself a gigantic Praetorian power, dependent on himself alone and
entirely detached from the people. The first experiment was made at Klimowicze,
in the province of Mohileff, whence all the peasants were forcibly removed to
the province of Novorossisk, and a reserve battalion of the Ieletz regiment was
settled in their place, the soldiers being provided with land, stock, and
farm-buildings. Afterwards, in 1815, a second colony was established in the
district of Visotsk, in the province of Novgorod, where a battalion of the
Grenadier Guards was settled. This time, however, a new principle was adopted.
Instead of removing the peasants, they were left and placed under the absolute
control of the commander of the battalion; in fact, they were kept in a state
of absolute bondage. The entire population of the place, without distinction of
sex and age, was included in the roll of military colonists; children of the
male sex were reckoned from their birth as belonging to the service, and girls
as future wives for soldiers. In short, the military rSgime was imposed on
everyone; the inhabitants of the district were deprived of their homes,
families, customs, freedom, and of the most elementary rights. Steps were then
taken to develop still further this oppressive system, under the direction of
the trusted adviser and favourite of Alexander, General Alexis Arakcheieff,
who, however, was not the originator, but merely the agent who carried out the
Imperial idea. Under the ruthless and energetic control of Arakcheieff the
military colonies made rapid progress. In the course of ten years they extended
all over Russia, and in 1825 comprised nearly a third of the whole Russian
army. They formed the separate corps of military colonies, which, during the
last year of Alexander’s reign, numbered 90 battalions of the colony of
Novgorod, 36 battalions and 249 squadrons of the colonies of Kharkoff
(Ukraine), Kherson, and Ekaterinoslaff, the burden of their maintenance being
placed on the shoulders of over 400,000 peasants. It was Alexander’s intention
gradually to base the whole army on the system of colonies, but, fortunately,
his death saved Russia from such a calamity.
During the
whole of the time of peace after 1815, the Russian army was still maintained,
as regards numbers, on the same footing as at the conclusion of the Napoleonic
wars. Alexander closely adhered to the extraordinary principle which he had
enunciated confidentially in 1816: “ that Russia must always possess an army as
numerous as the armies of Austria and Prussia combined.” This principle could
be easily
1797-I830] The navy.—The
Council of State.
417
carried out,
considering the long term of service usually required, as well as the levying
of recruits under age. From 1815 to the end of the reign of Alexander, the army
was maintained in an effective condition by only three levies of two recruits
from each 500 souls, viz. in 1818, 1819, and 1824. In 1825, the effective army
of Russia included (in round numbers) 500 generals, 18,000 other officers, and
730,000 soldiers of the line.
The Russian
navy was reorganised in the time of Paul (1797), who took the title of
Admiral-General, and showed-a warm interest in naval affairs. It was composed
of 12 ships of the line with 100 guns each, 36 with 74 guns, 12 with 66 guns,
and, in addition, 45 frigates. This action of Paul was primarily directed
against England; less activity was shown when Alexander came into power; for,
from the beginning and during the greater part of his reign, he sought the
support of England, paying special attention to the land-forces and not taking
any great interest in the fleet. In 1817 the construction of steam vessels in
Russia was first begun. At the end of 1825, the Russian navy was in the
following position. The Baltic Fleet, for the most part in a very poor state,
numbered 5 ships of the line, 10 frigates, and 15—20 smaller ships nominally
fit for service; the Black Sea Fleet, which was in a relatively better
condition, possessed the following vessels regarded as fit for service: 10
ships of the line, 6 frigates, 12 smaller vessels; the Caspian flotilla
numhered 5 small war vessels and 6 transports; the entire Okhotsk, or Pacific,
flotilla consisted of 7 transport vessels. Nicholas I, whose political views
were hostile to Turkey and England and who was stimulated by the easy victory
at Navarino (1827), directed special attention to the fleet and built a number
of new war-ships. In 1830 the Baltic Fleet numbered 28 ships of the line and 17
frigates, the Black Sea Fleet 11 ships of the line and 8 frigates; however, the
efficiency of the greater part of these vessels, particularly of the ships of
the line, was more than doubtful; and the nautical skill of the crews, and
especially of the officers, left much to be desired.
At the head
of the administration stood nominally three directing bodies: the Council of
State, the Senate and the Committee of Ministers. The Council of State,
originally founded, in 1801, for legislative and judiciary purposes, but in
1804 restricted to legislation, was afterwards reformed according to the plan
of Speranski (1810), and was intended to become the mainstay and pivot of the
constitutional and monarchical reforms of the Empire. When all these fine
projects were abandoned upon the fall of Speranski (in 1812), the Council of
State remained the deliberating body in legislative affairs, but was occupied
chiefly with purely academic work concerning the codification of* the laws—a
work which lasted for many years and proved expensive and almost totally
valueless. The much-talked-of Commission for codifying
the laws,
appointed in connexion with the Council of State in 1804— the tenth successive
commission of the kind since 1700—which worked during a number of years under
the direction of the ambitious intriguer Rosenkampff, did actually prepare
three parts of the draft code of civil law (lie law of persons, the law of
things, and the law of obligations); but, in the end, this work came to a
standstill when submitted to the Council of State, and was abandoned after
1815. While Alexander was in London* in the summer of 1814, Jeremy Bentham,
whose works had previously been printed by Imperial command at St Petersburg in
a Russian translation—with the omission of those sections which were considered
too advanced in their views (as, for example, those directed against the
Censorship of the Press)—applied in writing to the Emperor, as well as to
Prince Adam Czartoryski, who accompanied him; offering to undertake the
direction of the Russian work of codification without any recompense, but upon
the condition that he should have power to work unhindered. Alexander replied
in complimentary terms, asking for his “advice” but declining to give him such
powers of direction, and sending him at the same time a valuable ring. Bentham
sent back the ring to the Tsar with the sharp rejoinder: “I desire,” he wrote,
“neither money nor authority nor dignity, nor even your Imperial favour, but
merely to be of some utility*” He refused therefore all participation in the
fruitless work of the commission, that “comedy of weakness and hypocrisy.”
Beyond this pretence of codification, the Council of State did not show at this
time any sign of vitality and lost all influence in the direction of State
affairs and internal politics.
The Senate,
in its primary twofold character—administrative and judicial—ought, properly,
to have become the Supreme Court of Appeal, as well as to have exercised, as “
Governing Senate,” the chief supervision over the administration. Actually,
however, in consequence of its gradual loss of prestige dining all the previous
reigns since Peter the Great, it was reduced under Alexander to a state of
absolute impotence. The Senate of this time, being entirely dependent on its
Procurator- General, that is, on the Minister of Justice, who represented the
“Imperial eye,” was a mere nullity in a political sense and discharged its
judicial functions very unsatisfactorily. It was then composed half of retired
generals, and half of old, worn-out dignitaries, no longer fit for employment
in the active service of the State. Both classes of Senators, with rare
exceptions, discharged their duties with equal reluctance and ignorance of law
and affairs. The Senators attended the meetings rarely and irregularly; often
cases had to be tried in the presence of two Senators, or even of one. In
consequence of their ignorance of the laws, the Senators were obliged to depend
entirely on the reports of the secretaries; so that, actually, it was not the
Court, but the official staff’ of the Senatorial Chancery, that decided cases,
for
the most part
of a civil nature, which not only were highly complicated owing to the lack of
codification, but also offered opportunities for bribery by the parties
interested. The number of cases left undecided for ten years or longer
accumulated from year to year in an appalling manner. The Senate did not even
adequately discharge its simplest and most important function, that of
promulgating the laws; it delayed for years and, in one case, for fifteen
years, the promulgation of the Imperial ukases. Moreover, owing to deficient
organisation, the execution of the ukases issued by the Senate was delayed. The
eight Departments and the General Assembly of the Senate issued between 1805
and 1819 more than five thousand ukases, which had not by 1822 received effect.
The supervising activity of the Senate manifested itself chiefly in the
Senatorial inspections made in the provinces, which were especially frequent in
the first years after the establishment of peace, when the Tsar’s intentions of
reforming the abuses in the administration were still fresh- However, these
inspections were generally conducted in a superficial manner; and the inspecting
Senators, unacquainted with local conditions, never managed to reach the source
of the abuses; at best, they resulted in the resignation of the Governor and
the appointment of a new one, frequently worse than his predecessor.
The Committee
of Ministers, established in 1802, was not, properly speaking, an independent
body, but merely a channel for collectively submitting the reports of the
Ministers to the sovereign. In 1805, together with the exceptional powers
conferred upon it on account of the departure of the Emperor to take part in
the campaign, this Committee acquired a new procedure, which it henceforth
retained; and, in 1808, there was vested in it the right of exercising supreme
police control in matters of public order, which included political matters.
When the Tsar departed for the campaign of 1812, it was again reorganised, and
was, moreover, reinforced by a permanent president, the heads of the
departments of the Council of State, and the Military Governor of St
Petersburg. Notwithstanding the increased number of its members, and its
extended powers, the Committee of Ministers, during the period of peace after
1815, largely lost its importance; the Tsar reverted to the former system of
receiving reports singly from each Minister and ceased to attend its meetings.
The real significance of the Committee as an institution in which the chief
authority was centralised thus disappeared, since the Ministers preferred to
refer all important matters to the Tsar in private audience, without bringing
them before the Committee. Hence this body became another large wheel in the
central bureaucratic machine, working with great friction, and at considerable
expense, without any real advantage to the State.
The
Ministries, established in 1802, retained the organisation bestowed upon them
by Speranski in 1811; Ministerial Councils, composed of the heads of the
departments and the chief officials, were attached as
420 The Ministries.—Provincial government.
[1802-42
consultative
bodies to each Minister. There were eight Ministries: Foreign Affairs, the
Interior, War, Marine, Education, Finance, Justice, and Police; while the Board
of Public Works and the State Control (Audit office) were placed on the same
footing as these Ministries. The Administration of the Imperial Court, and the
Department of Ecclesiastical Affairs, occupied a special position. In 1820 the
Ministry of Police was combined with that of the Interior. The extent of the
official powers vested in the various Ministries was more thoroughly defined in
1826, on principles which have been maintained, on the whole, down to the
present day.
Among more
than a score of Ministers holding office during the last years of the reign of
Alexander and the first years of Nicholas I, with the single exception of
Capodistrias, Minister of Foreign Affairs until 1822, there was not one
possessed of really superior intelligence or force of character.
The
provincial administration rested in the hands of the Governors, assisted in
each case by special Councils and Courts. The police was under the direction of
Chiefs of Police in the principal towns of the provinces, prefects in the
district towns, and ispravniks (rural police captains) in the rural districts.
Only the thirty-six central provinces, however, remained under this ordinary
provincial administration; on the other hand, a considerably larger portion of
territory in the more distant regions was divided into Govemor-Generalships and
Military Governorships, comprising the greater mass of the population, and often
extending over several provinces. This system was maintained by Alexander from
1815 down to the end of his reign; and he was undoubtedly influenced therein
by the idea, which he constantly entertained, of dividing up his huge Empire
into a certain number of large and clearly defined autonomous units—an idea
which was in close connexion with his constitutional aims for Russia and also
with his original projects for expanding the kingdom of Poland by annexing to
it some, at least, of the provinces of Lithuania.
After 1815
there were in existence twelve such Military Governorships or
Governor-Generalships. Standing apart, in addition to the kingdom of Poland and
the grand duchy of Finland, was the district of Bialystok, annexed in 1807, and
only considerably later (in 1842) incorporated in the province of Grodno; also
the military administration of the Caucasus, the region of the Don Cossacks,
and, finally, the separate military administrations of St Petersburg and
Moscow.
The
administration of the whole Empire at this time was rotten, through and
through. “Everything was corrupt, everything unjust, everything dishonest.”
Such was the forcible language in which the official Russian historian of the
last ten years of the reign of Alexander I depicts the state of affairs. All
the public posts, from the highest to the lowest, were filled by jobbery or
sold. Of real qualifications, even
the most
elementary, no account was taken; there was no system of training, no system of
tests; any qualifications which a candidate might possess were those acquired
by the discharge of subordinate duties in the public departments. It was looked
upon as a matter of course that any candidate possessing influence, or the
means of purchasing a post, was competent for any special service,
administrative or judicial; it was quite a usual thing, too, to pass, not only
from one branch of the service to another, but from the military into the civil
service and vice versa. Bribery was universal in all grades, and in all
branches of the administration; it was one of the main sources of livelihood
for a huge army of officials, wretchedly paid, and thus forced by the State
itself to take bribes. In fact, all the officials (only excepting, to some
extent, the functionaries of the Ministry of Finance, relatively better though
still very scantily remunerated) received salaries on which they were quite
unable to subsist. Judicial officers were still paid, notwithstanding the
increased cost of living and the depreciation in the value of money, according
to the rate of salaries fixed in 1772. Thus the presidents of the Judicial
Chambers, both civil and criminal, received a salary of 840 paper roubles
annually, judges 600, judges of provincial Courts 300, and officials of the
secretarial staffs from 20 to 100 roubles annually. The salaries of the
administrative authorities were equally poor. Accordingly the temptation to
extortion, fraud, and corruption became almost irresistible; and, in view of
the lack of any proper control, indictments for such misconduct became, in
almost every case, a farce. Examples of every kind of malversation were set by
the Governors, who were allpowerful in their own provinces, and directly
dependent only on the Tsar: that is, practically dependent on no one.
The indirect revenues
of the Governors, obtained by plundering the Treasury and public property, and
especially by bribes extorted from the inhabitants of their respective
provinces, were reckoned, on an average, at several hundred thousands of
roubles annually. Some military Governors (as, for example, the notorious
Governor of Volhynia, Komburlej) in a short time amassed millions. During the
first few years after 1815, in consequence of a number of senatorial
inspections, that were held in response to the complaints of the inhabitants, a
number of Governors, convicted of disgraceful criminal abuses, were removed or
sent to trial. All this, however, resulted in nothing, for their immediate
successors were no better; and thereafter, as a rule, the people, for fear of the
Governors, refrained from making complaints. Particularly flagrant abuses took
place in the administration of the vodka revenues, which were farmed out. The
Governors, usually in the pay of the rich vodka- farmers, combined with them to
make the people drink, and plundered the Treasury of a considerable portion of
its revenues. To provide against the loss thus occasioned to the Treasury, the
experiment was made, in 1819, of introducing a government monopoly in the
central
provinces.
From that time the Government itself took active steps to make the people
drink; government public-houses, and inns with billiards, music, and dancing,
were everywhere established. The Minister of Finance, Kankrin, in a memorial
submitted to Alexander, pointed out the necessity of “ spreading the use of
strong drink among the common people.” However, the monopoly system, in the
end, only led to the enrichment of the authorities charged with the
administration of the monopoly; the civil Governors, by means of substitutes,
themselves kept the public-houses, and, at the same time, entered into secret
agreements with the former ’vodka-faxmeis. The whole burden thus fell upon the
public, who paid double the former price for villainous liquor. Ultimately (in
1827), the monopoly had to be given up, and the old system of farming out was
restored.
The lower
officials—the ispravniks, chiefs of police, town-prefects, and procurators, as
well as the judicial authorities—following the example of their superiors,
robbed and plundered the people unmercifully. There was no possibility of
getting a civil case, in any Court, from the land- Courts up to the Senate,
carried through without bribery. The prisons too were in a terrible state.
Prisoners, without distinction of crime, or age or sex, were kept in cold,
damp, overcrowded, underground cells; they lived, for the most part, on public
alms, for the funds for their support were commonly misappropriated by the
prison authorities.
In 1818 two
Quakers, William Allen and Grelle de Mobillier, arrived at St Petersburg with
the object of visiting Russian prisons. Although it is evident that not
everything was shown to them, yet they were so shocked with what they did see
that, with the candour characteristic of their sect, they immediately
communicated their experiences in person to Alexander. The Tsar listened to
them sympathetically and offered prayers with them; but the prison system
remained unchanged.
More than
two-thirds of the population of Russia at this period belonged to the Orthodox
confession. At the end of Alexander’s reign, in 1825, the Orthodox population
(not including the army) amounted to 34 millions. The “white” (secular) clergy
numbered 110,000, while the “black” (monastic) clergy included 5700 monks and
lay-brothers, besides 5300 nuns. There were over 27,000 churches, among which
were 450 cathedrals (sobors), and about 800 chapels. The monasteries numbered
877. The nunneries were 99 in number. There were 3 ecclesiastical academies, 39
seminaries, 128 district church-schools and 170 parish schools with 45,000
pupils. The funds for educational purposes in the hands of the Orthodox clergy
amounted to 10,500,000 roubles, while the yearly expenditure for Church objects
was about
900,000 roubles. Four Orthodox missions were carried
on, viz. the Ossetian in the Caucasus, the Samoyede in the province of
Archangel, the Siberian among the Buriats and Chukches, and the Pekin mission—
a
particularly active one, which gave instruction in the Chinese and Manchurian
languages, and also played a certain political role. The condition of the vast
majority of the Orthodox clergy was deplorable, alike in moral, intellectual,
and material respects. The parish ciergy, composed of married priests, were
overburdened with families and, being sunk in poverty and ignorance, were
looked upon with contempt by the laity. It was only in comparatively recent
times, viz. by an ukase of 1801, that corporal punishment for the parish
priests was abolished, and later still, by an ukase of 1808, for their wives.
Special administrative enactments were made, forbidding the “popes” to drink
and brawl in public places, but these were of little use. Universal drunkenness
prevailed among the secular clergy, and was not of rare occurrence among the
monks, as is attested by many scandalous cases. In consequence of the low level
of instruction in the academies and seminaries, only a few individuals were
able, by their own efforts and private reading, to obtain any higher education,
general and theological. In intelligence the “ black ” clergy were relatively
superior; they were, moreover, powerful enough to protect against the
secularising hand of the Government the immense wealth accumulated in the
monasteries. The leading Church dignitaries sprang almost exclusively from
their midst; but, for the most part, they were actuated by extreme and
aggressive ambition and fanaticism.
The supreme
ecclesiastical authority, the Synod, since its creation in 1721, had been in
appearance, at least, entirely subject to the authority of the secular Government,
and had been kept by it in the strictest liscipline during the reigns of
Catharine II and Paul; it did not cease, however, to aim secretly at becoming
independent and, indeed, to exercise an influence on the actions of the
Government. The chief representative of this tendency was the most influential
man in the Synod, Seraphim, Archbishop of Tver (1814-9), afterwards (until
1821) of Moscow, finally Archbishop of St Petersburg and president of the Synod
until 1843: a narrow, bigoted person, absolute and implacable, yet a profound
politician in his own way. He employed as his tool the Archimandrite Photius,
religious teacher at the School of Cadets, a young ascetic, who was wont to
torture bis body with sackcloth, flagellation, and fasting. In his strange
autobiography this monk has described his hallucinations, temptations, and
visions of demons. He was a man morbidly sensuous, ambitious, and cunning, and
has been called, not without reason, the Russian “ Torquemada.” The most
distinguished and purest figure in the Synod was Philaret, Archbishop of
Jaroslaff, afterwards (from 1821) of Moscow, a man of high intellectual
attainments and Liberal ideas, who was convinced of the necessity of the reform
of the Church, but, at the same time, was devoid of influence. He was denounced
by Photius as a “freemason,” and charged by Seraphim as being of an
“unorthodox”
and “
Lutheran ” tendency. The lay Procurator-General of the Synod, Prince
Meshcherski (1817-33), was weak and indifferent, and unable to influence in any
way the direction of the Synodal or Church affairs.
Alexander I,
being well acquainted with the inner working of the Church in its
ecclesiastical and social relations, had originally in view its fundamental and
thorough reform. He intended to ameliorate the position of the “white” clergy,
to do away with the exploiting of the parishioners by the priests, to place the
latter upon a fixed salary paid by the State, and to raise their whole
spiritual level. From 1814, the Government actually began to pay salaries,
allowing to ecclesiastics holding the degree of Doctor of Divinity 500 roubles,
of Master 350 roubles, and of Bachelor 250 roubles per annum. In 1812, with the
support of the Tsar, a Bible Society, formed on the model of the British Bible
Society, had been founded. This society rapidly developed, and its work met
with great success; during the first nine years of its existence it printed 129
editions of the Bible in 675,000 copies. At the same time, a very important
step was taken in the direction of bringing the Orthodox hierarchy under the
special direction of the Government. By an Imperial manifesto of 1817, the
administration of ecclesiastical affairs, which had hitherto been kept apart,
was reformed and placed under the Ministry of Education; the Synod underwent
reorganisation, and became directly subject to the authority of the Minister of
Education, Prince Galitzin, who, according to the terms of the manifesto, “was
henceforth to occupy the same leading position with respect to the Synod, as the
Minister of Justice with respect to the Senate." It should be added that
Alexander took a lively interest in the Orthodox sectarians, and personally
sought the acquaintance of the most eminent sectarian leaders. At this time,
too, the Tsar, who had previously been attracted towards religious mysticism by
the famous Madame de Kriidener, made overtures to Rome, and appointed a
permanent ambassador at the Holy See. In 1818 he concluded a Concordat with
Pius VII, establishing the Primacy of Warsaw and introducing harmony into the
relations of the two Churches in the archbishopric of Mohileff. It appears that
the question of the Union of the Churches (which had been seriously mooted
jefore in Paul’s time) occupied, to some extent, the active but unstable mind of
Alexander, although he was indeed far from a practical realisation of this
difficult and delicate scheme. It was not long before he had to renounce even
the modest enactments proposed with a view to regulating the affairs of the
Orthodox Church.
The Synod,
seeing cause to be alarmed by these enactments, and observing in them a menace
to the whole existing ecclesiastical hierarchy, determined to defend itself and
entered upon a struggle with the Government. Seraphim was the prime mover in
this matter. For several years he had been secretly fomenting a
counter-agitation among the reactionary members of the higher social circles.
Ultimately, having
waited for a
change in the Liberal sentiments of the Tsai1, he struck a decisive
blow at the right moment. Photius, who was employed by him for this purpose,
obtained, in 1822, an audience from Alexander and managed, by means of some
sort of strange influence, to bring him into such a state, that, completely
subdued, he fell at Photius’ feet, kissed his hands, and otherwise humbled
himself before him. Thereupon the astute Archimandrite, in unctuous tones,
denounced not only Galitzin, but the whole movement in favour of freedom of
thought, the Bible Society, the secret societies, the Catholics, Lutherans, and
mystics—describing them all as the enemies of the throne and the altar.
Alexander, however, did not yield all at once; his suspicious nature
subsequently gained, to some extent, the upper hand over the momentary
influence of Photius. But, henceforth, he began to waver, and was, doubtless,
in his heart much perturbed by the menacing outlook thus disclosed, never
having forgotten that he had ascended the throne over the dead body of his
murdered father. In May, 1824, Seraphim renewed the attack; at an audience, granted
to him by the Tsar, he denounced Galitzin as the enemy of Orthodoxy and
demanded his immediate dismissal. It was in vain that Alexander defended his
Minister, whom he regarded “ not as a subject but as a friend.” Seraphim
remained unappeased; Arakcheieff' supported him, and the Tsar had to give way.
Galitzin was dismissed; and the reactionary Shishkoff took his place.
Prior to
this, in consequence of the representations of Photius, an Imperial rescript
dated August, 1822, had suppressed all the secret societies and the Masonic
Lodges, to which even persons of the highest rank belonged; for instance, the
Tsarevich—the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich. By an Imperial ukase of May,
1824, addressed to the Synod, the position which that body had occupied prior
to 1817 was restored to it, until a separate Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs
should be established; which, however, was never done. At the same time, in
consequence of Seraphim’s denunciation (in December, 1824) of the Bible Society
as being “a daughter of the British Society,” a check was put upon its
activity; but its formal suppression only took place after Alexander’s death
(1826). In the reign of Nicholas the Orthodox Church was able to commence
again, on a large scale, the work of forced conversions, which had been
interrupted since the death of Catharine II. Finally, owing to the abolition of
the “Union” in Lithuania and Ruthenia, a million and a half of Uniates were
forcibly converted in a body, and more than 2000 churches were taken from them.
The triumph of the ecclesiastical reaction during the last years of the reign
of Alexander I possessed the utmost significance for the future internal policy
of Russia; and indirectly its effects were most disastrous to the kingdom of
Poland and the subsequent shaping of Polish-Russian relations.
The principle
that the State does not exist for the community, but
the community
for the State, was during this period applied to Russia in the most arbitrary
manner. The Russian people groaned under the burden of their recent great
Imperial successes, their victories over the Western Powers, and their prestige
in Europe. The main part of this burden was borne by the Russian peasantry, on
whom the burden of the vodka taxes indirectly fell. The extent of the impositions
to which they were subjected, in money and especially in kind, due to all kinds
of abuses, was incalculable.
The serfdom
of the Russian peasants, as sanctioned by the census revision of 1719 under
Peter the Great, was placed on a firm basis by Elizabeth’s ukases of 1742 and
1747 (relating to the selling of serfs as recruits) and of 1760 (relating to
their deportation by the proprietors to Siberia), and the ukases issued by
Catharine II in 1765 and 1767. The Partitions of Poland, which resulted in the
parcelling out of the vast Polish domains together with the serfs dwelling on
them, had also a disastrous effect on the lot of the Russian peasantry. Among
the grants made by Catharine and Paul to their favourites, to officials, and to
military officers, there were nearly a million of male serfs, i.e. about five
millions of “souls”; of these a considerable part were Russian Crown peasants.
The condition of the Crown peasants, formerly comparatively favourable, had
undergone a change for the worse. At the Senatorial inspection of the province
of Kazan in 1818, it appeared that the Crown peasants there had to pay, for
that single year, illegal taxes to the extent of 400,000 roubles, and, in
addition, bribes amounting to 200,000 roubles, without reckoning what was
extorted from them in kind—in forced labour, vehicular transport, etc.
The condition
of the peasants under private landlords was appalling. The proprietors, who
were, in most instances, ruined, and had been obliged to sell the greater part
of their serfs, endeavoured to keep up their income to the same level by
extorting from those serfs remaining in their possession more forced labour and
higher land-dues (obrok) per head; this obrok in some localities amounted (in
1816) to 135 roubles. The sale of the serfs by the proprietors was conducted in
an arbitrary manner; for instance, the several members of a family were sold
separately to different purchasers, as an opportunity occurred. According to
the official tariff (adopted for the military colonies) the price of a boy one
year old was 22 roubles, of a boy of ten years 300, of a youth of 18 years, or
above that age, 1000. The rate for females was usually about two-thirds of the
above. The enforcement in a most brutal form of the jus primae noctis was very
widespread. The peasants of the smaller proprietors were subject to direct
oppression at the hands of their masters; but those of the great nobles, who
lived in St Petersburg, suffered not less severely at the hands of their
stewards and tenants. They perished by hundreds in the factories established,
at this period, to augment the incomes of these great landed proprietors.
1803—bb] Arakcheieff.—Problem of emancipation.
427
They were
also subjected to inhuman punishments, imprisoned in underground cellars, kept
in chains, or flogged to death with the knout, by order of the master or his
steward. A whole series of such crimes were brought to light by the Senatorial
inspections, which took place after
1815, on the properties of the highest
dignitaries of State—men who enjoyed in St Petersburg the reputation of
statesmen and even of philan- thropistsj such as Tolstoi, Kochubei, Golovkin,
Mordvinoff and others.
The most
terrible oppressor of the people, however, was the Tsar’s favourite,
Arakcheieff. His mistress, a Ruthenian woman, Nastasia Minkin, exercised
authority as his representative, and ruled with a rod of iron not only the
military colonies under his control, but also his own extensive estates, and
tortured women, in particular, with the most refined cruelty. She was
ultimately stabbed by the brother of one of her victims. In revenge for this,
Arakcheieff, to whom the Tsar gave a free hand in the matter, put to death,
without any judicial enquiry, and after the most frightful tortures, not only the
murderer, but also twenty- two innocent peasants, whom he suspected of
complicity in the affair. They were flogged to death with the knout (1825). One
of the noblest of Russian patriots (the Decembrist Bestuzheff) in a statement
made in 1826, in which, amongst other things, he affirms that the proprietors
“gave out their young hounds to be nursed at the breast by their peasant
women,” expressed his conviction that “the negroes on the American plantations
were happier than the Russian private serfs.”
The half
measures adopted by Alexander I, with the object of improving the condition of
the peasants, bore little fruit. The law of 1803 concerning “ freeholders,”
which had allowed proprietors by way of contract to emancipate their serfs,
whether singly or in whole villages, at the same time making over to them the
land, produced scanty results; we find that during half a century (1803-55),
not more than 384 proprietors took advantage of this law, liberating 116,000
serfs. The practice of making grants of land to serfs was first adopted by the
Polish nobility of the district of Bialystok, immediately after its cession to
Russia in 1807; it led, however, to a sharp rebuff from the Government.
Speranski in 1810 had entertained the idea of placing restrictions upon
serfdom; but his proposals were half-hearted and did not result in any
legislative act. After 1815 this question occupied Alexander’s attention: the
more so, as in the kingdom of Poland he had now to deal with a peasantry, not
actually owning land, yet emancipated from serfdom. The first ukase abolishing
serfdom, that for the province of Esthonia (June 4, 1816), did not provide for
allotments of land, but left the legal relations of the peasants and the
proprietors to be fixed by mutual agreement; in 1817 the same ukase was
extended to the province of Courland, and in 1819 to Livonia. At the beginning
of 1818 a rescript was addressed to the Governor-General of Lithuania,
instructing him to ascertain the opinions of the landowners upon the
428 Projects of reform.—The burgher class.
[isio-32
abolition of
serfdom; and, in consequence, the Polish nobility at the Minor Diet of Vilna in
the same year adopted a scheme for the liberation of their serfs, appointing
with that object a deputation to the Tsar.
This scheme
was, indeed, disregarded by the authorities and was not carried into effect;
but it led to the ukase of March 2, 1818, “for the province of Minsk and other
provinces taken over from Poland,” granting certain privileges to the peasants,
such as the liberty to sell produce and the restriction of forced labour to the
stated days; At the same time, at the beginning of 1818, before the departure
of Alexander to attend the first Diet held at Warsaw, ArakcheiefF, “ that
assassin of the Russian people,” drew up, by special order of the Tsar, “ a
project for the emancipation of private peasants from the state of serfdom.”
This was to be effected by way of gradual purchase by the Treasury of these
peasants along with the land. The carrying out of this project was left to a
special Allotment Commission, which was to purchase the peasants along with the
lands, at the standard rate of two dessiatinas per head; the net valuation of
the obrok (land-dues), capitalised at five per cent., as well as of the lands,
being fixed by local committees of the nobility, while the Treasury was to
place at the disposal of this Commission a sum of five million roubles
annually. A scheme, based on such principles, and entrusted to the valuations
of the proprietors alone, together with the insignificant sum placed at the
disposal of the Commission, could have no practical value; indeed, it soon was
abandoned, just like the other more Liberal measures, which, at this period
(181620), Alexander ordered to be framed, in order only in the end to cast,
them aside. Everything went on as before; the bondage of the Russian peasants
was destined to remain unchanged for half a century longer, and their wretched
condition to continue up to the present day.
Among the
million and a half of persons belonging to the burgher class, it is reckoned
that there were, at this time, about 100,000 merchants . belonging to the
Russian guilds. The internal trade of the country had its centre at the great
fairs, especially the MakariefF Fair, afterwards removed to Nijni-Novgorod,
where the annual turn-over amounted to several tens of millions of roubles.
Large returns were also shown by the fairs at Romny and Irbit. After the
example of the kingdom of Poland steps were taken to stimulate the various
industries—particularly the textile industry for the requirements of the army;
some progress also manifested itself in the iron industry, at the DemidofF and
Berd ironworks. Great activity in this respect was shown by the Minister of the
Interior, KozodavlefF, and the Minister of Finance, Kankrin. The system,
however, depending on large subsidies granted indiscriminately and corruptly by
the Government, became a source of numerous abuses, and in many cases led, not
so much to the advancement of the industry, as to the squandering of large
funds belonging to the Treasury. Foreign trade suffered greatly in consequence
of the continual wars. In 1812 the
imports from
abroad amounted in value to barely 22 millions of silver roubles, the exports
to 37 millions; in 1814 the imports amounted to 28^ millions (including nearly
four millions for expensive foreign wines), and the exports to 49 millions.
From that time a fairly rapid increase took place; in 1817 there were imports
of 42 millions and exports of 74 millions of silver roubles (50 per cent, of
the exports being com).
The
hereditary nobility of Russia towards the end of this period was calculated at
140,000 families. Among them there were about 1500 proprietors of over 1000
serfs; and as the yearly income from each serf was reckoned, on an average, at
100 roubles, these proprietors were men of great wealth, possessing an income
of over 100,000 roubles and, in many cases, of a million roubles or more.
Besides these, there were over 2000 proprietors having more than 500 serfs and
17,000 who owned more than 200. Below this stratum of the higher nobility, who
lived in affluence, there were about 120,000 (more than 80 per cent.) of poorer
nobles, of whom more than one-third possessed, on an average, only eight serfs
each, and thus lived in a state of penury. Moreover, even the large fortunes of
the great families, in consequence of the reckless extravagance of the
proprietors, the peculations of their stewards, and the universal robbery in
the management of the estates, were, for the most part, greatly reduced.
According to the authoritative opinion of a contemporary writer, fully
nine-tenths of the fortunes of ^the nobles of the time had been squandered.
^ The
relations of the nobles to the Government were ambiguous. On the one hand, they
were dependent on the favour of the Government, they acquired important
positions in its service, and were thus able to protect their interests in an
economic sense. On the other hand they keenly felt the despotic tutelage
exercised over them ; they could not become reconciled to the breach made in
their ranks, when the Government, by order of Peter the Great, introduced the
official nobility of the eighth class of civil servants and of certain grades
of officers in the army and navy; nor could they reconcile themselves to the
preponderating influence acquired in the public service by Germans, who had
been gaining ground during the reigns of three Tsars, nor, in general, to the
ascendancy of the centralised bureaucracy. To these causes was attributable the
antagonism towards the ruling House shown by the great families, among which
were to be found some tracing their descent from Rurik, and thus of older blood
than the Romanoffs themselves—an antagonism of long standing, hidden under a
semblance of loyalty, yet none the less deeply rooted. There remained still
fresh in their family traditions the memories of contests carried on with this
Imperial House, even in recent times—from Peter’s reign to that of Paul—bitter
memories of the coercion they had so often experienced at its hands, and of
ancestors bearing proud' family names sent to the scaffold or to Siberia. All
this created jn the Russian nobility, especially in its higher ranks,
tendencies disposing
them to
regard favourably any manifestation directed against the existing rigime.
The relations
of the nobility to the community at large were similarly ambiguous. They were,
indeed, through their administrative and official position, a powerful factor
in causing the sufferings of the people. Yet, at the same time, among the best
representatives of that nobility, there lurked the consciousness of their own
responsibility for the unhappy social condition of their native country, and of
their paramount obligations—a feeling of the greatness of the Russian people
and of its wrongs; they felt their own solidarity with the distressed masses.
Such generous ideas were largely stimulated by the recent victorious campaigns
in the West, by contact with the intellectual world of Europe, by the military
occupation, lasting for several years, of the grand duchy of Warsaw, and by
residence in France. The words of Napoleon, “ une armee dehors, c'est Vetat qui
voyage,” were specially true of the corps of officers of the Russian army,
formed almost exclusively from the nobility, who returned home after 1815 in an
altered frame of mind, and with broader and more enlightened views.
The Russian
nobility represented at this time almost the only cultured element in the
country. Education in Russia stood very low. Attached to the Ministry of
Education, which was formed in 1802 from the former School Commission, there
existed in St Petersburg, from 1803, a Chief Board for Schools of which several
distinguished Poles, Czartoryski, Potocki, and Plater, were members. This body
developed a fruitful activity in the provinces seized from Poland, where
flourished the Vilna University under Czartoryski as Curator, with ten
gymnasia, and a large number of district and communal schools. In Russia
proper, on the other hand, the work of education met with much hindrance. The
Government scheme of 1802 for the establishment of elementary schools on the
Government lands by the ecclesiastical authorities, and on private estates by
the landed proprietors, under the supervision of the gymnasia, remained a dead
letter; and a later statute of 1828 concerning elementary instruction produced
little real effect. The secondary schools, which were by no means numerous,
provided a four years’ course of instruction, and had, at most, eight teachers
each; afterwards the statute of 1828 prescribed for them a course of seven
years and twelve teachers each, without, however, increasing their numbers. In
the following years the violent reactionary policy of Nicholas in educational
matters had a disastrous effect, especially on the secondary schools. As to the
Universities, the comparatively liberal University statute of 1804, largely due
to the efforts of Czartoryski, which had secured to the Universities autonomy
and the free election of rectors and deans, with a comparatively wide range of
instruction, was, during the last years of Alexander’s reign, completely
nullified by the reactionaries, who were then very suspicious of the academic
youth; following in this respect the example of
academic
repression that was then being adopted in Germany. Finally, this enactment was
repealed by the retrograde University statute of Nicholas I in 1835. By the
reactionaiy Instructions of the Minister of Education, Galitzin, dated 1818,
all the higher educational text-books were subjected to a strict supervision;
and the principle was laid down that lectures on philosophy, philology,
history, and even those on natural science, medicine, and mathematics, should
have as their principal aim, not mere abstract knowledge, but the furtherance
of religious and political ends.
Ere long,
there took place wholesale removals of professors suspected of irreligious or
disloyal views; and the purification of University teaching was carried out in
this spirit by means as radical as they were singular. Thus, for instance, at
the University of Kazan, by order of the Curator, the anatomical requisites
were confiscated and buried solemnly in consecrated ground. In general, the
instruction given at the Russian Universities of this period (with the exception
of Vilna and Dorpat) was still far below the standard of Western Europe. There
was a lack of indispensable auxiliary institutions—of clinics, laboratories,
even of libraries. In 1814 the Public Library of St Petersburg was opened to
the public. It was formed entirely from the great Polish library of the
Zaluskis, which had been illegally confiscated by SuvorofF, and removed, in
1795, from Warsaw to St Petersburg. It contained more than
150,000 volumes and 5000 manuscripts, almost
exclusively Latin and Polish. On the other hand, the University of St
Petersburg, founded in 1819 with 24 istudents, numbered, in 1822, not more than
40 students. Under such conditions, the more enlightened element in the
community was, naturally, not the product of these oppressed and despised
academic bodies, but was rather found among the best youth of the aristocracy,
educated in the privileged establishments for pages and cadets or at home.
Among these were men of the new order of ideas, more independent and
progressive, not, indeed, possessing special scientific knowledge, but, on the
other hand, breathing a fresh breath into literature, and strongly and
sincerely animated by the desire of social and political reform. They supplied
at this time the earliest representatives, in literature and public life, of
Young Russia—eminent writers and active workers for freedom of thought, such as
Griboyedoff, the celebrated author of social comedies, in which he unsparingly
lashed his contemporaries, Bestuzheff, the editor of the Polar Star, the poets,
Prince Viazemski, Baron Delvig, Ktichelbecker, Ryleieff, and, finally, the most
brilliant genius of Russian literature, Pushkin. Upon their impressionable
minds, as yet insufficiently balanced and lacking independence, the most varied
factors were at work—the las' ng influences of the French Revolution and of
Napoleon, together with the counter-movement in French politics and literature
under the Restoration ; the cry for social emancipation in Germany, which was
the
outcome of
the recent struggles against French domination; the powerful stimulus to
freedom of thought and action given by Byron. The movement was also influenced
by the Polish national spirit and by the literary development of Poland—by the
songs and essays of Niemczevicz, by the Panslavonic ideas of Staszic, and above
all, by the Young Polish Romanticism, embodied in the dominating personality of
Midrievicz, who came into contact, during his residence in Odessa, Moscow, and
St Petersburg (1825-9), with the most distinguished tepresentatives of Young
Russia.
The
impulsive, self-sacrificing, and cultured youth belonging to the noble class in
Russia entered at an early period upon the path of secret political
organisation. So early as 1814, influenced undoubtedly by their contact with
the Prussian army and the secret associations in it directed against Napoleon,
they formed a society, composed chiefly of Russian officers and called the “
Society of the Green Lamp,” whose members contributed one-tenth of their income
to the common funds. In 1816 it was reorganised and enlarged under the name of
the “ Society of Public Salvation.” In it many officers of the Guards and of
the General Staff took a prominent part. It appears that these first attempts
at organisation were made with the knowledge of Alexander I, who was still at
this period animated with Liberal ideas. Being occupied with his broad schemes
for the emancipation of the peasants, the extension of the kingdom of Poland,
and Greek independence, he was the more ready to seek support against the
reactionary forces from the progressive elements of Young Russia, just as he
looked with indulgence upon similar Polish patriotic organisations, and on the
Greek Hetairia. By the natural course of events in such cases, the work of the
secret societies in Russia entered upon an independent path, and they became
more and more embittered against the Throne itself.
As a result
of reforms in the society, there sprang up in 1818 the “ Union of the Public
Good,” which numbered more than 200 members. On account of the rumours then
prevalent of the intentions of Alexander with respect to the extension of the
kingdom of Poland by the annexation of the Lithuanian provinces, some of the
confederates (Yakushkin, Shakhovskoi) declared themselves in favour of a coup
d'etat, involving even the death of the Tsar. In 1820 a schism took place, and
two separate societies were formed : the Northern Society, with its centre in
St Petersburg, under the leadership of Nikita Muravieff and Nicholas
Turgenieff, and, after 1823, of Ryleieff, adhering to the principles of a
constitutional monarchy and opposed to the separation of Lithuania from the
Empire; and the Southern Society with its centre in Tulczyn, under the
leadership of Colonel Paul Pestel, the author of the work Russkaya Pravda
(Russian Code of Laws), which formulated a programme professing Republican
ideas and including certain very limited
concessions
for the Poles. Out of this party subsequently sprang the Radical section of the
“ United Slavs ”; from it, also, in January, 1824, and January, 1825, was
evolved the idea of an understanding with the secret societies in the kingdom
of Poland. By these movements Slavophile and Panslavonic ideas were gradually
developed and shaped. Pestel dreamt of a Slavonic federation extending from the
Ural to the Adriatic; but among the large majority of the confederates, /
especially in Moscow and St Petersburg, a deep distrust of the Poles
predominated. The distinguishing feature of these societies was that ( their
members, though animated by ardour, courage and self-sacrifice, by the purest
love for their country, and a generous desire for its emancipation, were,
according to the just description of a Pole nearly allied to them (Alexander
Kraievski), “ a generation without fathers and sons,” ahead of their
contemporaries by nearly a century, having no support among the mass of the
people and, consequently, no prospect of success. Devoid of any logical plan of
action, they were destined to waste their energy in a single outbreak,
depending altogether upon chance and hopeless in its prospects.
The grand
duchy of Finland was acquired by Russia in 1808, and incorporated first of all
by an Imperial manifesto of June, 1808. It was subsequently formally annexed by
a constitutional manifesto of the Tsar of March 27, 1809, addressed to the
Finnish people and to the Diet assembled at Borgo. Finland was thereby
recognised as a separate political unit, legally constituted, bound to the
Empire, and “retaining its fundamental rights and the constitution it had
hitherto possessed, to be maintained in force, intact and without change.”
After the inclusion (1811) in the grand duchy of the province of Viborg
(acquired in 1741 by Elizabeth), Finland, in 1825, contained about 370,000
square kilometres with a population of 1,300,000 inhabitants. It had two High
Courts of Justice; afterwards a third was added at Viborg. The administration
of the country was conducted primarily by a Governing Council (Council of
Regency), which was replaced subsequently, by Imperial rescript of February,
1816, by the Finnish Senate, while the supreme control was vested in a
Governor-General. There was, moreover (from 1810), a permanent Committee for
Finnish affairs, composed of Finns, under the presidency of Baron Armfelt,
which sat in St Petersburg; it acted as an intermediary body, in both
legislative and administrative affairs, between the Senate and the Tsar as
Grand Duke. Further, attached to the person of the sovereign, there was a
special Secretary of State for Finnish affairs, an office held at this time by
Baron Rehbinder.
In accordance
with Imperial instructions of November, 1810, this functionary received direct
from the Throne all rescripts affecting Finland. They were signed by the
sovereign and counter-signed by
himself, and
afterwards communicated by the Governor-General to the Senate. He was,
moreover, under Imperial regulations of August, 1810, made formally independent
of the Governor-General. The latter official was obliged (according to
instructions of February, 1812) to draw up his addresses to the Senate in two
languages, Swedish and Russian; in like manner, a secret rescript to the
Governor-General, dated September, 1810, enjoined upon him to exercise
supervision over the actions of the Senate. Swedish currency, both metal and
paper, was left in circulation ; but the taxes were levied in roubles. The
Bank of Finland was established; funds to the extent of 1,000,000 roubles being
supplied to it by Alexander, in the form of a 20 years’ loan without interest.
The prosperity of the country, under the skilfully conducted Finnish
administration, increased rapidly; much was done for the improvement of the
ways of communication by land and water, the draining and reclamation of
marshes, the development of agriculture and trade, the establishing of mines
for working iron ore, and the manufacture of steel. Education was treated with
particular solicitude; great progress was made both in elementary and secondary
education; a School of Cadets was founded in Frederikshamn, and the University
was placed on an important footing. The distinguished lawyer Calonius, the
independent philosophical writer Snellman, and, above all, Runeberg, the
patriotic bard who sang of the struggles with Russia, gave splendid testimony to
the vitality of Finnish culture. But over the grand duchy, which was thus
developing itself so favourably, owing to the efforts which the Finnish people
themselves were making on the basis pf the constitutional autonomy guaranteed
to them, there hung the continual dread of the invasion of their rights by the
autocratic power of Russia.
During the
first years after the annexation of Finland, when Alexander was engaged in the
struggle with Napoleon, and was endeavouring to enter into an alliance with
Sweden, being anxious even about the safety of St Petersburg, he several times
confirmed the Legislative Guarantee of 1809, and extended it by the
establishment of the Finnish Committee. He increased, too, the territory of the
grand duchy, by restoring to it Old Finland (the province of Viborg); in short,
he neglected nothing which might attach the Finnish people to him. At a later
period, however, his policy underwent a change; the absolute monarch began to
overshadow the constitutional Grand Duke, and the guaranteed Constitution was
infringed. Two fundamental Swedish statutes, which were in force in Finland at
the time of its conquest, formed properly part of this Constitution. These were
the Regerings- farm of August 21, 1772, and the Acts of Annexation and Guarantee
of February 21 and April 3,1789, sanctioned by Gustavus III. The principal
clauses of these Acts expressly stipulated that official posts could be held
only by inhabitants of the country professing the Lutheran faith; that the
sovereign “could not sanction any new law,
or rescind
any existing one, without the knowledge and consent of the Estates”; that “the
Estates should have the right of supervising the use of the Treasury funds for
the good and benefit of the country.” Yet during the whole of this period the
Diet was not once convoked; Russian officials of the Orthodox faith, both civil
and military, were brought into the country; the financial administration was
conducted entirely at the discretion of the Government, without any control on
the part of the Diet; furthermore, Imperial rescripts of a legislative
character were issued without the participation of the Diet. Thus, a rescript
of Alexander I (1823) ordered the examination of all foreign books entering
Finland, under the penalty of confiscation. This was in disregard of the
Swedish Press Law, then in force, which excluded the censorship. Again, in the
time of Nicholas I, the very stringent Russian censorship regulations of 1829
were enforced in Finland by Imperial decree; and a duty of 33J per cent, was
imposed upon Swedish books imported.
The change
for the worse became more marked during the last two years of the reign of
Alexander I. Previously, while Armfelt, who was a native of the country, and
after him, Steinheil, who was by birth a German, were Govemor-Generals of
Finland, the Constitution, though infringed, had not been deliberately
attacked. But, in August, 1823, Zakrevski was appointed as Governor-General, a
man of suave manners, but a declared opponent of the separate autonomy of the
grand duchy; and he at once began to aim at abolishing the Finnish
institutions, and incorporating the country in the Empire. He began his work,
while making a tour in the country during the summer of 1824, by stirring up
dissatisfaction among the rural population against the Finnish aristocracy.
Subsequently, in May, 1825, he sent to the Senate, directly, a series of
proclamations in the Russian language, claiming the admission, as a matter of
course, of persons of the Orthodox faith to official posts, and the right of
the Governors to remove, at their own discretion, the local justices and crown
bailiffs. The Senate, having held a secret meeting, submitted to Alexander a
confidential addrfegs, complaining of the conduct of the Governor-General; but
to this address, which was sent by couriers to Warsaw, where the Emperor was
then attending the meetings of the Diet, no answer was received. After the
death of Alexander in December, 1825, Zakrevski compelled the Senate and
Finnish authorities to take the new oath of allegiance, according to the
general terms in force for the Empire, without any mention of the separate
constitutional rights of the grand duchy.
Nicholas I,
upon assuming the government under extremely critical conditions, and being
obliged to reckon at that moment not only with Finland, but also with Poland,
repeated literally in his inaugural manifesto to the grand duchy of January,
1826, the guarantees of the manifesto of 1809 (merely substituting in the
preamble “hereditary
possession ”
for “ possession ”); but he soon gave a practical proof that these guarantees
were not to be literally respected; for, by a rescript of 1826, he extended to
Finland the penalty of banishment to Siberia, and, by another of August, 1827,
he formally declared persons of the Orthodox faith qualified to hold offices in
the grand duchy. There could be no question of resistance, considering the
defenceless state of the country. The Finnish army, or “ Separate Finnish
Corps,” i.e. the national militia, was composed in 1825 of one regiment of
riflemen, and two regiments of infantry, in all 3600 men, besides the battalion
of the School of Cadets, 500 strong; these troops assembled once a year in the
spring for six weeks’ training. Under Nicholas I they were rearranged in two
battalions—the Finnish battalion of Riflemen of the Life Guards and the
Grenadier battalion of Riflemen—to the number of 3000 men only; and from that
time they were kept on a permanent footing. This small armed force could not
protect the liberties of their country; on the contrary, they were used to
crush the liberties of others. By the express orders of Nicholas I the Finnish
battalion of Riflemen of the Life Guards took part in the Polish campaign of
1831, and was obliged to fight against the Poles.
Alexander, in
1815, was 38 years old. His union with Elizabeth of Baden had produced no
children; and his relations with his wife, which were equivalent to a secret
separation by mutual accord, excluded the possibility of his having any
offspring. The successor to the throne was the second brother of the Tsar, two
years younger than he, the Tsarevich Constantine. He also was without children,
and openly separated from his wife, Anna Feodorovna of Coburg, who had run away
from him in 1801. The heir next in order was, therefore, the third brother,
Nicholas, who was much younger than the others, having been bom on July 6,
1796. He was, at the suggestion of the Tsar, betrothed in the autumn of 1815,
to the Prussian Princess Charlotte who took the name of Alexandra Feodorovna.
Their marriage took place at St Petersburg in July, 1817; and of this union was
bom, on April 29, 1818, a son, Alexander, afterwards the Emperor Alexander IL
This event was doubly important; it had a decisive influence on the question of
the succession to the throne, and it greatly contributed to the maintenance of
a close dynastic connexion between Russia and Prussia during the greater part
of the nineteenth century. Shortly afterwards, as a result of negotiations
which had lasted for several years, Constantine, with approval of the Tsar,
obtained a divorce by decree of the Synod in March, confirmed by Imperial
manifesto in April, 1820, after which (in May) he married, at Warsaw, a Polish
lady, to whom he had long been deeply attached, Joanna Grudzinska (Princess
Lovicz). But of this marriage, also, he had no children.
There had
already been a proposal to transfer the succession to
Nicholas,
who, in July, 1819, was privately informed by Alexander of this project; but no
definite steps were taken towards carrying it out until 1822 (January 26), when
Constantine, by request of the Tsar, handed to him personally in St Petersburg
a formal letter of renunciation, admitting “ that he possessed neither the
courage, nor the capacity, nor the strength needed by a ruler,” and referring
to the expression of a similar intention made by him in March, 1820, during the
divorce proceedings. It seems, however, that he did this on condition that the
whole matter should remain a secret between him and the Tsar, and that he
attributed to the document a purely contingent character. There exist even
certain indications that he gave his renunciation mainly in view of the
abdication of Alexander himself a step which, in his later years, the Tsar had
contemplated. It is clear, moreover, that if the Tsar had been convinced that
the renunciation was irrevocable, the immediate publication of the letter would
have ensued, and an official notification of the transfer to Nicholas would
have been made to the people.
Alexander,
without the knowledge of Constantine, gave instructions for exact copies of the
letter to be made; and he himself signed secretly (August 28, 1823) a
manifesto, announcing the renunciation of Constantine and the right of
Nicholas to succeed. These documents were then made up in four packets sealed
with the Tsar’s own seal, and with the superscription, in his own hand, “to be
kept until required by me.” The original was deposited in the Uspenski
Cathedral in Moscow, and the copies with the Synod, the Senate, and the Council
of State in St Petersburg. Of the contents of the packets he informed only
three persons, viz. Philaret, Galitzin, and Arakcheieff; it appears, however,
that Nicholas was apprised of the contents by one of them. Constantine probably
knew nothing of what had taken place until the death of Alexander; and he did
not yet regard the road to the throne as irrevocably closed to him.
{["Alexander
in 1815, having victoriously terminated the struggle with Napoleon, had
accomplished what had up to this time been the chief object of his life. During
the next four years (1815-9), a fresh objective was afforded him by certain
grandiose schemes of foreign and home policy, which he brought forward as part
of a professedly Liberal policy. These were: the coercion of Turkey, and the
furtherance of Greek aspirations; the territorial expansion of the kingdom of
Poland; and the reorganisation of Russia in a spirit at once constitutional and
federal—a spirit of reform and emancipation. The latter idea, which was first
manifested in the Senatorial “inspections” and the projects concerning the
Church and the peasantry, ultimately found expression in the instructions to
frame a constitution for Russia, given by Alexander during his residence in
Warsaw in 1818. The recipient of these instructions was the confidential agent
attached to the Government of the kingdom of Poland, Novosiltsoff. The draft
Constitution made by
CII. XIII.
a
Novosiltsoff
for the Empire was modelled partly on the Constitution of the kingdom of Poland.
It provided for the division of the Empire into ten autonomous provinces, each
under a Viceroy, possessing their own national Diets of two Chambers, elected
every three years. There was to be also a central Diet in St Petersburg, or in
Moscow, convoked every five years. This scheme, in its rough draft, was sent to
the Tsar at St Petersburg by Novosiltsoff through Prince Viazemski in the
summer of 1819; in October of the same year, while Alexander was in Warsaw, it
was discussed by him with the author. All this was done without the knowledge
of Constantine. At the same time Novosiltsoff, at the bidding of the Tsar,
compiled for him an extract of the Acts of the Polish-Lithuanian Union
promulgated at Horodlo, in the time of Jagiello (1413), and at Piotrkov, in the
time of King Alexander (1501), which, with other indications, pointed to the
inclusion of Lithuania in the kingdom. Yet, at the very same time, Novosiltsoff
drew up for the Tsar the outline of an arbitrary manifesto, which, concurrently
with the granting of a Constitution to the Empire, was to suppress the kingdom
of Poland, and transform it into one of the Viceregal provinces, depriving it
of its separate Constitution, and changing the name “ Polish army” to “western
army.” In this way there were evolved in the unstable mind of Alexander the
most contradictory projects, none of which was destined to be realised.
This period
(1819-20) was extremely critical for Alexander. In it he showed a departure
from the fantastic, yet, on the whole, progressive views he had held during
the first years of peace; a return to reactionary measures, accompanied by
self-absorption, which finally led to his hopeless entanglement in the net of
his own psychological and political inconsistencies. This change was brought
about by a series of unfavourable events and influences. In March, 1-819,
Kotzebue was murdered; in August an insurrection of the military colonists in
Chuguieff took place, which was quelled only after much bloodshed. At the end
of October the distinguished Russian historian Karamzin, an adversary not only
of Polish independence, but of constitutional government and of the
emancipation of the serfs, had a long conference at Tsarskoie Selo with the
Tsar, earnestly warned him against the path he had chosen, and called upon him
to return to the footsteps of Catharine II. In 1820 occurred the assassination
of the Duke of Berry, and the revolutionary movements in Spain, Naples, and
Portugal. Finally, while attending the Congress at Troppau in the autumn of the
same year, Alexander received news of the insurrection of the Semenovski
Regiment of the Guards, which had broken out in St Petersburg in October. This
rising, albeit speedily quelled, gave a severe shock to the Tsar, though it had
no political character, but was brought about by the ill-treatment of the rank
and file by their colonel. The traditional use of the Russian Guards as an
instrument of coups d’etat made any
such outbreak
a threatening reminder to the grandson of Peter III and the son of Paul.
Alexander had
long been aware of the existence of secret societies in Russia and Poland; and
originally, as has been said, he looked with some indulgence upon them. In
1821, after his return to St Petersburg from a long journey abroad, he
received, on two separate occasions, information about the state of affairs
among the confederates: first, in the form of a detailed report with the names
of the conspirators and an account of their doings, from the Chief of the Staff
of the Guards, General Benckendorff; and, next, a denunciation, also with full
details, from the President of the Imperial Council, General Vasilchikoff. The
Tsar, who, it seems, was already in possession of full details from another
source, did not act upon either of these reports; he simply remarked to
Vasilchikoff “ ce rCest pas a tnoi a sevirHowever, he began, henceforth, to pay
more heed to the reactionary voices; he complied with the demands of the Synod,
made arrangements for the change in the succession, and even contemplated
abdication. He gradually became morose and suspicious, as he felt himself more
and more isolated, not only in Europe, but among his people and even in his own
family. A “sphinx, full of riddles to the end of his days” (so the Russian poet
Prince Viazemski describes him), a crowned Hamlet, but even more deeply rent
than Hamlet by his own emotions, conscious of his own moral participation in
the assassination of his father, and now, in turn, threatened with retaliation
by the conspirators, he was oppressed by the knowledge of his helplessness at
home, and of the fruitlessness of his policy abroad; from year to year he felt
the ground giving way under and around him. In August, 1825, fresh and alarming
disclosures reached him of a conspiracy in the army. He received these
disclosures, however, quite calmly, and did not take any precautionary
measures. In September of the same year he left St Petersburg for the last time
and proceeded to Taganrog. Here his health suddenly gave way. The rumours,
prevalent at the time, of poisoning or suicide were entirely devoid of
foundation, according to the statement of his private physician, Sir James
Wylie. It appears, however, that he would not allow himself to be treated; he
refused the medicines prescribed for him and thus hastened his own end. He died
at Taganrog on December 1, 1825.
The news of
the death of Alexander reached Warsaw on the evening of December 7,1825. It was
sent to Constantine, as Emperor, in the form of a humble report by the Chief of
the Staff of the Southern Army, Diebitsch. Constantine was unwilling to accept
the crown before the letter, by which he had renounced his rights to the
succession, had been declared invalid; and he even wrote to Nicholas expressing
his intention of fulfilling the undertaking contained in it, but without giving
a clear and decided statement on the point. "While not assuming the reins
of
government,
he, nevertheless, refrained from administering the oath of allegiance in the
name of Nicholas to the official authorities, and to the troops in the kingdom
of Poland and Lithuania. The news of ^ the death of the Tsar reached St
Petersburg on December 9. The Minister of Justice, Lobanoff-Rostovski, as
Procurator of the Senate, refused to open the packet deposited with the Senate,
for, as he said, “ les marts n’ont point de volonte ”; in like manner, the
packet deposited with the Synod was not opened; the Governor-General of St
Petersburg, Miloradovich, who, as it appears, at that critical moment was
taking the leading part in public affairs, declared himself definitely for
Constantine; acting under pressure from Miloradovich, Nicholas himself took the
oath of allegiance to Constantine; and it was thereupon also taken by the
garrison of St Petersburg and the government officials.
However, at a
meeting of the Council of State, Galitzin (doubtless not without an
understanding with Nicholas) urged the opening of the secret packet, and the
reading both of Constantine’s letter and of the manifesto of Alexander. This
was done, but, for the moment, nothing came of it. Moscow followed the example
of St Petersburg; the packet deposited in the Uspenski Cathedral was not
published, and the troops and authorities in Moscow likewise took the oath of
allegiance to Constantine I—a course which was followed in Finland and the
western provinces, including Vilna. Only in Grodno, owing to the express order
of Constantine, the oath was not taken. In the meantime Constantine in Warsaw
learned of the proceedings at the Council of State and the disclosure of his
letter and, what was more important, of the manifesto of the deceased Tsar. His
position as sovereign was thus, to a large extent, compromised, while at the
same time he received disquieting information of the discovery of a conspiracy.
Influenced by these events he finally decided to carry out his renunciation; on
December 20, he sent an unconditional announcement thereof to Nicholas; this
document reached St Petersburg on the evening of December 24. The accession of
Nicholas I was then announced; and the interregnum of over three weeks at
length came to an end.
"
Meantime the members of the secret societies, who had no detailed information
about either the illness of Alexander, or the doubt as to the succession, were
perplexed by the Tsar’s death, and the complications regarding the succession
which ensued. Finally, they resolved, although, at that time, they were not
represented in large numbers in St Petersburg, to attempt a rising, profiting
by the uncertainty of the situation and adopting, as their watchwqrd, the
rights of Constantine. This step, which they venturecTuponTnTspite of the
advice of the more cautious members of their party, was taken principally
jinder-£he influence of Ryleieff. Their iateatjon-Wiisjto force the Senate to
issue a. manifesto, convoking an assembly ,gf national representatives
jto discus3.
±ba-^iisputed -qnpstinTi of the succession, and to establiskftn interim
Government, of which SperansIaT'a^eE^er of the Council i*f State;
Admiwd-~Mt^avmoffrt5i3^tSe^oi5imtmSer-in-chief of the. axra» Yerm^'ffT'w^^^ecome
members; to reduce tEel^1<igd~of'^rtig'gT6T’tEe rank
antTS^oT^Eearmy to lS*years; and to take steps for the ^'apbTpation"
8f"tte^erfs. ~ For the moment of the insurrection Colonel Prince Sergius
Trubetskoi was chosen dictator.—
At the meeting,
which took place during 3ie1ai^St^oF^un3ay to Monday, December 25-26, in the
lodgings of Ryleieff, it was decided to begin the insurrection on the following
day, being that which had been appointed for taking the oath to Nicholas.
Accordingly, on the morning of the 26th, the Moscow regiment" mirtinirl in
its barracks, and having refused to take t£e' oath marched out, under arms, to
the Square of the Senate, shouting “Long live Constantine,” some also shouting
“Long live the Constitution,” which not a few of the soldiers understood to be
the name of the wife of Constantine. Afterwards a part of the regiment of the
Grenadiers joined them, together with the crews of the war-vessels at St
Petersburg. On the other hand, various regiments, on which they were relying,
and especially the fujtillery, disappointed them. The leaders of the
insurrection showed a complete lack of initiative, and kept the soldiers
inactive in the Square in the cold and without Tood~ior sevmTToS's'r'''Tstubetskor
did not issue ^ny^rders ; ^3TKe'c6mmo"n people maintained a passive
attitude.
Meanwhile,
Nicholas (who on the previous day had been warned by one of the confederates of
the intended rising and was anxious to deal in a decisive manner with the
rebels) managed to surround the insurgents, who did not in fact number
above^QQflUmee, with a considerable force of the infantry, cavalry, and
artillery, that still remained faithful to him. To his repeated calls upon them
to disperse, the insurgents replied by a discharge of their weapons; and one of
the first victims of the melee was Miloradovich, the most prominent partisan of
Constantine, who fell mortally wounded. Daylight was now beginning to wane, and
the energy of the insurgents was becoming exhausted, even before the contest had
become serious. Finally, after several unsuccessful charges by the cavalry,
Nicholas ordered his troops to fire with grape-shot. After the first discharge
of cannon the rebels dispersed; many persons, even among the bystanders,
perished in consequence of the fire directed at the dense crowd from two sides
of the Square at a short distance. Many, too, were killed whilg.„jn flight, or
drowned in the Neva. The number of victims cannot be calculated
-exactly';"'11T‘must7~Ebwever, have been considerable. The number usually
given of 300 dead bodies is based upon the official
^ejKnlTiyfai^'iWntrustworfi^^ThgMmrtli^rr^eafly^^he'Ie^ers were arrested
and’impnsoned in the Petropavlovsk fortress. Thus ended the unsuccessful
attempt of the Decembrists.
When the news
of these events in St Petersburg, which were solely the work of the Northern
Society, reached the Southern Society, there proved_'ttrHbe’TTr^“ar"shmhrf*',tack
'oF preparationj organisation, and initiative; but a desperate effgxt—
waa—Hiade-by-^he.-thiee—biwtliers MuraviefF. On January 11, 1826,
Lieut.-Colonel Sergius Muravieff- Apostol, having induced the Chemigoff
regiment of foot in Vasylkoff to revolt, led it from its camp to BialotserkoiF.
Here, some days later, it was overtaken and surrounded by a superior force.
After a short struggle, he was defeated and taken prisoner, severely wounded,
along with his brother Matthew, the third brother, Hippolytus, having shot
himself. ^y_these easy, yet bloody, victories, ..NichoIa&.,toly~£stab-
lished his power; and thereafter, the oath of allegiance to him was taken
without resistance. On December 29, the oath was taken in Moscow, when the
documents of 1822-3 preserved in the Uspenski Cathedral were brought out and
read to the people.
Without
further delay the new Tsar entered upon a course of the most stringent
repression. On December 29. 182J>, by a secret ukase, a Commission.
o£Jn^s^i|^^n^^rXpjTOl3^^seven (j^errords ^of^n) persons feexamming_over^
witnesses.
This
examination was carried out, secretly, by the use, and, indeed, abuse,
ofallthe.mQSLt refe^iii^i.tQria.l methods, the prisoners being treated *
without .meney. They were alternately terrorised by threats of torture and
deluded by promises of clemency. Moreover, in order to wring confessions from
them, the most ingenious kinds of moral pressure were employed; for instance,
Ryleieff was attacked through his love for his young wife and children, to
whose house the Tsaritsa, during the examination, sent provisions and
assurances of hope. Nicholas himself ordered the prisoners to be brought to him
in chains, and examined them personally. A considerable number of the
accused—with the exception of a few strong-willed spirits, like Yakushkin,
Bestuzheff and others, who would not allow themselves to be either intimidated
or cajoled—could not resist the methods of examination employed; and, either by
weakness, or in the delusive belief that, by a candid declaration of their aims
and intentions, they would best serve their countiy, they were led into making
the fullest and most incriminating confessions. On the basis of such
confessions the Commission ot Investigation, on Jugg. 11, prepared its Report—a
pitiless' indTctmerTE^^Sfitjed ..not only to bring ruin on the prisoners, but
to make them infamous in the eyes of the people] TEey
were^presrated'”m*’^^Sn5eing^S®naTy criminals"aSS assassins; their
intentions were grossly misrepresented; every incautious and hasty word was
used against them. On the other hand, po notice was ta^ aiming at
the
equality of citrus.bfifgr^the.law* JllSLmwclpation otifiuUSSI*, the publicity
of Courts Church and of the
army, the
abolition of the jnffitary. colonies and of monopolies.
In the middle
o£_JHBg^tjiaJHlg^CouiA„j]iiet. to... try-,the-..ca§e of
the
Decembrists. This Court consisted of eighfejneiabers, from the
Council .of.
State, the ^Jjjmod^ and the %nate J^i&fely, to whom
were joined
several military officers and Government officials. Their
deliberations
lasted from June 15 to July 23? being conducted with the
stnctest”secresy
and exclusively m the Tmsis of the Report of the
Commission of
Investigation, without any defence being allowed, and
without jfflv
notification toihe accused,themselves, who werejLeaJLaJl
the time in
the Petropa/vlovsk fortress, in totallgnorance that they were
Bein^^e3T*^en{encewas
pronounced on July 21; jof the Igjl.pecsoBs
accused, of
whom fil belonged to the Northern Society. .&XtCLihe
Southern
Society^ and 23 to the United Slavs, all were found-guilty
(amcailpSieKnSem^ barons, two generals,
twenty-three
colonels and lieutenant-colonels). Eivc --of them were
sentenced to
be hanged an^ q^xtfiLed, ^rtjfcane ta be beheaded, and
the remainder
to be_sent to Siberia. On the following day, Nicholas
issued Tiis
confirmation of the sentence, showing, however, clemency in
certain
cases. TEus, the death penalty for the five principal offenders
was allowed
to stand, the Court being lefttoimaK^“^e“Su^a^aMe-
menfs for
their execution; but, in the case of the
commuted
the death penalty to hard labour for also alleviated thit penalties.
M^pme.^sL^oQtto's- °n dsllLs^ the Court proceeded as a body to the
Petropavlovsk fortress; and there took place its first and last sitting in the
presence of the prisoners...who only now learned that they had been tried and
sentenced. The sentence was carried out in the early morning of July 25, 1826,
on the Petropavlovsk Esplanade, the five ■■
^cjpal.x:Qnvicte'*Eein'g”Eanged: Pestgl, RyleiejF, Sergius Muravieff-Apostol,
Michael BestuzlxeB^aruT^'Kachovski. The object in view, that of
terrorisingTiKF’conmumty", was attameSr™ Nicholas ordered a precis of the
reforms devised by the Decembrists to be drawn up for his personal use. It
appears that originally he had thoughts of introducing some at least of these
reforms. Thus in 1826 he entrusted Speranski with the codification of the
Russian laws. This work was completed in 1839 and took the form of a “Complete
Code of Laws”; it proved, however, to be not so much a codification as a mere
digest of the most varied administrative enactments. The Secret
Committe&^^stablished in 1826 to examine onto .tjie position of the
peasants, after long and fruitless labours did not make any progress with 'the
au^OQf. em^^ wKch
fefr'to-4he--l^crf
Nicholas^ succgS5jQr...- On the other hand, much greater zeal ’was displayed in
political repression; and, in 1826, Benckendorff, who had first brought to
light the organisation of the secret societies, was appointed Chief of the
Gendarmerie, as well as principal director of that new police institution, the
notorious Third Section of the Tsar’s own Chancellery, henceforth the most
effective implement of political
espionage and
oppression. However, the attention of Nicholas began to be directed more and
more to questions of foreign policy: the war with Persia (1827-8), concluded by
the Treaty of Peace at Turkmanchay (February 10, 1828), which gave to Russia
the provinces of Nakhichevan and Erivan; the war with Turkey (1828-9),
concluded by the Treaty of Peace at Adrianople (Septemher 14, 1829), which resulted
in the independence of Greece, and secured to Russia, besides the Asiatic
possessions of Anapa, Achaltsik, Poti, etc., the right of free navigation in
the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, the occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia, and a
large pecuniary indemnity; finally, the war with the kingdom of Poland in 1831,
which was terminated by the taking of Warsaw and the overthrow of the
constitutional independence of that kingdom. By these triumphs the nation
gained nothing; on the contrary it lost. It became deeper and deeper immersed
in stagnation and disintegration. Warped and hindered in its normal
development, it bore within it the germs of inevitable upheavals and future
disasters.
POLAND AND
THE POLISH REVOLUTION.
By the downfall of Napoleon, Poland lost the chance,
almost within her grasp, of recovering her independence. But the nation still
displayed an inexhaustible vitality; the settlement of the eighteenth century
had teen set aside; and the necessity of a new solution of the Polish question
was thus evident. That solution now rested in the hands of Russia. Russia had
already, by the first three Partitions (1772-95), received about three-fourths
of the territoiy, and more than half the population, of the Polish Republic;
she now held in addition the grand duchy of Warsaw, which had been originally
appropriated partly to Prussia and partly to Austria. She thus had in her
hands, in all, almost nine-tenths of the whole of the original territoiy of
Poland (1813-5).
In view of
this, Alexander I desired to create a new kingdom of Poland under Russian
supremacy, and to incorporate in it a large part of the Polish territoiy which
was under his sway. But the statesmen at the Congress of Vienna, and especially
Castlereagh, who took a prominent part in thwarting the Russian designs, did
not understand the true historical and political aspect now presented by the
Polish question. They failed to appreciate the true interests of Europe; they
reverted to the settlement that Napoleon had overthrown; and, through fear of
Russia, they vetoed the foundation of a new Poland. Russia was obliged to give
up to Prussia nearly one-fourth of the grand duchy of Warsaw, as well as to
consent to the separation of Cracow. Austria received back that part of Eastern
Galicia which she had lost to Russia in 1809, i.e. the province of Tamopol;
Cracow, with the surrounding district, was declared a free city, with a special
charter, under the joint protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Prussia
recovered the grand duchy of Posen; the remaining part of the grand duchy of
Warsaw constituted the new kingdom of Poland, irrevocably bound to Russia by
its constitution and by the hereditary rule of the new Kings of Poland.
Alexander, some years before (in 1810), had urged Napoleon to enter into a
special convention against the extension of the grand duchy of
Warsaw; but
now he expressly reserved to himself in the treaties and in the Final Act the
right of making such additions to the Polish State as he might think fit. This reservation
had in view the eventual annexation to the kingdom of Poland of at least a part
of Lithuania. Taken in conjunction with the recent precedent of the annexation
of old Finland to the grand duchy of Finland (1811), it was of great value in
conciliating public opinion in the kingdom; later, the disappointment of these
hopes assisted to bring about the revolution of November. It was likewise
stipulated at Vienna that the Polish territories handed over to Austria and
Prussia should receive national representation and autonomous institutions of
their own. Furthermore, guarantees were given that over the whole area of the
former Republic, within the limits existing in 1772, there should be full
freedom of navigation and trading, as well as unrestricted communication across
the frontier. In these various clauses there was to be found undoubtedly an
attempt to provide a new settlement of the Polish question; but the cardinal
blunder, that of dividing the Polish lands and the Polish people, was retained.
The kingdom, thus weakened by reduction of territory, was deprived of all
chance of permanently maintaining its constitutional independence as ugainst
the vast and autocratic Russian Empire. This aspect of Castlereagh’s policy was
clearly set forth in the English Parliament during the early debates on the
Congress of Vienna (January 6,1816) by George Ponsonby, whose forecast of the
future proved singularly just.
In November,
1815, Alexander I made his state entry into Warsaw —the first state entry of a
Russian monarch into the capital of Poland. His first task was to grant a
Constitution. Out of the various schemes submitted to him, Alexander finally
selected that drafted by Prince Adam Czartoryski. Considerable modifications,
calculated to limit the independence of the kingdom, were, however, made in the
draft by the hand of the Tsar himself, and others at the suggestion of
Novosiltsoff, a Russian Senator, formerly a friend of Czartoryski, afterwards
the most virulent and most dangerous enemy of the Poles and Poland. Alexander
signed the final text of the Constitution on November 27,1815.
The
constitutional charter for the kingdom of Poland comprised 7 titles and 165
articles. In contradiction to the old Constitution of the grand duchy of
Warsaw, the Roman Catholic religion was not recognised as the national
religion, but placed on an equal footing with all other eligions, save only
that it enjoyed the special protection of the Government. The Crown of the
kingdom was to be for ever hereditaiy in the Russian Imperial Family; the
person of the monarch was declared sacred and inviolable, and the government
was vested in him; to him belonged the right of confirming or rejecting the
enactments of the Diet, as well as the right of convoking, dissolving, and
adjourning it. A Viceroy, acting together with a Council of State, was to
represent the sovereign in the Government. A Diet of two Chambers, to be
convoked
every two
years for a session of thirty days, was the legislative authority. The members
of the Senate, to the number of not more than half of the members of the Lower
Chamber, were to be appointed for life by the Crown. The Chamber of Deputies,
composed of 77 members of the nobility and 51 deputies, was to be chosen for a
term of six years by direct election under a restricted franchise. All noble
landowners, registered as such in any provincial district, had a vote for the
first- mentioned class of representatives; the other deputies were to be
elected by the suffrages of (1) all owners of land paying taxes, (2) master
workmen, manufacturers, and merchants, holding property of a certain rateable
value, (3) parish priests and vicars, teachers, artists, and other members of
the professional classes. The sittings of the Diet in both Chambers were to be
public, the voting was to be open, and a simple majority was to be decisive;
the actions of the Government were to be subject to the supervision of three
Revising Committees of the Diet, formed for civil and criminal law, for
administrative and constitutional law, and for finance.
The executive
authority was vested in the Administrative Council, composed of the five
Ministers of Finance, War, Education and Public Worship, Justice, Home Affairs
and Police, and presided over, like the Council of State, by the Viceroy. The direction
of foreign polity was to devolve upon the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs
in St Petersburg. However, a permanent diplomatic department, carrying on its
own correspondence with the Russian embassies abroad, was attached to Grand
Duke Constantine at Warsaw. A Secretary of State for the kingdom, attached to
the sovereign in St Petersburg, was to act as intermediary between the
Government of the kingdom and the Crown. The arms of the kingdom (in place of
the plain white eagle adopted in the time of the duchy of Warsaw) were to be a
white eagle on the breast of the Russian two-headed black eagle. The Polish
army, established on a peace footing of about 30,000 men, was to retain its
distinctive insignia and its national uniform. Only citizens of the kingdom
were to be admitted to civil and military posts; the Polish language was to be
exclusively employed in the administration, the law-courts, and the army.
Personal liberty, freedom of religious belief, and freedom of the Press were
guaranteed. Jews were, however, barred from the exercise of all civil
functions, and were not allowed either to hold public posts or to take part in
elections.
The Polish
Constitution of 1815 thus became, in some respects, the most progressive and
Liberal constitution in Europe. The electoral system, based on a uniform
principle, with electoral districts of equal extent, and with a restricted
register of voters, was far superior to the English electoral system before the
Reform Bill. It was also more Liberal than that of the French Charte of 1814,
which had a far higher voting qualification, both as regards property and age.
The number of
448
Grand Duke Constantine.—Novosiltsoff.
[1815-30
voters in
France, after the Restoration, was somewhat less than that in Poland about 1820;
while the Polish population, excluding the Jews, was little more than one-tenth
of the French. More important still, the Constitution of 1815 tended to
perpetuate the Polish nationality, making, as it did, the Polish language the
sole means of public communication, and confining to Polish citizens the
exercise of public rights. But, in the final text of the Constitution, a series
of vague and ambiguous phrases were purposely introduced, the sources of
subsequent infraction of the rights conferred. Thus, instead of the old Polish
formula “neminem captivabimus nisi jure victum,” was inserted “neminem
captivari permittemus.'” This left the power of illegal imprisonment and long
detention in prison without trial as a prerogative of the sovereign and his Viceroy.
Again, the “ first budget ” was left at the disposition of the sovereign,
without a clear indication whether it was meant to be the budget for the first
year only, or also for the following years; and thus, during the whole fifteen
years’ existence of the kingdom, not a single budget was submitted to the Diet
for ratification. The Diets were to meet every two years; but the Eng had the
right of adjourning them, and consequently, in place of seven Diets during the
whole period of fifteen years, only four were held.
Moreover, the
choice of persons to fill several most important posts was unfortunate. The
post of Commander-in-Chief was given to the Grand Duke Constantine. Though a
tyrant by nature and of violent character, his marriage with Princess Lovicz
and his long residence in Poland somewhat softened him, and even made him, to
some extent, conscious of his obligations towards the kingdom; yet withal,
during the whole time of his rule, his influence tended to embitter relations.
The Viceroy was General Zayonch, an old legionist and soldier of Napoleon, a
man of great personal courage, but without character, and thoroughly servile to
the Grand Duke. Czartoryski, whom public opinion had destined for the
viceroyship, had incurred the private displeasure of Alexander, and was
excluded from the Government proper. Large and undefined powers, including a
seat in the Administrative Council, were bestowed upon Nicholas Novosiltsoff,
the “ evil spirit ” of the kingdom of Poland. Novosiltsoff interfered in all
affairs, and sent to St Petersburg, first to Alexander and afterwards to
Nicholas, secret weekly reports, which were coloured by profound animosity not
only towards Poland, but, speaking generally, towards every sentiment of
nationality, progress, and freedom. The worst misfortunes which fell upon the
country at this period, and on its best men, were all due to the intervention,
and many of them to the initiative, of Novosiltsoff, whose name, branded by the
national poet Mickievicz (one of his numerous victims), is fixed in the memory
of the Polish people as the embodiment of the most insidious Russian
bureaucratic oppression.
The kingdom
of Poland was ultimately established within the
boundaries
which it has retained to the present day. These included an area of about
127,000 square kilometres, barely one-sixth of the former Polish Republic. The
population, which had greatly diminished in consequence of the recent wars,
amounted, in 1815, to only 3,200,000, but afterwards rapidly increased, so
that, in 1830, it amounted to 4,200,000. The kingdom was divided into eight
provinces, viz. Masovia, Kalisz, Plock, Podlasia, Augustov, Lublin, Sandomir,
and Cracow (the last name was retained to convey hopes of the recovery of that
city), and into a like number of Roman Catholic dioceses, with an archbishopric
at Warsaw, and one Greek-United diocese—that of Chelm. The Archbishop of
Warsaw, by virtue of the Concordat of Alexander with Pius VII, signed in Rome
on January 28, 1818, and the Papal Bulls of March and June, 1818, received the
title of Primate of the kingdom of Poland. After the death of Archbishop
Voronicz in 1829, the Russian Government, for several decades, left the
archbishopric vacant, and, even down to the present day, has refused the title
of Primate to the Archbishops.
Great
activity was displayed in the sphere of public education. In
1816, a University was founded in Warsaw; it
was gradually enlarged until it possessed faculties of theology, law, medicine,
philosophy, science, and art. The students attending it soon reached the number
of 800. In place of the Zaluski Library, removed to St Petersburg, a new and
important library, with a large collection of engravings, was quickly formed;
and special equipment, such as laboratories, was added. The following higher
schools were established: schools for applied military science and forestry and
a polytechnic in Warsaw, a school of mining in Kielce, a school of cadets in
Kalisz, an institute for training elementary teachers in Lovicz, an
ecclesiastical seminary for Evangelicals, and a Rabbi’s school for Jews.
Secondary education was further provided for in ten provincial and sixteen
departmental schools, while the number of elementary town and country schools
was increased to nearly 900.
Much was
done, too, by the Home Department of the Government under the capable and
resolute Minister Mostovski. An effort was made to promote various industries;
and support was given, in particular, to the weaving industry, which henceforth
became one of the principal factors in the prosperity of the kingdom. The
direction of the mines was under the care of the famous patriot and writer
Staszic, and steps were taken to develop the Olkusz mines. At a cost of several
millions of florins1 the city of Warsaw was embellished and enlarged;
the old ramparts of Praga were removed; and a row of large public buildings was
erected, which are occupied to this day as Government offices. Much was done
for the making and repairing of the roads; and the improvement of the
navigation of the rivers Vistula, Pilica, Nida, and Przemsza was taken in hand.
The postal administration, which 1 The Polish florin or gulden was
worth at this time about 1«. 2d.
had hitherto
been working at a loss, was put in proper order, and afterwards produced a
considerable revenue. A subsidy was granted to the National Theatre; and an
academy of music and elocution was founded. With the object of bringing the
different classes of society more closely together, a decree was issued in
1817, facilitating the obtaining of patents of nobility. From this time
forward, grants of nobility were constantly being announced in the Gazette,
with the ultimate effect of eradicating the feeling that the nobility formed an
exclusive class.
A danger to
the kingdom, in this first period of its existence, was the deplorable state of
its finances, resulting principally from the expenditure on the army. This
expenditure, during the first two years (1815-7), was met by the Russian
Treasury; but thereafter it fell on the finances of the kingdom. The cost of
the army reached about 30 millions of florins annually, that is to say, about
half of the entire budget; and in 1819 there was a deficit in the budget
amounting to 19 millions. There was thus a danger that, under the pretext of
the inability of the country to bear its expensive legislative institutions,
Novosiltsoff would tempt Alexander to abolish the autonomous Constitution of
the kingdom, so as to embrace Poland within the scheme, brought forward about
this time, for granting a constitution to the whole Empire.
In the spring
of 1818, Alexander entered Warsaw to open the first Diet of the kingdom. The
ceremony took place on March 27 with great pomp. Alexander, having ascended the
throne, read an eloquent speech in French, full of promises. “Your hopes and my
wishes,” he said, “are being realised. You have given me the opportunity of
disclosing to my own country that which I have long been preparing for it, and
which it will obtain, so soon as this important work can reach maturity. You
have proved yourselves equal to your task. The results of your labours will
teach me whether, true to my undertakings, I shall be able further to extend
what I have already done for you.” These solemn words made a powerful
impression on those present, and were echoed throughout the kingdom, over the
whole of Russia, and through Europe. They were taken to indicate the assurance
of a constitution for Russia and of the annexation of Lithuania to the
kingdom. We may regard this speech from the throne of 1818 as the culminating
point of Alexander’s Liberalism; henceforth reactionary tendencies were to
prevail.
The
deliberations of the Diet, animated by such a promising introduction, were at
once important and favourable to the country’s interest. A law was passed for
making more summary the procedure in fixing the boundaries of private lands—a
measure which was alike indispensable for keeping intact the national lands,
and for enabling hypothecations to be satisfactorily made. A new and important
law of mortgage was passed, which is in force to this day, and is a
considerable improvement, both on the rules of the Code NapoUon and on the
mortgage
system of
Prussia. Further, a concise criminal code was drawn up—not free, however, from
defects—modelled on the principles of French and Austrian law. The members of
the Diet showed an admirable temper; although abundant cause for recriminations
was given, not only by Novosiltsoff, in his role of informer and supervisor,
but still more by the Grand Duke Constantine himself, who had, in 1816, by his
unconstitutional conduct, obliged the Minister of War, Vielhorski, to resign,
and, by his terrible military rigour, had caused a series of suicides among
Polish officers. In a word, the Diet endeavoured to show not merely legislative
zeal, but also its confidence in the Government, and to give proofs that it had
fittingly appreciated the precious assurances contained in the speech from the
throne.
Alexander
closed the Diet on April 27, expressing his good-will in a second address, thanking
the Diet for its labours and its conduct, promising his speedy return to
Warsaw, and concluding with these auspicious words: “ I abide by the execution
of my intentions; what they are, you already know.” One positive step in the
direction of fulfilling these intentions, so far as they concerned Lithuania,
was made by the ukases of 1817 and 1819, extending the military authority of
Constantine, as Commander-in-Chief of the Polish army, to five Lithuanian
provinces. But, at the same time, disquieting signs of reaction were beginning
to appear. ‘
By a decree
of the Viceroy of May, 1819, the censorship was introduced for newspapers and
periodicals, and, by a decree of July of the same year, it was extended to all
books published in the kingdom. This was a flagrant violation of the
Constitution. In December of the same year not only was this violation
sanctioned to the fullest extent, but restrictions upon personal liberty were
also authorised, so far as the “ urgency of the moment ” might require. Henceforth
a road was opened to administrative repression, according as the autocratic
character of Constantine and the denunciations of Novosiltsoff might dictate,
and regardless of the constitutional guarantees.
A
tone of depression, though still not devoid of hope, pervaded the second Diet,
which met in the autumn of 1820, Alexander was in a different mood, being
affected by disquieting manifestations in central and western Europe, as well
as in Russia. In his speech from the throne, at the opening of the Diet
(September 13), he spoke wamingly of the “evil spirit which was moving over
Europe.” Still, he did not as yet withdraw his promises. “A few steps farther,”
he said, “ and you will be at the goal of my hopes and yours.” He even, at this
time, was busy elaborating in Warsaw secret projects, concerning both the
Lithuanian union and the Russian Constitution, though, indeed, without much
belief in their fulfilment. The proceedings of the Diet meanwhile were far from
favourable to the Imperial wishes. Two important bills of the Government were
rejected—a code of criminal procedure and a ch.
xiv. 29—2
statute for
constituting the Senate. A very large number of petitions were presented,
stating various grounds of complaint (gravamina) arising from the unconstitutional
action of the Government. The leader of the Opposition, Vincent Niemojcvski,
attacked the actions of the Government in a most acrimonious manner: “ Stat
magni nommis umbra,” he said, not without reason, of the Constitution. Still,
in the main, the Diet kept closely to the points at issue, and observed
moderation in criticising the Government, altogether avoiding reference to the
person of the sovereign. Ignoring this praiseworthy moderation, Alexander, in
closing the deliberations (October 13), sternly rebuked the deputies, and found
a convenient pretext for hinting the withdrawal of his previous promises. “You
have delayed in its progress,” he said, “the work of restoring your country.
That heavy responsibility will rest upon you.”
During the
next five years the Polish Diet was not once convoked. The censorship, newly
established under the direction of Novosiltsoff, began more and more to fetter
the Press; and at the same time, owing to his influence, public education fell
completely under the yoke of political reaction. This task was facilitated by
the liberal-minded and patriotic Minister of Education and Public Worship,
Stanislaus Potocki, who, by his harsh action, estranged the Catholic clergy. He
closed 45 monasteries, 3 abbeys, and 11 seminaries, leaving still about 200
monasteries and 2000 monks. The Bishops, with Voronicz at their head, thereupon
submitted to Alexander a petition against Potocki, who was unpopular with them
for various reasons, amongst others, as being the Grand Master of the Grand
Orient Lodge of Free Masons at Warsaw. At this very time, Rome was taking steps
against the secret societies, and especially against the Carbonari, who were
excommunicated by a Papal Bull (September, 1821). In compliance with the
Bishops’ desire, Alexander confirmed a new statute for the Commission of Public
Worship and Education (August 14, 1821). Potocki was dismissed, and his place
was taken by Stanislaus Grabovski, who soon became a mere tool of Novosiltsoff,
and governed the Ministry of Education in an obscurantist spirit. It is
noteworthy that this movement on the part of the Roman Church at Warsaw was
nearly contemporaneous with the attack on the Tsar made in St Petersburg by
reactionary members of the Russian Church, led by Seraphim and Photius in the
name of orthodoxy. Thus the Polish clergy, being in complete ignorance of this
latter movement, played into the hands of their most dangerous enemies.
The exposure
and repression of the local secret societies next occupied the attention of the
Government. The beginning of these societies in Poland had even preceded its
establishment as a kingdom, for they were in existence in 1814. They had their
origin in part from the old Polish freemasonry, which had originally been
dependent on the Grand
Lodge at Berlin,
but had been reorganised during the existence of the grand duchy of Warsaw, a
Polish Grand Lodge being formed in connexion with the Grand Lodge in Paris. In
1814 this movement of freemasonry was extended, by the efforts of Ludwig
Plater, to the western provinces of Russia; and relations with the Grand Lodge
in St Petersburg were established. When, in the autumn of 1814, there were
fears of a general war breaking out on the Polish question between Russia, on
the one hand, and Austria, England, and France, on the other, the idea of
utilising, in case of necessity, the energies of the Polish people on behalf of
Russia seems to have led both Alexander and Constantine (who was himself a
member of a Masonic Lodge) to favour the development of the secret patriotic
organisations; and the Tsar cherished hopes of creating a new Poland by their
means. Under these circumstances was organised, in 1814, the “ Society of True
Poles.” Afterwards from the Polish Freemasons originated the secret society of
National Freemasonry. The principal founder and Grand Master was Valezy
Lukasinski, a major of the 4th regiment of the line. The society adhered
closely to the monarchical principle, and a bust of Alexander was placed in all
its lodges, and when, subsequently, it was extended by Szczaniecki, adjutant of
the famous General Dombrovski, to the grand duchy of Posen, in the Posen Lodges
the bust of Frederick William III was taken down, and that of Alexander
substituted. In 1819, Lukasinski a man of great caution and self-sacrificing
patriotism, drew up the statutes of this society; and at the beginning of the
following year it was again transformed from freemasonry into an organisation
similar to the Carboneria. At the same time, Lukasinski broke off direct
connexion with Posen, in consequence, it must be supposed, of a hint received
concerning the changed intentions of Alexander. But the movement, once started,
could not be stopped; in April, 1821, General Uminski, one of the Posen
Freemasons, arrived at Warsaw; and, under his influence and the pressure of
opinion in the local Lodges, a new and well- organised secret society was
founded at Bielany, near Warsaw (May 1, 1821). This society was entirely
independent of the others, having as its aim to obtain, by the efforts of the
people themselves, the independence of Poland; it took the title of the
“Patriotic Society.” The chief authority of the association was vested in a
central committee under Lukasinski. The confederates divided themselves into
seven provinces, comprising the kingdom of Poland, Lithuania, Volhynia, Posen,
Galicia, and Cracow; and the Polish army formed the seventh province.
The number of
members in 1822 was estimated at about 5000; but this estimate was certainly
much exaggerated. It was not long, however, before the Government got an
inkling of the doings of the society (April, 1822) through warnings from the
Berlin police, as well as through the treachery of one of the members, Captain
Karski. He had been sent to Paris in order to arrive at an understanding
454 Relations between Russian and Polish
societies. [1821-5
with the
French military societies (doubtless, also with La Fayette) and communicated
everything he knew to Pozzo di Borgo, the Russian ambassador at Paris, and an
implacable enemy of the Poles. Lukasinski and his companions were arrested,
and, after more than two years’ imprisonment, examined by a special and wholly
unconstitutional Commission of Investigation, appointed by a decree of the
Viceroy of July, 1822, and were afterwards handed over to a court-martial in
January, 1824. They were found guilty and finally sentenced in August to hard
labour in a fortress. Alexander, in confirming the sentence, reduced the
penalty, as regards Lukasinski, to seven years; at the same time he granted an
amnesty covering all acts prior to January 19, 1824, i.e. the date when
Lukasinski was tried by court-martial. In this way any incriminating
revelations as to the history of the societies were avoided. The noble-minded
Lukasinski, notwithstanding the shortening of his sentence, upon the outbreak
of the Revolution, was immured in the underground cells of the Schlusselburg
fortress, where he remained during nearly forty years. He died there in 1868,
carrying the secret of the conspiracy with him to the grave.
Owing to the
reticence of Lukasinski the Patriotic Society was able to carry on its work
secretly under its new head, Krzyzanovski, Lieutenant- General of the Polish
Guards. Branches of the society were formed extending in different directions,
in Vilna, in Courland, and in the southwestern provinces, especially in
Volhynia. From Volhynia the news of its existence reached the Russian Southern
Society, from which, in 1823, Muravieff-Apostol and Bestuzheff-Riumin made
proposals for a mutual understanding. Conferences took place in 1824 and 1825
between Krzyzanovski, Muravieff, and Bestuzheff. Krzyzanovski conducted himself
with great prudence. Upon the Russians demanding from him that there should be
a common conspiracy, and asking for particulars of the Polish societies, he
replied that he had no authorisation from them, and added that he was not
curious to learn the details of the Russian societies. They asked for the views
of the Poles respecting the form of government and urged the necessity of
adopting the republican form. He answered that, according to his own
conviction, Polish interests required a monarchical government. They intimated
to him the intention of the Russian confederates to extirpate, in case of need,
the ruling House, and demanded that the Poles, on their part, should get rid of
Constantine. To this he answered that “ never had Poles stained their hands
with the blood of their monarchs.” Finally, he refused to sign any written
agreement.
While at this
period, from all sides heavy clouds were collecting over the kingdom, a
beneficial change was effected in its internal administration. In 1821, the
energetic Prince Ksavery Lubecki was placed at the head of the Ministry of
Finance. Lubecki increased the revenues by a series of well-considered
enactments, promptly carried out.
He collected
considerable arrears (over 72 millions) and managed to make the budget show a
satisfactory balance. In 1819 the general expenditure had amounted to over 74
millions, of which more than 30 millions were for the army. He got rid of a
deficit of 20 millions and, after his ten years’ administration, left the
finances of the kingdom in a really flourishing state. To obtain such results
Lubecki made use of harsh and even somewhat unscrupulous methods; hence he was not
popular and was attacked in the Diet by the Opposition; but on the whole he
rendered undoubted services to the country. Sustained by the positive successes
of his financial administration* he alone could offer, in the defence of the
kingdom, a stubborn resistance to Novosiltsoff, not only in the Administrative
Council, but even before the sovereign himself; and this resistance he
continued to the end with great skill, vigour, and success.
In the spring
of 1825 Alexander came for the last time to Warsaw, to attend the third Diet.
At the very time when the summonses announcing the convocation of the Diet were
being issued, the Additional Act of February 13, 1825, suppressed the publicity
of deliberations in the Diet, except during the formal Sessions at the opening
and the closing of the Assembly. This was equivalent, in some measure, to a
suppression of the Constitutional Charter itself. Besides this, a series of
repressive measures were taken, with a view to preventing a repetition of the
opposition to the Government manifested at the last Diet. Thus Niemojevski was
forbidden to come to Warsaw; and the election in the province of Kalisz, for
which he had been reelected deputy, was cancelled. That part of the royal
palace which contained the hall of the Diet was surrounded by troops, and the
place swarmed with Russian officials and spies. Alexander opened the Diet (on
May 13) with a frigid speech, in which he only incidentally mentioned the
Additional Act, and avoided all subjects of vital' importance; he laid stress
on the marked improvement in the material welfare of the country, and on the
progress effected in<its economic and, especially, its financial affairs; he
dwelt also on the duty of placing entire confidence in the Government, and
recommended the unreserved acceptance' of its projects. The Diet, in effect,
followed these admonitions; and laying aside all its just grievances waived its
protest against the Additional Act, and abandoned the special address to the
Throne asking for its annulment. It approved all the Government projects
without any exception. Thus it passed, by a considerable majority in both
Chambers, the first part of the Civil Code. It also passed a law concerning
land-tenure, designed to regulate the relations of landlords and tenants, and'
to increase the number of the latter, as well1 as some supplementary
enactments to the Criminal Code, and, finally, regulations for a Land Bank.
This Bank was established on the initiiative of Lubecki with a government
subvention of 50 millions of florins, and1 was a valuable instrument
for the prdmotibn of agriculture,
then the
chief source of the well-being of the country. The Land Bank has continued to
flourish up to the present day, as the sole important legislative remnant from
the times of the kingdom of Poland. Speaking generally, the Diet of 1825,
mindful of the “heavy responsibility” laid upon it by the words of Alexander in
his closing speech of 1820, made it a point of honour not to furnish the
monarch with a pretext for withdrawing his promises. Alexander could not but
recognise this in his closing address (June 13). “You have carried out,” he
said, “the expectations of your country and have justified my confidence. It
will be my earnest desire to convince you what an influence your action will
have on your future.”
This
assurance was destined never to be fulfilled. This speech was the last which
Alexander ever addressed to a Diet of the kingdom of Poland, and the last
expression of his vacillating advances to Liberalism and to the Polish people.
His promises compared with his actions justify the caustic lines in which Byron
summed up Alexander’s character:
“The coxcomb
Czar,
The autocrat
of waltzes and of war!
As eager for
a plaudit as a realm,
And just as
fit for flirting as the helm:
Now half
dissolving to a liberal thaw,
But hardened
back whene’er the morning’s raw;
With no
objection to true liberty,
Except that
it would make the nations free.
How nobly
gave he back to Poles their Diet,
Then told
pugnacious Poland to be quiet.”
On the following
day (June 14, 1825) Alexander said good-bye for the last time to Warsaw and the
kingdom of Poland. His death followed at Taganrog on December 1.
The
accession of Nicholas, with the troubles which ensued and the attempt of the
Decembrists, was destined to have a powerful effect on the kingdom of Poland.
He declared, indeed, in a separate manifesto to the kingdom (December 25,
1825), that his reign would be a continuation of the rule of Alexander. “The
institutions which he gave you will remain unchanged. I promise and swear
before God that I will maintain the Act of Constitution and make every effort
to ensure its being maintained.” But, notwithstanding this, it soon became
evident that the change of rule was to bring new dangers. Hostile relations
soon arose between Constantine and Nicholas; while, at the same time,
Constantine became more conscious of the responsibilities connected with his
office after he had renounced the Imperial throne and
his
younger
brother his master. Nicholas, having definitely determined to abandon
Alexander’s scheme concerning the annexation of five Lithuanian provinces to
the kingdom, at once set about the gradual Russification, not only of the
civil administration in these provinces, but, in
particular,
of the separate Lithuanian corps. This course gave rise to vehement disputes
between the Tsar and the Grand Duke.
Again, though
it had been proved that the Decembrists had connexions with the secret
societies of the kingdom, Constantine was unwilling to proceed against these
societies by methods of secret enquiry, which he thought likely to compromise
the Polish army and embitter the relations between Poland and Russia. Nicholas,
on the contrary, persisted. A large number of persons, with Krzyzanovski at
their head, were arrested; an unconstitutional Commission of Investigation was
appointed to collect evidence; and the entire organisation of the Patriotic
Society was laid bare. The Commission reported on January 3, 1827; in
consequence eight persons were indicted, including Krzyzanovski. Thereafter, by
a Royal Decree (April 18,1827) a Court of the Diet was formed, which commenced
its sittings on June 15. Not being able to recognise the legality of the action
of the unconstitutional Commission of Investigation, this Court appointed from
among its members a new Board of Enquiry composed of five Senators, and
meantime suspended proceedings.
Its own
judicial sittings began on April 10, 1828, upon the conclusion of this
investigation. Unlike the shameful methods of secret enquiry adopted against
the Decembrists by the Court at St Petersburg, their sittings were conducted in
a legal and straightforward manner, the accused being allowed every facility
for their defence. The final judgment was issued on June 10, 1828. Krzyzanovski
was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, others to milder penalties; while
three persons were acquitted. These lenient sentences were contrary to the
intention of Nicholas, who demanded the death penalty. They signified that the
community at large was in sympathy with the aims of the secret societies. The
President of the Court, Bielinski, submitted to the Tsar (June 30, 1828) a full
report, drawn up by Czartoryski, giving the grounds for the sentences, and
stating that the accused had rested their case primarily on the guarantees of
the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna and, as regards the further extension
of the territory of the kingdom, on the repeated promises of Alexander,
confirmed by the ordinances introducing Polish institutions into the civil and
military administration in a considerable part of Lithuania. Nicholas ordered
(August 29, 1828) the Administrative Council and the Council of State to
consider the sentences, and declare whether the Court of the Diet had not
itself shown “ a disposition to connive at criminal intentions.” Lubecki now
came forward in defence of the accused, the Court, and the country itself. He
had recently rendered valuable service by establishing in 1828 the Bank of
Poland. Thanks to his influence, the Administrative Council and the Council of
State, notwithstanding certain legal reservations, supported in principle the
decision of the Court. In the end, Nicholas, while censuring the Court,
confirmed the sentences, which
were duly
carried out (March 26, 1829). The whole incident was a prelude to the
Revolution; a deep antagonism between the nation and the Emperor had been
disclosed.
The
unfortunate course of the Turkish war had been a main factor in moving Nicholas
to give way. The autumn campaign had been disastrous; and Austrian-English
intervention against Russia was feared. The Tsar wished to employ the Polish
army, hut Constantine successfully opposed this course. In this predic ament,
Nicholas sought by vaj ious means to remove the bad impression he had made, and
to win the favour of the Poles. After the taking of Varna, he sent 12 captured
Turkish guns to the arsenal at Warsaw as a present to the Polish army,
recalling the fact that at Varna “ 400 years ago, King Ladislaus, one of his
predecessors, perished in a glorious struggle.” He ordered a chapel to be
erected in Warsaw, at his own expense^ to enshrine the heart of John Sobieski,
the conqueror of the Turks.
After the
conclusion of peace at Adrianople, he sent Turkish banners and standards to be
hung up in the Cathedral of St John at Warsaw. Finally, having decided to
fulfil the terms of the Constitution, he himself came to Warsaw (May 17,1829)
to celebrate his coronation. He took with him his son, the heir to the throne
(afterwards Alexander II), who wore a Polish uniform, and spoke the Polish
language well. The coronation took place on May 24. Nicholas put the crown on
his own head, and took the sceptre and diadem from the hands of the Primate,
Voronicz. He then knelt down and read in the French language the oath of the
Constitution. He remained in Warsaw over a month, and showed great desire to
conciliate the Polish officials, especially the military officers, to whom he
presented his “ son and colleague,” assuring them that he was a good Pole. He
went about the town without any escort, and, upon his departure, promised
shortly to convoke the Diet.
On May 28,
1830, Nicholas opened the sittings of the fourth Diet with a lengthy and
cordial speech from the throne; he referred to his fulfilment of Article 45 of
the Constitution by the recent coronation; and he excused the tardy convoking
of the Diet by reference to his difficulties at home and abroad. He mentioned
the Turkish war, laying stress on the value of the Polish army, which he called
“the vigilant vanguard confronting the enemies of the empire ” (a hint to
Austria); but he did not mention the Court of the Diet. By an eloquent silence
he gave his hearers to understand that the question of extending the territory
of the kingdom must be regarded as buried beyond recall. Money was voted for a
monument to Alexander I, as the restorer of the kingdom; but in the vai ious
commv sions of the Diet the proceedings of the Government, not only in their
administr&t've, but also in their constitutional, bearing, were subjected
to severe criticism. Among the numerous petitions were requests for the
annulment of the Additional Act, for the reprieve of Lukasinski, and others of
a like nature. The short farewell address of
Nicholas, at
the closing of the Diet (June 28), gave guarded expression to the discontent of
the sovereign, who, while tendering his thanks to the Senate, passed over in
silence the work of the Chamber of Deputies. On the following day the
constitutional King left Warsaw, to return, after trampling under foot the
Constitution of Poland, as autocrat of Russia.
The western
provinces of the empire, annexed to Russia in consequence of the three
Partitions 1772-95, together with the district of Bialystok united to Russia in
1807 (the territory known as the northwest and south-west region), comprised
an area of over half a million square kilometres, with a population, at this
time, of about 8 millions. This region, from 1815 to 1825, was, as regards
administration, divided into two parts. The five contiguous provinces of
Lithuania—Vilna, Grodno, Minsk, Volhynia, Podolia—and the district of
Bialystok, were destined by Alexander to a closer unity with the kingdom of
Poland; and in them the Polish element, in the civil, judicial, and military
administration, was maintained, and, at first, even strengthened. The remaining
three provinces of Vitebsk, Mohileff, and Kieff' were destined to a more and
more rapid incorporation into the empire; and in them that element was quickly
removed, and its place taken by Russian elements. In these provinces not only
the Military Governors, but also the Civil Governors, the Chiefs of Police, the
Prefects in the towns, and speaking generally the subordinate officials, were
all Russian.
The prospects
of the first six Lithuanian administrative units becoming Polonised were, for
a time, increased by the ukases of 1817 and 1819, which extended over them the
authority of the Commander-in- Chief of the Polish army, not only in his
military capacity but, to some extent, in civil matters. The officials received
a uniform with a crimson collar similar to the Polish one. It was also intended
to make the uniform of the officers and generals of the special Lithuanian
corps similar to the Polish military dress. This corps was, prior to 1827,
recruited exclusively from local levies, and thus entirely severed from the
Russian troops proper, which were recruited from the various central provinces
of the empire. However, so early as 1822, there were indications that Alexander
had paused upon this path and was even retracing his steps. The University of
Vilna, which, under the curatorship of Czartoryski and the rectorship of the
distinguished mathematician, Jan Sniadecki, had not only made great internal
progress, but had also taken an active part in promoting secondary and
elementary school- teaching, became the object of the accusations of
Novosiltsoff, who discovered that the members of this University were in
communication with the secret societies of the kingdom. He was sent to Vilna in
1823 to investigate this matter, and stern repressive measures followed; of
which, amongst others, Mickievicz was a victim; and Czartoryski was
obliged to
resign his curatorship. More decided steps were taken in this direction when
Nicholas I came into power. He at once took in hand the task of reducing to a
dead level of uniformity all the institutions of the north-west and south-west
region, with a view to the complete assimilation and absorption of these
provinces. Accordingly the separate treatment of the Lithuanian provinces
ceased. From 1827, in spite of the strong opposition of Constantine, Nicholas
enforced his decision that, henceforth, the separate Lithuanian corps should
draw recruits only from the provinces of Grodno, Minsk, and Volhynia, giving up
to the army corps of central Russia the recruits from the provinces of Vilna
and Podolia, and receiving in exchange recruits from the true Russian provinces
of Pskoff and Tver. Similarly, Russians gradually replaced Poles in the civil
administration. Finally, upon the failure of the Polish Revolution, the
assimilation of the whole north-west and south-west region was rapidly and
systematically carried through.
The Republic
of Cracow, created by the Congress of Vienna, consisted of the town of Cracow,
and its environs, with an area of about 1000 square kilometres, and a
population of 95,000 inhabitants, of whom Cracow itself contained originally
23,000, but, by 1830, 35,000. The Republic received a separate Constitution
guaranteed by Russia, Austria and Prussia. The government was vested in a
Senate of twelve members, with a President. Alexander was able to secure the
selection of a Russian partisan, Vodzicki, as President. The Assembly of Representatives
met every year in December for a four weeks’ sitting, to deliberate upon
legislative questions. The Civil Code of Napoleon and the Austrian Criminal
Code remained in force. The peasants sent delegates to the electoral colleges
of the communes and were thus indirectly represented in the Assembly. This
first guarded experiment of bestowing political rights on the Polish peasants
was a fundamental innovation, when contrasted with provisions of the
Constitution of the kingdom of Poland at that time, which excluded the
peasants, as not being landowners, from all political rights. The provision was
not in the original text of the Constitution of Cracow of 1815, and was first
inserted in the extended Constitution of 1818. At that time Alexander was also
occupied with the idea of endowing the peasants with land. The Jews in Cracow,
on the other hand, were excluded from political rights.
Supervision
was exercised over the government of the Republic by three permanent resident
Commissioners from the three protecting Powers. In effect, the nobility and
clergy, and the Cracow Senate, which was under their influence, gravitated
towards Russia, and accepted the protection of Alexander and Nicholas. Ultimate
union with the kingdom of Poland was their constant aspiration. To counteract
this tendency, Austria and Prussia endeavoured to acquire a counterbalancing
influence among the Cracow townspeople and in the Chamber of Deputies.
Frequent
internal dissensions arose, alike between the aristocracy and the burghers, and
between individuals, which had usually to be settled by a decision of the
Commissioners. A dispute between the Chamber and the Senate at the first Diet
of 1817 over the financial budget induced the three Powers to amend the
Constitution, so as to avoid such conflict for the future. In Nicholas’ time
special attention was directed to Cracow, as affording support to the patriotic
Polish movements, and as a hiding-place for the secret societies; thus, here
also, political and police repression was introduced. A declaration of the
three Residents (February 25, 1828) pronounced all the Acts of the last Chamber
of Deputies to be null and void. On March 19, 1828, the Residents set up a
Committee, with unlimited powers, composed of the Residents themselves and
certain Senators devoted to Russia. Thenceforward the Constitution might be regarded
as virtually abrogated. From the first the precarious existence of this
ephemeral Republic had depended on the arbitrary action of the three Powers;
and its fortunes were intimately linked with those of the kingdom of Poland.
The Congress
of Vienna took from Russia and restored to Austria the province of Tamopol; but
all that Austria had obtained by the Third Partition and part of what she took
by the First—the provinces of Cracow, Sandomir, and Lublin, with the Zamosc
district—were annexed to the new kingdom of Poland. Galicia, henceforth,
comprised about
79.000 square kilometres, with a population which
had increased about 1830 from 3,500,000 to 4,200,000. There were among them
about
100.000 Protestants, and over 200,000 Jews, the
remainder being, in almost equal proportions, Roman Catholics of purely Polish
nationality, and Ruthenian Uniates. All this large province, forming at this
period one-eighth of the whole of Austria, remained henceforth, in spite of all
the constitutional guarantees of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, under
the narrow and strongly centralised Austrian bureaucratic regime. By an
Imperial Patent of Francis I (April 13, 1817) a Galician Diet of Estates was
formed, which was intended to satisfy the obligations imposed by the Congress,
but, in its essence, was only a return to the old ordinance of Joseph II and to
the eighteenth century Galician “ Diet of Postulates ”; a pretence of
representation, devoid of all legislative authority and even of moral and
political weight. Four classes composed this Diet: the magnates and knights
chosen from among the landed proprietors, possessing registered property of
high value; the clergy, consisting of the higher dignitaries of the Catholic
Church; and the burgher-class, composed of two deputies of the town of Lemberg,
to whom subsequently was added the Rector of Lemberg University. Attached to
the Diet was a permanent Department of the Estates, a body whose duties were to
prepare preliminary reports and to supervise the incidence of taxation.
The Diet met
annually in autumn, for the ostensible purpose of deliberation, but really only
to hear the Imperial demands (Postulates), of which it was not allowed to
change a single letter, and which were issued in print before being passed by the
Diet. The petitions which the Galician Diet ventured to make, in a most humble
form, were invariably ignored in Vienna. Indeed, during the whole of this
period, the Diet was not even able to set up either a Land Bank, on the model
of the similar institutions in Posen and Warsaw, or a medical faculty in the
University of Lemberg, or to obtain a reduction in the taxes, or an abatement
in the price of salt. Under the Austrian fiscal system the Galician farmer paid
taxes 16 times higher than those paid in the kingdom of Poland. Monopolies of
salt and tobacco were the principal sources of revenue. In the Lemberg
University, reconstituted in 1817, lectures were delivered exclusively in
Latin; subsequently, however, in the faculty of philosophy, German was substituted.
As regards public education generally, the national Polish element was
oppressed in every way, especially among the youth of the gymnasia. The
censorship was directed towards the same end. Its regulations were most
stringent, and even went so far as to exclude from print the word “ Pole.” The
Germanising movement was extended also to the clergy of Galicia. The
ecclesiastical seminaries of Lemberg, Przemysl, and Tarnov, had a staff of
German professors; and the most capable Galician students were sent to the
Government Institution for the secular clergy in Vienna.
The
Government in Vienna had originally intended to bestow on Prince Ferdinand of
Wurttemberg authority in Galicia resembling that of the Viceroys established by
Russia and Prussia in the kingdom of Poland and in Posen; but his nomination
was soon withdrawn, and the provinces were placed as before under the control
of an ordinary Governor. The first Governor of Galicia was Hauer (1815-23), an
uncompromising Viennese bureaucrat, who, during his eight years of office,
carried out without sympathy or scruple his task of fiscal exaction, police
repression, and Germanisation. His successor, Count Taaffe (1823-6), differed
from him only in that he first conceived the idea of arousing the Ruthenian
population and turning it against the Poles. This policy of exciting racial
hatred for the ends of Government was to have, in later times, a far-reaching
and disastrous effect upon the country. Prince Lobkowitz (1826-31) took a
different line and made some efforts to conciliate the Polish population. These
efforts were made especially at the time of the Turkish war of Nicholas
(1828-9), when Austria, in concert with England, entertained for a time the
thought of armed intervention against Russia, and was thus obliged to take into
account the disposition of the Poles. Thus, after the coronation of Nicholas I
in Warsaw, in anticipation of a Russian attempt to seize Galicia, the project
was mooted in Vienna of incorporating Galicia in the kingdom of Hungary. Subsequently,
however, in consequence of the Revolution of November,
1830, and the disappearance of all fears of
Russian aggression, this idea was abandoned.
Out of the
two departments of the grand duchy of Warsaw received by Prussia at the
Congress of Vienna, viz. Posen and Bromberg, the grand duchy of Posen was
constituted. This territory had an extent of about 30,000 square kilometres,
with a population of about 1,100,000. In the Prussian Patent of Occupation (May
15, 1815) establishing the new grand duchy, the two districts of Chelm and
Michalov, together with the town of Thorn, were detached from it and
incorporated in the province of West Prussia. The proclamation of Frederick
William III (May 15, 1815) assured to the inhabitants of the grand duchy the maintenance
of their national customs, equal participation with the other provinces in the
constitutional privileges guaranteed to the whole kingdom, the recognition of
the Polish language along with the German in all public acts, and the admission
of Poles to all public offices and dignities. Specific orders had been given a
few days earlier that the chief legal officials and royal councillors were to
be chosen from among the Poles. In carrying out this order general principles
of legal and administrative organisation were laid down (July 12,1815), by
which the Polish language in Court procedure was to be maintained, with the
sole exception that, in districts where German population preponderated, it
should be permissible to draw up the Court protocols in German. A Pole, Prince
Anton Radzivil, who was married to a Prussian Princess, was appointed Royal
Viceroy in the grand duchy. He was to act as intermediary between the Crown and
the people: “to communicate to the King the desires and needs of the Poles.” The
Governor (Oberprasident) was Zerboni di Sposetti, formerly an inhabitant of the
grand duchy of Warsaw, now a landed proprietor in Posen. He was a German,
broad-minded, progressive, and a sincere well-wisher of the Poles.
After this
fair beginning, the condition of affairs began to deteriorate. New regulations
for the Posen judicature (February 9, 1817) introduced restrictions in favour
of the Germans, which were gradually extended, especially in civil jurisdiction
and in the district of Bromberg. Similarly, the Polish language began to be
gradually displaced in the Secondary Schools in all classes down to the lowest;
and the way was thus prepared for a slow Germanisation of the whole school
system. On the other hand, the foundation of the Land Bank (1821) proved of
great benefit to the country, as did subsequently (April 8, 1823) the grant to
the peasants in Posen of land at a moderate rent, fixed by special Land
Commissions. After all the other provincial Diets of the kingdom of Prussia had
met, the Diet of Posen was at length convoked (1827). This Diet was composed of
four nobles (Prince Thum and Taxis, Prince Radzivil, Prince Sulkovski, Count
Raczynski), twenty-two deputies of
the nobles,
sixteen burgher and eight peasant deputies. To the petitions and complaints
made by the Diet with regard to certain judicial and educational matters, the
King returned a courteous but evasive reply. After the retirement of Zerboni
(1825), his immediate successor, Baumann, set himself, as far as possible, to
satisfy the public guarantees in favour of the Poles given by the Vienna
Congress and the earlier royal enactments; but the next Governor, Flottwell,
from the moment he took up his official duties (1830), consistently aimed at
the withdrawal of these guarantees in practice and the inauguration of a new
era of Germanisation. That era finally arrived for the giand duchy of Posen
upon the failure of the Polish Revolution and the overthrow of the kingdom
established by the Congress of Vienna.
Immediately
after the exposure of the Patriotic Society and the tnOceecaugs at
the Court of the Diet, a new secret association sprang up in Warsaw, bearing
the specific mark of a military conspiracy. This society, established by young
men full of energy and zeal, was adapted for sudden and violent action. It was
first started in 1828 in the Ensigns’ School, under the leadership of the
Instructor of that School, Peter Vysocki; it was afterwards joined by several
civilians and men of letters, and by a certain number of the students of the University
of Warsaw. It was originally intended to give the signal for the rising during
the Turkish war, which would undoubtedly have afforded it considerable chances
of success. On the other hand some hot-blooded spirits wished the rising to be
at the time of the Coronation (May, 1829); and afterwards there was a plan to
provoke it during the meeting of the Diet (May, 1830). There were not, however,
sufficient preparations; there were neither capable leaders nor adequate
organisation; Vysocki, as well as his companions, although men of great
courage, lacked, for the most part, intelligence, and were without weight in
the country. Nevertheless, the movement was carried forward by its own
momentum, for the country was pervaded by a deep feeling both of discontent and
apprehension—of discontent, because it was becoming more and more convinced
that there was no longer any prospect of the realisation of the promises of
Alexander with regard to Lithuania; of apprehension, because the Constitution
was being daily violated, and, since the time of the Additional Act and the
Court of the Diet, was threatened in its very existence. Notwithstanding this,
the number of the conspirators increased but slowly; the country could not
readily make up its mind to enter upon a desperate struggle, in which it had to
hazard its very life. The French Revolution of July, 1830, gave a powerful
stimulus to the confederates, and decided the future of Poland. In October,
1830, seventy-seven officers of the garrison of Warsaw belonged to the
movement; and soon afterwards their number reached 200. O11 the other hand, the
French Revolution also gave a stimulus to the
aggressive
foreign policy of Nicholas I; and this concurrence of conspiracy with warlike
movements at St Petersburg brought the Polish Revolution to a head. -
Nicholas,
upon hearing the news of the Paris Revolution of July, immediately prepared for
war against France, with the expectation of getting Prussia to join him in the
campaign. He at first thought of utilising the Polish army and the finances of
the kingdom, and informed Constantine accordingly (August 18, 1830). On the
same day he sent through the Secretary of State a confidential communication to
Lubecki with an inj miction to have funds ready both for mobilisation and for
the campaign. Constantine answered the Tsar (August 25), declaring himself
opposed to war and expressing his fear as to the result. Lubecki, greatly
perturbed, yet unable to disregard the categorical instructions he had
received, confined himself to a Report (September 3) showing the cash at his
disposal and available for initial expenses. At the same time, Diebitsch, who
was selected as Commander-in-Chief for the projected campaign, was despatched
by Nicholas to Berlin (August 31) to induce Frederick William III to take up
arms, and to adopt the plan of campaign elaborated by the Russian Minister of
War, Chemysheff. The Prussian King was anxious, if possible, to avoid war, all
the more because Austria and England had already recognised Louis-Philippe. He
therefore returned an evasive answer, concentrating, at the same time, in case
of need some of his troops on the Rhine. In the meantime, the secret warlike
instructions of Nicholas to Constantine and Lubecki came to the knowledge of
the Polish conspirators in Warsaw. Recognising the necessity of anticipating
the war, which would involve the departure of the Polish army to the west, they
communicated with La Fayette, from whom they received encouragement. They then
addressed themselves to the most popular man in the kingdom, General Chlopicki,
who had fought with distinction under Napoleon, but had retired into private
life in consequence of a dispute with Constantine. Chlopicki, however, declined
to place himself at the head of the intended revolution. Thus disappointed, and
uncertain whether Nicholas would persist in his warlike intentions, the
conspirators hesitated; and the rising, originally fixed for October 20, was
postponed till the spring of the following year.
The outbreak
of the revolution in Belgium confirmed the intentions of Nicholas to take the
offensive. Diebitsch, in October, was again sent to Berlin on a most urgent
mission to the King of Prussia, with instructions that, after coming to an
understanding with Prussia, he was to return to Warsaw to take up the position
of Commander-in-Chief. Nicholas, in a letter to him of November 13, fixed
December 22 as the opening date for the French campaign. The Polish army and
the separate Lithuanian corps were to form part of the vanguard. The news of
these confidential communications, which were forcing an unwelcome
466 Rising in Warsaw and throughout Poland. [i83o
war upon
Prussia, again reached the confederates in Warsaw, and decided them to hurry on
the insurrection. Thus the efforts and intentions of Nicholas were suddenly
paralysed; France was saved from danger; and Prussia was delivered from an
awkward dilemma. After a meeting held in Warsaw in November at the lodgings of
the popular professor and historian Lelevel, the outbreak of the insurrection
was fixed for November 29, 1830.
On the
evening of November 29 two separate attacks were made: one on the Belvedere
Palace, where Constantine resided, and the other on the barracks of the Russian
cavalry. Both attacks, however, proved unsuccessful. The assault on the
Belvedere Palace was made by eighteen of the confederates (six ensigns and
twelve University students), who, bursting in, killed the General on duty, and
wounded two other persons, but failed to capture Constantine, who managed to
hide himself. The assault on the Russian barracks was made by a hundred and
sixty ensigns, under the leadership of Vysocki; but, overwhelmed by numbers,
they abandoned the attempt, and ran through the city, calling upon the people
to rise, but meeting with little response. In their excitement they killed
several Polish generals whom they encountered in the street, and who either had
a bad reputation in the service, or, although good patriots, had urged the
confederates to desist from their schemes. At this stage, Constantine could
easily have stifled the movement, for which neither the city nor the army was
prepared. Constantine had at his disposal Lithuanian and Russian troops to the
number of about 7000 men with 28 guns. His presence of mind deserted him,
however; and he failed to take any decided action. His situation was difficult
and his demeanour ambiguous. During the night of November 29-30 the
Administrative Council met; and Czartoryski took part in the proceedings,
having been aware of the preparations of the insurgents. Czartoryski and
Lubecki were sent to Constantine, who was camping with the Russian troops
outside the town gates. The Grand Duke, in answer to their enquiries, declared
that he was maintaining a passive attitude, and that he left the pacification
of the capital to the Poles themselves.
The
Administrative Council endeavoured at first to keep within constitutional
bounds. It issued (November 30) an address, in the name of Nicholas I, calling
upon the people to remain quiet, and it entrusted the post of
Commander-in-Chief of the Polish army to General Chlopicki. The latter,
however, on hearing of the outbreak, remained in concealment, not wishing to
take the lead. Meanwhile, the revolutionaries had a free hand, and seized the
whole of Warsaw. Like a flash of lightning the movement spread over the whole
country. On the following day (December 1) the Council, under the pressure of
public opinion, was obliged to exceed the formal limits of legality, by
removing from its midst certain unpopular members, and to strengthen its
position, by appointing in their stead popular Deputies of the Diet. On
December 2,
1830] Constantine retires.—Chlopicki Dictator.
467
Czartoryski
and Lubecki, with two Deputies of the Diet, Lelevel and Ostrovski, were again
sent to Constantine. The two first-named expressed the wish that the Grand Duke
should return to Warsaw; but the others, being more extreme in their views,
declared themselves in favour of his withdrawal from the kingdom, together with
the troops that were with him. The latter course was adopted; Constantine
undertook to urge Nicholas to grant an amnesty to the insurgents, and promised
not to take any military action without giving forty-eight hours’ notice, nor
to give orders to the Lithuanian corps to enter the kingdom. He >efused, on
the other hand, to intercede with the Emperor respecting the annexation of
Lithuania. On the following day (December 3) he issued a proclamation, as
Commander-in-Chief of the Polish army, authorising the troops to meet their compatriots.
On the same day he departed, and, on December 12, crossed the frontier of the
kingdom. In permitting this the revolutionaries had committed a grave blunder;
they lost, in the person of the Grand Duke, a valuable hostage; they lost,
moreover, troops among whom at least a large proportion of the Lithuanian rank
and file and non-commissioned officers might easily have been persuaded to join
the Polish army. These, having been allowed to depart, were destined to become
the vanguard of the Russian army; and Russia retained the Lithuanian corps
intact.
After the
removal of the capable but unpopular Lubecki (who had at first thought of
quelling the rebellion, but afterwards, upon seeing how it spread, took active
steps to turn it to account), an Interim Government of the kingdom of Poland
was formed (December 4) of seven persons, viz. Czartoryski, Kochanovski, Pac,
Niemczevicz, Lelevel, Ostrovski, and Dembovski, while the entire control of the
armed forces was bestowed upon Chlopicki.
Chlopicki,
who had at last emerged from his concealment, declared himself Dictator
(December 5) until the meeting of the Extraordinary Diet. Heads were assigned
to the various Government Departments. The Dictator sent Colonel Vylezynski to
St Petersburg with a report to Nicholas, while the superseded Government sent
Lubecki and the deputy, Jezierski, on a similar mission (December 10). These
missions should have enabled the Poles to gain time for arming and taking the
offensive; but, on the contrary, as they were based on a delusive hope of an
amicable agreement, they had the effect only of checking the Polish
preparations, and giving time to the Russians. Chlopicki was an able soldier,
but lacked the political talent requisite for a revolutionary leader. He was
already sixty years of age, and having served under Napoleon, was accustomed
only to regular warfare. He did not believe in the success of the insurrection,
and considered it madness on the part of the Poles to hurl themselves against a
Power to which even Napoleon himself had yielded. He placed his sole hope in
negotiations, and never understood that Poland was at war with Russia.
The Polish
forces were in all 29 battalions of infantry, 28,000 strong, 88 squadrons of
cavalry, 7000 strong, and 106 guns. Further, with the ten years’ period of
service in force, the military authorities had at their immediate disposal
effective reservists to the number of 20,000 (35,000 nominal). Considering the
perfect organisation of the Polish army, it would have been possible, by taking
energetic steps, to have raised almost at once an army of 80,000 men, without
resorting to a general levy. In the Treasury there was, in ready money, a sum
of 67 million florins. The budget for 1831, calculated for an army of 120,000
and amounting to 133 millions, was provided for without great difficulty. The
weak point was the lack of field artillery; and there were no ordnance-works in
the kingdom.
The Russians,
on the other hand, notwithstanding the immense forces they nominally possessed,
had but an insignificant fraction available, and that, too, quite unprepared.
The Lithuanian corps of General Rosen amounted to 38,000 men; but these were
scattered, and could not be assembled on the Brest-Bialystok line before the
middle of December. Moreover, a part of their officers, especially of the lower
grades, were Poles (about one-third of whom belonged to the patriotic
societies) while the common soldiers were Lithuanians and White Russians. Corps
I, composed of 33,000 men, was spread out between Mitau and Vilna, and could
only be concentrated on Brest towards the middle of January; while the corps of
Grenadiers, of 88,000 men, from Pskoff and Novgorod, could only be so
concentrated by the beginning of February. Thus up to February, 1831, Nicholas
could not command more than 110,000 men for the invasion of Poland. Corps II,
composed of 24,000 men from the district of Orel and Chemigoff, as well as the
Guards, numbering 24,000, from St Petersburg, could not be brought up before
the middle of March. Chrzanovski, Lieutenant- Colonel of the Staff of the
Polish army, who, in 1829, had been sent by Constantine to assist Diebitsch in
the Turkish campaign, was well acquainted with the facts, and submitted to
Chlopicki (December 7) a bold but the only practicable scheme of offensive
action. He advised marching at once on Lithuania in full strength, and there
breaking up and incorporating the Lithuanian corps, occupying Vilna and
annihilating one by one the advancing corps of the Russians. This plan was,
however, rejected by Chlopicki, as also was another one more modest in its
scope, framed by the able Lieutenant-Colonel Prondzynski—that of offering a
resistance, at once defensive and offensive, in accordance with Napoleon’s
tactics, on the fortified triangle formed by the fortresses of Warsaw (Praga),
Modlin, and Sierock. In the end it was decided to act purely on the defensive,
i.e. to await the enemy outside Warsaw itself, and then engage in a decisive
battle, not so much with the hope of victory as of saving the military honour
of the Polish army. This was the only plan to which Chlopicki’s military genius
could rise.
Meanwhile
(December 18) the Extraordinary Diet met under the presidency of Ostrovski. It
confirmed (December 20) the dictatorship of Chlopicki; but after the return of
the envoys from St Petersburg (January 6) Chlopicki, in view of their report
and Nicholas’ obdurate attitude, resigned the dictatorship (January 17). The
Diet assembled (January 19) and appointed Radzivil Commander-in-Chief; and,
after hearing the report of Jezierski, solemnly announced the dethronement of
Nicholas and the exclusion of the Romanoffs from the sovereignty of Poland
(January 26). The act of dethronement was a double blunder; it tended to hasten
the warlike action of Russia* and it rendered diplomatic intervention by the
Powers more difficult, while it afforded no solution of the question of armed
defence. A new executive body called the National Government was formed. Titles
I and II, as well as Article 108 of the Constitution, were altered; and a new
form of government, a kind of constitutional monarchy, was adopted, leaving the
selection of a King to be made at a later date. During these deliberations,
the Russians entered the kingdom, and the first battles were fought, for which
indeed no sufficient preparations had yet been made. At the beginning of
February there were ready on the Polish side four divisions of infantry, three
divisions of cavalry, making altogether 45 battalions and 80 squadrons, or
about 48,000 men and 136 guns, besides the division of General Dvemicki between
the Vistula and the Pilica, 4000 National Guards in Warsaw, and various small
bands of volunteers.
Nicholas I,
on the evening of December 7, received in St Petersburg news of the Warsaw
rising. He at once despatched in all directions orders to mobilise and signed
two decrees (December 13), one appointing Diebitsch Commander-in-Chief of the
Army which was to take the field against Poland, and the other declaring the
provinces of Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk, Volhynia, Podolia, and the district of
Bialystok to be under martial law. He also issued a proclamation to the Poles
(December 17) summoning them to submit, while he ordered the Polish army to
leave Warsaw and assemble in Plock. He took advantage of the mission of
Vylezynski, Lubecki, and Jezierski, to gain time; and, though taken by
surprise, he acted with as much energy and resolution as in Warsaw they showed
weakness and vacillation. Making every effort to hasten the military
preparations, he managed by the beginning of February to collect on the Polish
frontier all the available forces of the three nearest Russian corps.
On February 5
and 6, 1831, Diebitsch entered the kingdom at the head of 114,000 men and with
336 guns, and marched straight on Warsaw. After the first serious engagements,
at Stoczek and Dobre (February 14), which proved favourable to the Poles, the
final struggle commenced on the fields of Grochov near Warsaw (February 19),
the first encounters gradually leading on to a pitched battle (February 25). A
furious fight concentrated around the henceforth historic wood
(Olszynka),
three times lost and retaken at the point of the bayonet by the Poles, in which
the 4th regiment of infantry (Lukasinski’s) greatly distinguished itself.
Radzivil was nominally in command, but Chlo- picki actually directed
operations. The Poles finally gave way before the overwhelming numbers opposed
to them; but the success of Diebitsch was only tactical, not strategical, and
was, moreover, only gained by a great sacrifice of men (fifteen thousand men on
the Russian side and rather less on the Polish side being killed or wounded).
This battle shook the belief in the military superiority of Russia, weakened
Diebitsch’s hopes of an easy victory, and considerably strengthened the feeling
of the Polish troops as regards their own fighting capacity.
The result of
the battle was not at first understood in Warsaw. There were fears of losing
the capital; the Diet, in alarm, passed the proposal (February 19-26) to form a
Permanent Diet, authorised to meet, with a restricted number of members, at
some place outside Warsaw, or else abroad. The day after the battle Skrzynecki
was appointed Commander-in-Chief. This officer had distinguished himself at
Grochov; he had served formerly in the campaigns of Napoleon (1807, 1812-8) and
was of great personal courage, but had no military talent; he was, in fact,
vacillating, lazy, and more inclined for the finesse of diplomacy than for
warlike action. Attached to him, however, were two very competent men—viz. the
precise and methodical Chrzanovski, as Chief of the Staff, and the clever and
ambitious Prondzynski, as Quartermaster-General. Soon the favourable situation
created for Poland by the battle of Grochov became apparent. Diebitsch found
himself compelled under most unfavourable conditions to enter into winter
quarters on the right bank of the Vistula; and thus the Polish Staff had the
opportunity of quietly setting about the reorganisation of the Polish army.
Rapidly and
skilfully four divisions of infantry and two corps of cavalry were made
available for service, with a division of cavalry reserves, altogether 51,000
men. In addition there were three corps of reserves more than 20,000 strong;
the garrisons and depots in Warsaw, Modlin, and Zamosc, numbering about 20,000
men, the National Guards of Warsaw 6000, and the volunteer bands in Plock and
Augustov 3000 —a total of about 100,000 men. This remarkable result afforded a
clear proof of the mistakes made by Chlopicki, in neglecting the work of organisation,
which would have been far easier three months sooner, when a large part of the
country was still unoccupied by the enemy. Prondzynski now proposed to throw
the whole effective army of 50,000 men on the Lithuanian corps, which was then
scattered along the Brest road. This excellent idea after some delay was
partially accepted by Skrzynecki (March 31), who took the field with 36,000 men
and actually cut to pieces the Russian corps of General Rosen at Dembe Wielkie
and Iganie; but it was then too late. But for his defective arrangements,
Skrzynecki
had the whole
army of Diebitsch at his mercy; in fact, his successes ended here. This moment,
the beginning of April, was the culminating point of the Revolution. It held
both a moral and a strategical advantage ; it was in a position to strike a
decisive blow at the Russian army, and had thereby the prospect of bringing
about the intervention of Europe. The blame for letting this moment pass rests
chiefly on Skrzynecki.
Meantime, in
the Diet, important deliberations were in progress concerning the status of the
peasants. It was a matter of the utmost significance to attract to the national
movement the peasants, who had hitherto maintained an indifferent attitude. The
proceedings of the former Grand Diet were called to mind, which,
notwithstanding the opposition of Catharine II, passed (May, 1791) a resolution
to give the peasants legal rights and protection, as well as the action of
Kosciuszko, who, in beginning the insurrection of that time, proclaimed the
emancipation of the Polish peasants (May, 1794). The land question was also
considered; and the Government proposed to allot lands to the peasants on the
national domains, and on private estates to make them rent-paying tenants.
During the debates some members urged that an immediate general allotment
should be made; it was necessary, however, to take into account the scruples of
the nobility in the western provinces, who were not so advanced in their views
as those in the kingdom of Poland. Ultimately, it was decided (April 18) to
postpone a decision in this matter until the recovery of these provinces by the
kingdom. These deliberations of the Diet attracted the attention of Nicholas,
and caused him to issue an ukase (May 18,1831), lightening the burdens of the
peasants on the lands that had fallen into Government hands in the western
provinces. Henceforth it became one of the principal objects of Russian policy
to set the Polish peasantry against their nobility, by taking them under Government
protection, and thus to break up the unity of the Polish people.
In
consequence of the inaction of Skrzynecki the military position of the Polish
army became rapidly worse. A raid of Dvemicki into Volhynia with a detachment
of 4000 men proved a failure. He was pursued by a superior force of Russians
and obliged (April 27) to escape into Austrian territory, where his troops were
disarmed. Prondzynski now submitted another bold plan, viz. to strike, between
the rivers Narev and Bug, at the Russian Guards advancing under the Grand Duke
Michael, to cut to pieces that corps, which numbered not more than 20,000
infantry and 7500 cavalry, with 80 guns, and then to take up a position on the
Bug, thus cutting off Diebitsch’s communications with the Empire and with Prussia.
This plan was, after long hesitation, carried out by Skrzynecki; but the delay
and neglect of precaution proved fatal. On May 12, 36,000 infantry and 8000
cavalry, with 120 guns, marched out and actually overtook the Russian Guards
(May 17);
but the attack
was delayed until May 19. Thus the Russians were enabled to retreat beyond the
Narev; and, in order to avoid inaction, a considerable body, amounting to
12,000 men of the Polish army, under General Gielgud, was detached and sent to
Lithuania. This was a most unfortunate movement, for, in the meantime,
Dicbitsch, having been apprised of the expedition, hurried up with the main
Russian forces of 40,000 men and 200 guns. Skrzynecki, weakened by the absence
of the Lithuanian detachment, could now only muster
80,000 men and 90 guns to oppose the Russians.
Under such conditions he accepted battle near Ostrolenka (May 26). Had he taken
an energetic offensive while Diebitsch was crossing the Narev in pursuit of the
retreating Polish troops, the result might have been different. As it was, he
suffered a crushing defeat. Ostrolenka was the beginning of the end.
The
Lithuanian expedition proved equally unfortunate. Gielgud, along with General
Chlapovski, who was supporting him, was obliged, between July 13 and 15, to
cross into Prussian territory, where the troops were disarmed. The failure of
this expedition also enabled Paskevich, who had, in the meantime, been
appointed (June 16) Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army, in the place of
Diebitsch, to complete, with the active support of Prussia, his arrangements
for a decisive march on Warsaw. Paskevich, having crossed the Vistula (July
16-21), moved forward with great caution, and after two weeks (August 1)
reached Lovicz, having with him over 51,000 men and 300 guns. Meanwhile the
Diet assembled at Warsaw (May 31) was deliberating aimlessly about the reform
of the Government. After the defeat at Ostrolenka an attempt to reorganise the
army was made; but it proceeded slowly, Skrzynecki being occupied with political
intrigues and fruitless negotiations with Austria and France. At length (August
11) the chief command was taken from Skrzynecki and given to Dembinski, a
general who had distinguished himself by his successful leadership of the
solitary detachment that had been saved from the Lithuanian expedition. A
popular turmoil broke out in Warsaw, leading to street riots (August 15-16),
during which several persons suspected of treason were hanged. The radical “
clubmen ” aimed at the overthrow of the ruling “aristocrats,” whom they
accused, not without reason, of a lack of energy, but, undeservedly, of
betraying the popular cause.
On August 17
the resignations of Czartoiyski and three members of the Government were
accepted. The ambitious General Krukoviecki, one of the secret instigators of
the street riots, was made President. Krukoviecki gave the chief command to the
old and incompetent Malachovski. The latter decided to await the enemy in the
entrenchments of Warsaw, after having weakened his forces by despatching a
body of 20,000 men and 40 guns to carry out a risky movement in the direction
of Brest (August 20). Krukoviecki himself entered into
useless and
equivocal negotiations with Paskevich. The latter, meanwhile, made his final
preparations for storming Warsaw, having at his disposal about 78,000 men. The
Poles had only 37,000 men and 130 guns to defend the city. The attack began on
the morning of September 6 in the direction of the suburb of Vola, which the
Russians took after a stubborn defence. On the following day the attack was
renewed and in the evening the Russians had reached the Mokotov and Vola gates.
The same night the Diet dismissed Krukoviecki; and, on the morning of September
8, Paskevich entered Warsaw. There were still under arms over 50,000 Poles
under the new Commander-in-Chief, General Rybinski; but the Revolution was
practically at an end. During the whole of September, indeed, hopeless
encounters and vain negotiations with Paskevich were carried on; but the
remnants of the .Polish army rapidly melted away. At length, with only 20,000
men, Rybinski had to escape to Prussia, and there his forces were disarmed.
Soon afterwards the fortress of Modlin (October 8), and finally Zamosc
(October 21), surrendered. The whole country was now in the hands of Nicholas,
and the constitutional kingdom of Poland had ceased to exist.
The Polish
revolutionary party had, from the very first, applied to the European Powers,
which had guaranteed the Polish kingdom at the Congress of Vienna, to assist
them either by intervention, or, at least, by mediation. Missions were sent to
Vienna, to Berlin, to Paris, and to London. Everywhere the Polish agents were
received with apparent sympathy; but nowhere did they find genuine support.
Prussia, from the very beginning of the struggle, had taken drastic measures to
preclude any assistance reaching the Poles from the grand duchy of Posen;
further, she departed from neutrality, not only by preventing, in every
possible way, the Polish revolutionaries from communicating with western
Europe, but also by supplying provisions and ammunition to the Russian troops,
and allowing them to traverse Prussian territory. It seems certain, moreover,
that Prussia had decided, in the event of the Russians suffering defeat, to
enter the kingdom, and to occupy the whole of its north-west territory; for
that purpose she had mobilised on the frontier two corps of 51,000 men and 144
guns. Indeed, for a time, when Poland gained an advantage over the Russians in
April, 1831, Nicholas was disposed to agree to the cession to Prussia of the
northwest part of the kingdom. Austria, meantime, played a double part.
Metternich held secret conferences with the Polish envoy; and the Poles were
deluded by the prospect of the Archduke Charles becoming a candidate for the
Polish throne. Yet at the same time Nicholas was being informed by Austria of
the plans and doings of the Poles; and the Governor of Galicia afforded help to
the Russian army, although not so openly as Prussia in Posen. The attitude of
France was equally equivocal; and La Fayette at the sittings of the Chamber of
Deputies
in Paris
(January 15 and 28 and March 18, 1831) in vain urged intervention in favour of
Poland. The French Government, especially after Casimir Perier had formed his
Ministry (March 10), gave evasive answers to the Polish agent, and, at the same
time, intercepted his correspondence with the Revolutionary Government and
communicated its contents to Nicholas, desiring, in this way, to dispose the
Tsar in favour of the Orleans rule. In England, the new Whig Government only
offered ineffective sympathy to the Polish requests for intervention. Lord
Grey, absorbed in the question of electoral reform, had no desire to mix
himself up in the Polish-Russian complications. Lord Palmerston, who had
several interviews with the Polish agent, finally dismissed him with a definite
refusal.
Only after
the failure of the insurrection and in order to satisfy public opinion in
France and England did the Governments in Paris and London venture to make
representations at St Petersburg. These, however, were of a merely general
character, referring to the guarantees for the independence of the kingdom of
Poland given by Europe at the Congress of Vienna. Such belated representations,
coming, as they did, after the complete triumph of Russia, had, as might have
been foreseen, no effect. In answer to a despatch of Lord Palmerston to Lord
Heytesbury, English ambassador at St Petersburg (November 23, 1831), with
respect to the maintenance of the autonomy of the kingdom, a curt note, sent by
the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Nesselrode, to the Russian
ambassador in London, Prince Lieven (January 3, 1832), denied England’s right
of intervention in Polish- Russian affairs, and made known the intention of
Nicholas to disregard entirely the provisions of the Congress of Vienna
concerning Poland. In fact, in September, 1831, an Interim Russian Government
was established in Warsaw, under the presidency of Engel; and, in February,
1832, Paskevich was appointed Viceroy with
unlimited powers, receiving, at the same time, the rank of Prince of Warsaw.
In place of the Constitution, which was abrogated, a new Organic Statute was
promulgated (February 14, 1832), containing a certain show of autonomy. This
statute was, however, a mere pretence, for its principal clauses concerning
autonomy were never carried into effect, and remained a dead letter. On the
other hand, the Polish army was incorporated into the Russian army; all
electoral institutions were abolished; all higher educational establishments in
the country and all the leading government posts were filled by Russians; the
Russian language was made compulsory in all higher administrative acts; the
most rigorous oppression of the people was begun; and the Russification of the
country made rapid strides. In short, during nearly a quarter of a century,
under Paskevich as Viceroy, the work of crushing the political and national
independence of the kingdom of Poland was uninterruptedly carried on.
THE ORLEANS
MONARCHY.
The signal for the Revolution of 1830,
which after fifteen years drove the Bourbons once more into exile, had been
given by the leaders of a party which was in no sense a popular one—peers of
France appointed by the King, deputies elected by voters who were few in
number, representatives of an aristocracy and above all of a landed
aristocrat^. When the 221, by their address in March, 1830, had caused the
Polignac Ministry to dissolve and afterwards to issue the ordinances, it was
against this Ministry that they declared war, not against the monarchy. To
arbitrary authority they had opposed legality, and the Charte to the schemes of
the Government.
The tumult in
Paris on July 27, provoked by the appeal made by the journalists to the artisans
and the youth of the Schools, took by surprise the Conservatives, who were
lovers of order no less than of liberty. The rapid progress made by the
Revolution on the following days among the populace of Paris was largely due to
the hope of a national revenge upon the Powers who had imposed upon France the
Bourbons and the Treaties of 1815, and was contrary to the desires of the
Parliamentarians who had unwittingly let loose disorder.
On the
morning of July 28 the struggle had begun between the royalist troops and the
people, who under the leadership of Bonapartist officers had armed themselves
and hastily erected barricades. Marmont, to whom had fallen the task of
suppressing the insurrection with insufficient troops, directed two columns,
one by the quays on the Seine, and another by the boulevards, towards the Hotel
de Ville and the Bastille. In the evening they were forced to retreat before
the insurgents, whom they had been unable to dislodge from the districts of
Saint-Antoine and Saint-Denis; and during the night they abandoned to them the
Hotel de Ville, in which a provisional democratic Government was installed. On
the following day the people, inspired by the students of the Polytechnic who
were in possession of the regions and barracks on the left bank
of the Seine,
in their turn took the offensive against the Louvre and the Tuileries, where
the Duke of Ragusa with the Swiss Guards had organised their last resistance.
At midday on July 29, just as on August 10, 1792, the people in arms gained possession
of the royal residence; and the troops of Charles X evacuated Paris.
To understand
the sequence of these events we must not look towards Saint-Cloud. The King and
his Ministers had provoked the people, without providing themselves with the
resources necessary for coercion. It was not until the last moment, despite the
evidence, that they brought themselves to believe in the victory of the popular
force. Blind mystics that they were, they had set their hopes upon some
heaven-sent miracle to sustain their cause.
It was at
Paris, first in certain meetings of the deputies and subsequently at the
Palais Royal, that the struggle between law and disorder worked itself out.
When the popular forces were first set in motion in Paris, on the evening of
July 26, hardly any deputies were present in the capital but those of Paris,
who were for the most part democrats and Republicans. They met at the house of
one of their number, Laborde; among them were Labbey de Pompieres, Mauguin, de
Schonen, Andre de Puyraveau, Salverte. if it had depended only on them, declared
enemies of the Bourbons as they were, the deputies would soon have made common
cause with the people. Other representatives, such as Villemain, Guizot, and
Sebastiani, alarmed at the project of a Republic which might restore the
Convention, were opposed to any immediate decision. At their instance a meeting
was summoned for the following day at the house of Casimir Perier, where,
supported by their friends, who had hurried to Paris from the provinces, they
found themselves in a majority and were able to give effect to their views. It
was in vain that the Republican deputies, relying on the people who rose on
July 27 and on July 28 offered a bloody resistance to the royal troops,
attempted to arouse their colleagues against the monarchy. On July 28, at four
o’clock, Guizot brought forward an address of fidelity to the King and the
Charte. Casimir Perier urged the meeting to send a deputation to Marmont,
offering to the King their submission and that of the insurgents in return for
the revocation of the ordinances. And the same evening the Peers, assembled at
the Luxembourg, made, on the motion of Semonville and Vitrolles, the same offer
to Saint-Cloud. “ We are mediators,” Sebastiani said on that occasion. In this
crisis, the deputies defended law and order against the insurrection no less
than liberty against the Ministers.
In the
evening of July 28 the deputies recognised that the Revolution was victorious
in Paris. Then only did they abandon the monarchy which, after having aroused
the people, had been unable to restrain them. They made their outward
profession of obedience to the popular will and drew up a proclamation, to be
posted on July 30, asserting the sovereignty
of the
people. However, they continued to cherish the design of preventing the
establishment of a democracy, which they judged to be incompatible with order
at home and peace abroad. It was this design, realised some days subsequently,
which gave to the Revolution of 1880 its character and its limits. .
Perhaps this
end would not have been gained so easily if certain deputies, Laffitte and the
younger men of the National, Thiers and his friends, with peers of France, such
as Talleyrand, had not been preparing and arranging in secret for the aid of a
new monarchy under Louis-Philippe, another Bourbon, it is true, but a Bourbon
of Liberal and national opinions. During the course of July 30 the idea of
establishing a lieutenancy-general of the kingdom and entrusting it to the Duke
of Orleans was mooted by the intimates of the Palais Royal, without their
having as yet any exact knowledge of the intentions of the Prince to whom their
appeal was made. The idea pleased all those—and they were the majority of the
nation—who were alarmed at the prospect of a Republic, with the possibility of
a return to the Terror and to war against Europe. It offered to the deputies
the device which they were in search for avoiding democracy after having
proclaimed the sovereignty of the people. In the evening of July 30, while the
ringleaders of the intrigue were striving at Neuilly to win over Louis-Philippe
and his family to their views, the agreement was being prepared at Laffitte’s
house which was destined on the morrow to put an end to the crisis.
On July 31
the deputies of the Corps Legislatif, whom Charles X had wished to dismiss,
reassembled in their ordinary meeting-place. In order not to give to this
assembly the character of a legislative meeting, the public had been excluded
from the gallery. It was, however, an act of legislation that was contemplated,
and one of the highest importance. Laffitte presided, supported by Guizot,
Villemain, Benjamin Constant, and Berard. The President proposed that an
address to the people should be drawn up; in spite of the efforts of the
Republicans, Labbey de Pompieres and Salverte, the drafting of this address was
entrusted to the deputies mentioned above and voted at the same sitting by
acclamation. It was true, as Salverte said, that “Paris had conquered the
Bourbons and saved the cause of Liberty.” But it was the deputies who, after
having recognised the services of the people of Paris by empty compliments,
decided to call to power the Duke of Orleans “ in order to procure, in concert
with him, the constitutional developments which the Charte required.” To defeat
the will of the people who had fought the fight, and in order to retain their
constituent authority, the legislators, elected on a very restricted franchise,
set up a new dynasty, which was in appearance popular in origin. “The King will
respect our rights, for it is of us that he will hold his own.”
In the course
of the same day the Duke of Orleans, with great
courage,
having accepted the lieutenant-generalship, went from the Palais Royal to the
Hotel de Ville, accompanied by the deputies, as if he were going to claim from
the populace the investiture which should permit him to substitute his own
power for that of the victorious democracy. The Republicans held their peace,
for they were powerless. La Fayette himself, the Republican hero, publicly
embraced the Duke at one of the windows of the Hotel de Ville, thus associating
with himself and his popularity a Bourbon who had fought at Jemmapes, and
giving, perhaps unwittingly, to the deputies whom Charles X had repudiated the
resources of a new dynasty for the fulfilment of their designs.
On August 1
La Fayette was confirmed by the Duke of Orleans in his command of the Garde
Nationals. But the greatest share of power, in the ministries and counsels of
the Lieutenant-General, belonged to the Liberals, those doctrinaires who had
simultaneously triumphed over the monarchy and the people—to Casimir Perier,
Guizot, Baron Louis, the Due de Broglie, Pasquier, Mole, and the generals
Gerard and Sebastiani. With the support of the Duke of Orleans, to whom they
shortly afterwards offered the crown, they arrogated to themselves, like the
Senators at the close of the Empire, constituent authority in order to
establish the new regime. In the words of one of their number, Berard, who took
the initiative on August 6, and advised the Legislative Assembly to assume this
authority, they invoked, to justify this usurpation, “the law of invincible and
imperative necessity,” and asserted a “commission from their electors,” who
were however very, different from the people who had made the Revolution.
Strictly
speaking, their work was not a constitution properly so called like that of the
revolutionary assemblies, but rather a revision of the existing Constitution.
Many of them, notably Guizot, who gave voice to their opinions, had entered
upon the struggle simply in order to overthrow a Ministry, were satisfied with
having made good their resistance to tyranny and revolution, and would have
preferred the confirmation of the principles of the Charter in their entirety.
But, as thqy did not dare to uphold the system of the Restoration unchanged,
they made themselves the judges of the modifications which circumstances
required. Without formulating a declaration of rights, as the men' of 1789 had
done, and as was vainly demanded on behalf of the victorious nation by the
Republicans, Demar^ay and Mauguin, they suppressed the monarchical preamble of
the Charter granted in 1814, and took away from the defeated monarchy its right
to make laws for the nation. In the same way, and for similar reasons, they
abolished, in Article 14 of the Charter, the privilege granted to the King of
making “ ordinances for the safeguarding of the State.” They conferred upon the
Chambers the right of initiating legislation. Moreover, in order to put an end
to the intrigues of the “ priest-party,” to the alliance between the throne and
the altar, they declared that the Catholic religion should no longer
be the State
religion, but merely the form of worship practised by the majority of the
French people. Finally, with the intention of freeing thought as well as
conscience, they decided upon the permanent suppression of the Government
censorship over newspapers and books.
Thus it was
that the Parliamentary representatives of the Restoration, skilful and
successful mediators between the people whose help they had accepted in
overthrowing a monarchy inimical to their rights, and a new monarchy whose help
they had sought in refusing to the people the reward of victory, laid down on
August 7, 1830, the laws which were destined for eighteen years to control the
monarchy and the nation. They did indeed put forward a programme of legislation
touching electoral rights, the liberty of the Press, the juries, and popular
education, the organisation of the Garde Nationale, and the mode of nomination
of peers of France, more democratic than that of the preceding regime. But
they still reserved to themselves the right of choosing the hour and conditions
in which they would carry into effect these promises, for as yet they were no
more.
From its
beginning, and even in its origin, the authority of the new King of France was
established by strange means, and on a precarious '■‘ootiug. He was at
one and the same time the choice of a Revolution and the instrument-of reaction
against that Revolution. He had received, as it were, a popular dictatorship at
the hands of La Fayette, and from the doctrinaires an authority consonant with
their aristocratic designs. The French had chosen him in order to realise by
his aid their cherished hope of breaking with the Holy Alliance, the support
and accomplice of the Bourbons. And his counsellors and partisans on the other
hand expected him to bring about a reconciliation between revolutionary France
and Europe, which was uneasy at the revival of a Republican propaganda.
The Prince,
who had possibly desired and at any rate accepted this difficult part, was
perhaps the only man who was at that time qualified to play it. To fulfil the
expectations of him held by the people and by Parliament, he possessed
qualities and resources rarely united to one another. Liberal by family
tradition, by upbringing, and by temperament, Louis-Philippe came forward as a
citizen-King who had fought at Jemmapes on the side of Revolution. His
simplicity and geniality gave him the demeanour of a popular magistrate rather
than of a King. And yet the experience which he had acquired by the age of 57,
more particularly in exile, after witnessing the Terror, the bloody conflicts
of parties, European war and its dangers, had made of him a man of order and of
government, a lover of peace with his neighbours, resolved to maintain
tranquillity at home. By virtue of his skill, his tact, and his determination,
with the aid of his sister, Madame Adelaide, who was thought to have urged him
to accept the throne, Louis-Philippe was able to consolidate his precarious
rule.
The first
difficulty arose from the revolt of the Belgians against the King of Holland,
in August and September, 1830. It was not, as the French believed, the events
of July alone, which had brought to a head this conflict, prepared as it was by
the national resistance of this Catholic people to the domination of the alien
and Protestant House of Nassau. But at the time many of the French believed
that they were bound to support a revolution which was daughter to their own;
and this was sufficient to awaken in Paris Republican passions. Since the
Convention, Republicanism and piopagandism were two ideas closely associated in
the minds of those who desired “ movement ”—democratic progress together with
the glory of a great French mission in Europe—such men as La Fayette, Mauguin,
Lamarque. Deceived by the result of the “ glorious days of July,” in relations
with certain Belgians who were disposed to have recourse to France, de Celles,
Gendebien, Merode, and de Broukere, they seized with ardour the moment of the
Belgian declaration of independence, and the hostile coalition of the monarchs
of Holland, Prussia, and Russia, and by the riots of October 18 and 19 loudly
called upon the King to declare himself for the democracy. They demanded
judgment upon those Ministers of Charles X who had signed the ordinances, to
prepare the way, as the Convention had done by the execution of Louis XVI, for
a declaration of war against the sovereigns and Ministers of the Holy Alliance.
In this
crisis, alarming for Louis-Philippe, whose residence barely escaped the
intrusion of the mutinous populace, the Conservatives, Broglie and Guizot, who
advocated a system of violent repression which would at once have embroiled the
King with the democrats, decided to resign. Louis-Philippe, with more tact and
more courage, temporised. Supported by Laffitte and Sebastiani, he gave office
to the men of “movement,” retaining however sufficient authority to control
their extravagance by means of a Minister of the Interior devoted to himself,
Montalivet (November, 1830). He allowed these Ministers to define the promises
which the Revolution had given to the democracy. Montalivet brought forward an
electoral code which doubled the number of voters by reducing the property
qualification, with some precautions against democracy in the great towns. His
colleague, de Merilhou, laid before the Chamber of Peers a scheme of public education
which conformed to the wishes of the nation. But at the same time every
indication of violence in the popular demands met with determined opposition
from the King; When the rioters wished to force the Chamber of Peers to condemn
to death the Ministers of Charles X (December 15-21, 1830), Louis-Philippe
opposed a strenuous resistance. By virtue of their independence, the Peers
were enabled to restrict the sentence to one of perpetual imprisonment. And, as
La Fayette had seemed to employ his influence with the Garde Nationale to
support the excesses of the Republican mob, the King caused his command to be
suppressed by law (December 24).
The great
merit of Louis-Philippe at this time was that he forestalled by a far-sighted
initiative any action of the foreign Powers, avoided the consequent reaction in
Paris, and thus checked at their source the popular passions which menaced
order and the monarchy. In this task he succeeded, because he was from the
outset prepared to regard such action as the essential condition of his
authority. At the first news of the events of July the European Governments had
taken threatening precautions. Mettemich, on August 4, 1830, begged his master
to summon a hasty meeting of Ministers at Vienna. “ Italy,” he said, “was endangered
by revolutionary designs.” He proposed to the Emperor Francis an agreement with
other crowned heads which would have renewed against France the compact of
Chaumont: “a difficult task,” he said, “but one of supreme necessity.” Two days
afterwards at Carlsbad the Chancellor of Austria, together with Nesselrode, his
colleague of Russia, affixed his signature to a project of alliance, “ le
chiffon de Carlsbad,” which Prussia in her turn accepted. This measure of
precaution seemed to be justified by the character of the Revolution which had
overthrown the Bourbons. There is no doubt but that the combatants of July, the
people of Paris and their leaders, the youth of the military Schools who
supported their efforts, in raising the tricolour once again looked at least as
much “towards the Rhine as towards Saint-Cloud.” Having conquered the Bourbons,
they could dream of further victories over the sovereigns of the Holy Alliance,
which, as Edgar Quinet hoped, “would perchance awaken the echo of the triumphs
of the Convention and of the Empire.”
However, this
impending coalition of continental Governments, as in the time of the first
Revolution, was inspired not only by the motive of fear, but also in varying
degrees by the calculations of ambition. While the King of Prussia announced to
his Ministers his intention of remaining quiescent unless the French advanced
to the Rhine, Mettemich, for his part, was not displeased by the prospect of a
French invasion of Italy which would permit him to subdue the Peninsula and its
Princes at his discretion. Above all, the Tsar Nicholas, whose ambitions had
been checked and excited by the Peace of Adrianople, and who had hoped to
further them by means of an alliance concerted with Charles X, counted upon a
quarrel between propagandist France and the rest of Europe in order to have,
like his grandmother Catharine, “ a free hand in the East.”
When
Louis-Philippe accepted the crown on July 31 he knew that, to establish his
sovereignty in the place of the Republic which was i listress of Paris, he
would have to resist alike the French propaganda and the challenges of European
sovereigns. One of his first tasks had been the choice of envoys charged with
the duty of carrying to foreign Courts promises of a pacific nature. He did not
even wait for their departure to convey to the sovereigns his intentions, so
early as the
middle of
August, either by letters or by conversations with their agents in Paris. He
hastened to inform Europe “that he had accepted the noble and difficult task of
safeguarding the future of France and the repose of, Europe from terrible
calamities.” If the insurrection at Brussels had not arisen to encourage the
party of “ movement ” in Paris, if the European sovereigns had not wished for
something more than assurances of peace hefore laying aside their hostility,
this act of mediation, which was the first effort and almost the foundation of
the Orleans monarchy, would have speedily achieved its end.
But to all
the advances made by Louis-Philippe the Tsar replied so coldly on September
19,1830, the new monarchy was recognised by him with so bad a grace and so
tardily (January 8, 1831), and, finally, he was so clearly anxious to form at
the Hague a coalition of the Great Powers against revolutionary Belgium, that the
peace of Europe was still in danger from his ambitious designs. Louis-Philippe
turned to England. She had shown herself well-disposed towards him from the
beginning by her prompt recognition of his sovereignty (September 1). To arrive
at an understanding, the French King, with full confidence in his own judgment,
made choice of the man who at the Congress of Vienna had opposed to the
ambitious projects of Russia and Prussia the plan of an English alliance—namely
Talleyrand. At the embassy in London, where the Prince took up his duties on
September 5, he became in truth, by means of a secret correspondence with the
King, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the principal Minister of the monarchy.
With the Tory Ministry of Wellington and Aberdeen, kept in power by William IV,
he established a friendly understanding which was for three years the solid
instrument of the pacific policy of Louis- Philippe. Not that the
Conservatives, accused as they often were by the Whigs of sympathising with
Charles X, were in principle favourable to a French revolution, whose contagion
and possible spread they feared. But they knew that with the new King French
policy would continue to be pacific. And peace had been, ever since 1815, the
principal desire of England; it was the ruling principle of this Tory Cabinet.
The
enterprises of Russian policy in the East, aided as they were by the rising of
Greece, whose fate was ultimately and with great difficulty decided by the
Conference of London, were the cause of uneasiness in England. If the Tsar
Nicholas wished for a disturbance, in older to open up still further the
Balkans for his own advance and to partition Turkey, for opposite reasons it
became the duty of England to neglect no means of averting or quenching all
disputes in Europe. And of these disputes the most dangerous was the Belgian
question, for it might precipitate a French invasion of Belgium, which it was
an axiom of British policy to prevent.
Thus at this
period the Cabinet in London had the same interests, since it had the same
causes for fear, as the French Ministry. The
i830-i] Belgium.—Poland.—Italy.
483
greement
proposed by Talleyrand was not a mere alliance between two Liberal countries.
It was a necessary compact, since it was founded upon community of interests. It
was easily concluded. Talleyrand left to England the honour of settling the
Belgian question in London. He acknowledged with a good grace that England owed
her support to the King of Holland, whose Belgian acquisitions she had in 1815
confirmed in exchange for his colonies. He did not attempt a lofty insistence
upon the doctrine of non-intervention with which Fiance met the designs of the
eastern Powers. But on October 15, 1830, when by his concessions Talleyrand had
reached an agreement with Lord Aberdeen, it was settled that there should be no
European intervention between the Belgians and their King except for the
purpose of peaceful mediation. On October 20 Austria and Prussia approved the
plan of the Duke of Wellington, and Russia was forced to lay down her arms.
And, in spite of the indignation and abuse of the aggressive Republican party
in Paris, when the Conference, already assembled in London to deal with the
Greek question, met on November 4, it appointed a council of arbitration “with
the aim,” as Talleyrand phrased it, “of maintaining peace.”
The first
decision passed by this council on December 20, 1830, forced upon the House of
Nassau the relinquishment of its Belgian possessions, upon the crowned heads of
Europe the recognition of a new and independent people, and upon this people
themselves the necessity of making no further appeal to France, even for the
sake of acquiring new territory, Breda, Maestricht, or Luxemburg. Such had been
the result of the Franco-English alliance—a European peace which for the
monarchy of July was the condition of tranquillity in the streets of Paris.
This was
clearly seen when the news spread through France (December 1-15,1830) of the
Polish rising against the Tsar. “ This,” wrote a young Republican, Louis Blanc,
“ was a national festivity. The heroism of the Poles was celebrated in all the
theatres. It was like a second Revolution of July.” It was once more necessary
for the Orleans dynasty to place a check upon La Fayette, who encouraged and
preached the Republican propaganda. Discontented with the terms which Europe
imposed upon them, and encouraged by the Polish revolt, which occupied in the
East the sovereigns of Russia and of Prussia, the Belgians began to excite the
Republican party in Paris against the King and Talleyrand. Finally the Italians
at Modena and in the Romagna were organising themselves for an insurrection
which the princes of the Bonaparte family were preparing with the aid of
Mazzini and Menotti; as against Metternich, who was only too glad to be able to
lay hands upon Italy, they too were counting upon the sympathies which they
found in the democratic party at Paris, and even in the royal circle itself, in
the eldest son of Louis-Philippe. The beginning of Januaiy, 1831, nearly saw a
repetition of the Revolution of July, as
a result of
these excitements from outside which stirred the passions of the Parisian
populace. The Laffitte-Sebastiani Ministry no longer dared to oppose the
propagandist fever which had seized the people. On January 5,1831, they dreamed
of invasion, and Talleyrand himself thought of the partition of Belgium. Riots
broke out repeatedly in the capital for the purpose of defending Belgium or of
saving Poland. The most formidable was that of February 14, when the populace
and the students devastated the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois and the
palace of the Archbishop, and invaded the Palais de Justice. The Legitimist
party urged them on to disorder in the hope of revenge upon the Orleans
dynasty. “Our beloved prince,” wrote Madame Adelaide, “does not know which way
to turn.”
Louis-Philippe
saved himself in this crisis, the most dangerous that he had yet encountered,
by the methods which he had previously employed and chiefly by his alliance
with England. In spite of his Ministers, he accepted the proposition made by
Lord Palmerston at the Conference of London to neutralise Belgium (January 20,
1831) in order to prevent the intervention of the French and to impose
conditions upon the Belgians; next he refused, on February 17, the Crown which
the Congress of Brussels, to evade these conditions, offered on February 4 to
his son, the Duke of Nemours. At the same time he selected and sent to the Tsar
an ambassador, the Due de Mortemart, to define clearly his attitude towards the
rebellious Poles. Finally, in February, when the revolution had broken out at
Bologna and at Modena, Louis- Philippe took the lead and resolutely insisted
upon a French policy of neutrality in Italy; and, by withdrawing from Laffitte
the means to promote any other policy, he forced him on March 9,1831, to
resign. The Republicans complained of this diplomatic system, this desertion of
oppressed nations, which, according to them, reduced France to the rank of a
secondary Power. It was in truth the personal work of the King; a skilful
mediator between the French and Europe, he had little by little undermined the
Republican designs. With peace assured abroad, the party of “movement” was
robbed of its strength.
These months
of crisis had been no less beneficial to the Conservatives than to the
monarchy. Their return to power, at the beginning of 1831, with the conditions
which they aspired to impose upon the French people, would never have been
possible as the outcome of a revolution made by the people, “ unless there had
been from the first men in high place whose reputation was such as to put the
malcontents on a wrong scent and to baffle public opinion—men like La Fayette,
Dupont de l’Eure, and Laffitte. The leaders of the Republican party were under
no misapprehension on that score.” Such was the judgment of Louis Blanc. With a
happier inspiration than that of the Parliamentary party, who would have
compromised everything by premature repression, Louis-Philippe had himself laid
the foundations of his monarchy.
When he
called to power on March 13, 1831, together with Casimir Perier, the members of
the victorious middle-class, he was quit of all obligation towards them, in
respect of the somewhat precarious throne which they had obtained for his
family, He had taken on himself the responsibility of solving the most
difficult problems.
This was the
beginning of that rule, dear to the Parliamentary party which had engaged in
the struggle against the Ministers of Charles X, a rule of the “just mean”
between democracy and Legitimism, in which authority lay with the Chambers
elected by the well-to-do classes, and with the Ministers, who were chosen by
the King but responsible to the Chambers. When he entered the Ministry, Casimir
Perier was President of the Chamber. Assured of a majority as President of the
Council, and thus strong enough to resist the King if need arose, he did not
delay a month before making a frontal attack upon the Republican party.
The defect of
this party at the time was that it relied upon recollections rather than upon
principles. Doubtless the influence of the social school of Saint-Simon and his
disciples Olinde Rodrigues and Bazard had been exercised since 1820 upon
democrats such as Buchez, Carnot, and Pierre Leroux, upon the youth of the
secret societies, and the “ Lodges,” such for example as the “ Friends of
Truth,” ardent centres of the Republican propaganda under the Restoration. But
this influence had been in the main confined to the enrolment of students
specially chosen and few in number. The majority of the Republican party, men
like Auguste and Victorin Fabre, and Armand Marrast, editors of the Tribune,
Roche, the brothers Cavaignac, Marc Dufraisse, Trelat, and Gamier-Pages, in
order to secure concerted action, appealed to the memories of the Revolution;
and, though certain among them, like the brothers Fabre, condemned the Terror
as prejudicial to the Republic, the majority wished to take up history where
the Convention left it at the time of universal suffrage and the glorious
propaganda abroad. The “ Society of Friends of the People,” founded on July
30,1830, who were reproached by Corcelles with not having any “ guiding
principle,” had, as Heine said, “the smell of an old number, greasy, and
thumbed, of the Moniteur of 1793.” This was the case too with the “Society of
the Rights of Man,” for whom Robespierre’s Declaration of Rights furnished a
programme and almost a creed. Finally, since Buonarotti, a disciple of Baboeuf,
had returned to France and was preaching with the help of d’Argenson, Charles
Teste, and Louis Blanc, a social revolution against the middle classes and the
rich, a scheme which was well received in Republican circles, the democracy,
through the fault of its leaders, aroused more fears than hopes. Instead of
hopes for the future, it seemed to revive the memory of the evil days when
France lacerated and exhausted herself in an unequal struggle against united
Europe “Without knowing it,” wrote Heine, “the Republicans are becoming as
retrograde as the most ardent champions of the ancien regime.'"
Thenceforward
it was easy for the Liberal-minded Conservatives, to whom Louis-Philippe had
entrusted the power, to represent the parliamentary monarchy and middle-class
Republic, wisely steered towards order, industry, and peace, as a Republic
younger and more fruitful in promises, at any rate for certain classes of the
nation—in the phrase of La Fayette, as “the best possible Republic.” In the
early days of April,
1831, Casimir Perier declared that he “ did not
recognise as vested in insurgents the right to force the Government along the
path of political innovations.” He gave his subordinates the order to suppress
them at all costs, and he “ intended to be obeyed.” To begin with, he indicted
before the Court of Assizes of the Seine sixteen Republicans, accused of having
attempted in the month of December to overthrow the monarchical Government.
The jury acquitted them. But the procurators- general, supported by the
Minister’s energy, did not relax their efforts. They prosecuted relentlessly
the Republican journals and shortly afterwards the democratic societies.
Little by little, insurrections, watched and suppressed, ceased; two attempts,
made on July 14 and £8, failed. The courage of the active members of the
Montagnard party was broken by the confident firmness of Perier. The frequency
of their futile attacks increased their unpopularity; “ fear,” said Carrel, “
clung to the word Republic.”
During the
same period Casimir Perier was striving with no less success against the
partisans of the dynasty exiled by the Revolution. If the Carlists, as they
were called, had been merely Conservatives attached to the principles of order
and stability represented by the monarchy, they would have found it to their
interest to acknowledge the error of Polignac and the extremists, which had
cost Charles X his crown, and gone near to enthroning the democratic party. But
either through loyalty, like Chateaubriand, or by a passion for revenge, like
Ganoude, the editor of the Gazette de France, their one aim was to prepare for
yet another restoration of the ancien regime, by all possible means, even by
those the most contrary to their doctrines. From August 10, 1830, they set
themselves to outstrip the desires of the Republicans, by demanding liberty of
the Press, of association, the free election of mayors, and even universal
suffrage. The extremists, the very men who had scorned to sit in council with a
regicide such as Gr^goire, and who pursued Manuel with invectives, now felt no
repugnance against making common cause with the admirers and apologists of the
Convention. A temporary alliance, we may admit, but dangerous for these
representatives of the Divine right who were masquerading as revolutionaries.
They forgot that the Vendee had left memories no less horrible than the
Convention, when in December they prepared to rouse that district. The Duchess
of Berry, in the name of the Duke of Bordeaux, together with her friends the
Due des Cars, de Bourmont, and Saint-Priest, was actually endeavouring first in
London, subsequently
in Italy, to
organise a conspiracy which in the eyes of the French people was no better than
the Republican risings. When on May 8, 1831, Casimir Perier called upon the
electors to decide between the new monarchy and the old, he had no difficulty
in obtaining from the enlarged electoral body a decisive pronouncement, the
first since the days of July, which disarmed once and for all the forces of
Legitimism. Some months afterwards he conceded to the nation the suppression of
the hereditary peerage, that last stronghold in which the partisans of legitimate
monarchy might have rallied to the defence of this cause, which had in fact
been ruined by its own defenders (September 20-25, 1831).
In six months
Casimir Perier had firmly established his authority over the Chamber, and the
power of the Chamber itself over the sovereign and the country. He had
translated into fact the programme which had been conceived fifteen years
earlier under the Restoration by the Doctrinaires and the Liberal
Conservatives. To the democracy, which was still in revolt at Lyons, carrying
with it the Garde Natkmale, he opposed the army under the command of the King’s
son, and the authority of the sovereign in whose name that army served. Against
the irreconcilable partisans of the amcien regime on the other hand, and the
ultramontane spirit, he armed himself with Liberalism. Facing as he did both
ways at once, and endowed with a dignified statiire and all the physical
qualifications for power, he exercised a dictatorship, but a “ dictatorship of
Liberal tendency.” He thus rallied to his side Dupin, that middle-class
disciple of Voltaire, who was as great a lover of order as he was an enemy of
the Jesuits; Guizot, to whom the spirit of insurrection and republican anarchy
seemed the chief obstacle to liberty; Thiers, whose ambition for office, in
this alliance with the party of resistance to revolution, might have been
hampered by his revolutionary past. Thus was brought about the passing of the
laws essential to the July regime. Montalivet, on October 24, 1831, tabled a
proposal concerning primary education, which was the first draft of the scheme
worked out by Guizot in 1883. The Minister of War, by means of conscription,
reorganised the national army (March, 1832). The priests, to whom the Pope, by
recalling the Nuncio, had given the word to break with the new monarchy, were
certainly no longer harassed as in the early days of the Revolution, but they
were kept under observation.
In short,
obedient to the instructions of Talleyrand and of Louis- Philippe, Casimir
Perier had worked simultaneously to restrain the ardours of the propagandist
party, and to break the existing alliance between France and the revolutionary
parties in Europe. His system was so entirely “that of peace” that he said to a
friend in March, 1831, “ When this effervescence of war subsides my task will
be finished and I shall retire.” It was thanks to him, that by the conventions
of the 18 and the 24 Articles, Belgium definitely became neutral and independent
(June 26—October 15, 1831). “The Revolution of July,” he said,
“ has not
made a new France and a new Europe. It cannot ignore the necessity of adapting
itself to one and the other.” Hence, despite the sympathy felt by Fiance for an
unhappy nation, Poland was abandoned to the Russian armies, whom Austria and
Prussia congratulated on their victory (September 7, 1831). If, in like manner,
the Government refused its support and the help of the French volunteers to
the Italian rebels, it was in order to prevent the sovereigns of the Peninsula
from throwing themselves in their alarm into the arms of Austria, and thus
enslaving themselves and their people at once. This refusal, however, to afford
aid to such revolutions was combined with a very decided determination to
resist any enterprise of self-aggrandisement on the part of the sovereigns.
When the King of Holland, counting upon the support of Prussia, invaded
Belgium, to destroy the new Belgian monarchy, Casimir Perier demanded from
England the right to safeguard it by armed intervention (August, 1831). Later,
when Pope Gregory XVI summoned the Austrian troops to the Legations in order to
avoid necessary reforms, with like promptitude a French regiment was ordered to
occupy Ancona (February 22, 1832), and remained there under the terms of a
Convention dated April 16.
Abroad, as at
home, the work accomplished by the Conservative Ministry under the direction of
Casimir Perier was already considerable, when the harsh hand of death struck
down the chief worker by cholera (May 16, 1832). Thiers compared his work to
that of the Consulate succeeding the Directory. However, it was not finished,
and it seemed as if it would be injured by the removal of its author. On the
day fixed for the obsequies of General Lamarque, a leading Republican, dead
also of cholera, the Republican party stirred up the people of Paris, who had
been incited to revolt and to active propagandism by revolutionary refugees
from foreign countries (June 5, 1832). At first the insurrectionary party was
victorious; they raised barricades in the centre of Paris, and for the moment
seemed to be masters of Paris as in the days of July. But the great difference
between the regime overthrown in 1830 and that which succeeded it was
immediately apparent; at the first threat Louis-Philippe hastened from
Saint-Cloud to defend his throne and to support the resistance made by General
Lobau. A month previously, on April 30, the Duchess of Berry, accompanied by
certain faithful and indiscreet royalists, Bourmont, Kergorlay, and Brissac,
had landed at Marseilles. Though she failed in her effort to raise the south of
France to revolt, she collected near Nantes the chief men of the new Vendee on
May 21, and forced the Government to declare a state of siege in four
Departments. In the west, as in Paris, the Orleans monarchy, suddenly deprived
of its principal Minister, seemed to have no resource left except the fidelity
of its generals, Lobau and Solignac. Fortunately for it, Napoleon’s heir, the
Duke of Reichstadt, died of consumption at Vienna, July 22,1832. The
Bonapartist party, towards
which the
French people were inclining, led astray by the Napoleonic legend assiduously
propagated by memoirs, in the theatre, and by the popular prints of Raffet and
Charlet—this party to which the Republicans themselves, forgetting the
dictatorship in their love of glory, were drawing near—had no longer a head.
At this time
there came about, between the founders of the July monarchy, a misunderstanding
destined long to cloud its fortunes. Louis-Philippe knew in his heart that he
had done more by his skill and diplomacy for the triumph of the new regime than
the Conservatives, who, since March 13, had been claiming for themselves all
the honour. It was with reluctance that he had submitted to the growing
authority of Casimir Perier; and, King as he was by his own efforts, he was
surprised to find a “ viceroy ” imposed upon him, as if he was himself
incapable of ruling. On the other hand, before his death, the leader of the Cabinet
of March 13 had several times designated Guizot as his successor. The
pretensions of the Doctrinaires, to whom the people moreover bore no love, to
establish themselves as rulers, to claim authority in the name of the Chamber,
broke the alliance which they had formed with the Duke of Orleans after the
days of July. For the four months from June to October, 1832, Louis-Philippe
made every effort to avoid summoning Guizot and his friends to power. He
entrusted the Government to men who had given him less cause for
offence—Montalivet, Sebastiani—and himself kept the Presidency of the Council.
The deputies of the party of resistance thereupon accused those Ministers of
subservience and weakness.
The
Legitimist conspiracies, which only ended in November, 1832, with the arrest of
the Duchess of Berry, the reorganisation of the Republican party, which was
establishing throughout the provinces sections of the Societe des Droits de
VHomme, the trial of the followers of Saint-Simon, which, in August, 1832, made
known to the terrified country their scheme of social reform, and lastly,
abroad, a new attempt on the part of the King of Holland to reconquer Belgium
(September, 1832), seemed to justify the reproaches of weakness which the
friends of Perier hurled at the Ministers chosen by the King and powerless to
support his monarchy.
During the
month of September Louis-Philippe wavered between his prejudices and the
conditions which the majority of the Parliament offered him. On October 11,
after having tried to detach Dupin and Thiers himself from the Conservative
party, he entrusted Marshal Soult, a former colleague of Casimir Perier, with
the task of forming a Ministry composed partly of members of Perier’s Cabinet,
partly of political friends of this statesman more deeply committed than
himself to the system of order and peace, with the Due de Broglie as Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Thiers as Minister of the Interior, Guizot, Minister of
Public Education, and Hnmann, Minister of Finance. The Doctrinaires thus returned
to office—a Ministry, as was said at the time, “of all the talents.”
Their initial
act was one of a nature to flatter the national selfesteem. The Antwerp
expedition, demanded by the King of Belgium and sanctioned by the English on
November 14, established on a firm basis the safety and independence of the
Belgian people. By this external manifestation of the fact that French sympathy
and French power were at the service of right and liberty, the Ministry of
October 11 reckoned that they had earned the right to suppress disorder and
conspiracy at home. On November 7, disregarding the relations which the King
was still maintaining with the Duchess of Berry, Thiers caused her to be
arrested at Nantes, and confined her strictly in the prison of Blaye (November
14,1832). Later he took advantage of the unexpected pregnancy of this princess,
who was a widow, but married in secret to a Sicilian nobleman, and set her at
liberty, when ridicule had rendered her no longer dangerous (June, 1833). Freed
from trouble from the Bourbons, whose cause, as Chateaubriand fully recognised,
was irrevocably lost, although the hopeless struggle was still maintained by
the eloquent lawyer, Berryer, the Ministry of October 11 was able to make
preparations for a decisive struggle against the Republican party.
At first they
believed that they would triumph without effort. “Insurrection is dead,” said
Guizot in February, 1833, “the societies are dead, revolutionary propagandism
is dead and the revolutionary spirit, and with them that blind spirit of war
which seemed for a moment to have gained possession of the nation.” The hour
seemed to have arrived for them to cut at the root of the evil in order to
destroy it for evermore. The successor of Casimir Perier in the department of
Public Education brought forward a law upon primary education, which was
passed on June 28, 1833. This law invited the Catholics in their own schools,
which were thenceforward to be free, and even in the State schools, which were
superintended by the parish priest and the Cantonal Commissions, to associate
themselves with the officers of the State in the work of establishing “internal
and social peace.” According to his idea and that of the other Conservatives,
“the hopes of religion, together with the enlightenment given by a system of
instruction controlled by religious beliefs, would be the best means of
arresting moral degeneration and the dangers to which the revolutionary
classes, and, in consequence of class demands, the whole of society, were
exposed.” In oider to give employment to the people and to alienate them from
their leaders, Thiers urged the adoption of a great programme of public works
at an expense of 100,000,000 livres spread over five years. “ Thanks to the
Chambers,” said the Debats, the semiofficial organ of the Doctrinaires, “the
country is beginning to have faith in its future.” Events quickly dispelled the
illusion.
So early as
the summer of 1833, whether owing to the proposal to fortify Paris put forward
by Thiers, or to the anniversary of the days of
July, the
leaders of the Republican party were beginning to make up their mind to a new
effort of arms. In the sections of the Societe des Droits de VHomme, in which
the Republican propaganda was continually being strengthened by the promise of
6ocial reforms acceptable to the working classes, the Montagnards were daily
gaining greater influence. The Ministry indicted twenty-seven of these men,
such men as Raspail, Kersausie, d’Argenson, and Charles Teste, those whose
tendencies to socialism were most notorious, before the Court of Assizes
(December 22, 1833). The jury acquitted them all. This was an encouragement for
the leaders of Republican societies, Cavaignac, Andre de Puyraveau, Guinard,
and Vignerte, who thought that the moment had come to unfurl their standard,
and to rally France to their programme. In vain did Carrel, staunch convert as
he was to the democratic republic, attempt in the National to show them the
danger of a premature attack. At the end of the year 1833 the other organs of
their party, the Tribune of Marrast, the Popidaire of Cabet, published a
manifesto of the Committee of Management of the Societe des Droits de VHomme,
which set forth their hopes and their democratic claims, supported now as ever
by the recollections of the Convention and of the rule of Robespierre.
This act of
audacity came as a surprise to their opponents, the Conservatives of the
middle-class, and before long turned to their advantage. The Ministry was moved
by fear and by calculation to energetic measures of repression. Strikes were
suppressed at Caen and at Le Mans, and treated as revolts. In order to crush
the propaganda of the party, a law was passed which obliged the public criers,
“ armed heralds of revolt, peripatetic proclaimers of insurrection,” to obtain
a license from the prefects (February, 1834). This was the beginning of a
series of laws of greater severity and efficacy passed by the deputies “in
order to reassure and protect the mass of the population.” The Keeper of the
Seals, to meet the disturbances aroused by this programme, brought forward the
project of a Bill to attack those Republican societies which were subdivided
into sections of less than twenty members, the limit fixed by Article 291 of
the penal code. Thenceforward it was to rank as a criminal offence, not to be
tried by a jury but before the ordinary Courts, to join any society whether
divided into sections or not, an offence which carried with it heavy penalties
and imprisonment. This threatened law created lively emotion among the
Republicans (March, 1834). Some among them, such as the editors of the Tribune,
thought of meeting the challenge by insurrection. Others, such as Carrel,
Gamier-Pages, and Buonarotti himself, saw in it a trap to be avoided. The
signal for action was given by the Canuts, the workmen at Lyons, who went on
strike in defence of their trades-unions (February 14) and then took up arms on
behalf of their comrades who were indicted on April 9, 1834. The employment of
a military force was needed to bring about the triumph of the Government over
the Lyons
492
Measures against the Republicans.
[i834-e
mob, after a
bloody struggle which lasted four days. The mob of Paris was in its turn on the
verge of insurrection, when the Ministry ordered the arrest of 150 Republicans
on April 12. The rising was restricted to the Saint-Merri quarter and crushed
with rapidity and severity in the Rue Transnonain by the generals, who were led
into battle by Thiers himself (April 14). At the same time it became known that
the attempts made at Saint-^tienne, Marseilles, Clermont, Luneville, and
Belfort, sometimes with the complicity of petty officers in the army, had met
with no greater success.
The danger
with which this abortive conspiracy seemed to have threatened society and the
monarchy soon gave the Conservatives the opportunity which they were seeking to
crush the Republican faction. Laws of great severity were passed by Parliament
against those who carried arms, and against the democratic journals. The
Parliament itself, after the elections of May, 1834, proved to contain a
majority more completely hostile to the Republic. With this majority the Ministry
of October II believed themselves in the following year strong enough to
initiate before the Chamber of Peers a great and famous indictment of
Republicans. On May 5, 1835, 164 prisoners, defended by .-ounsel chosen from
among those leaders of their party who still had their liberty, Cavaignac,
Marrast, Trelat, Michel de Bourges, Baune, Kersausie, Caussidiere, were brought
for trial from Sainte-Pelagie to the Luxembourg. The trial lasted until the
beginning of the following year. In the interval the attempt of Fieschi on July
28 to assassinate the King and his sons, an isolated endeavour to recall the
days of July, increased the popularity of the monarchy, justified all the
measures taken to defend society, and helped towards the final downfall of the Republican
party. Parliament passed sentence on the prisoners in the sight of an alarmed
country and carried the laws of September, 1835, which recalled the measures of
the ultra-Royalists under the Restoration against the press and juries. On that
day, the Doctrinaires in their seat of power, believing themselves supreme, saw
an orator rise to oppose them who had been little suspected of love for the
democracy. Royer-Collard reproached them with “ their cunning attack on
liberty, their school of immorality.” They did not heed him; and some months
afterwards Armand Carrel, the Republican editor of the National, fell mortally
wounded m a duel with Emile de Girardin, against whom he had fought in the
cause of the liberty of the Press (July 22, 1836). “The Republican party,”
wrote Edgar Quinet, “ is in its coffin with Carrel. It will rise again, but it
must have time.”
After six
years of opportunist rule, maintained with difficulty, the Conservatives, men
of high birth or standing possessed by Liberal ideas, might look wi th
satisfaction upon their accomplished task—the frustra-. tion of the designs of
the Legitimists who had threatened them with a violent reaction, the defeat of
the hopes of the Republicans who had
1830-6] Economic progress.—The Third Party. 493
fought for
them in 1830 without reward, and, instead of a throne strong by right divine, a
monarchy bound to reckon with the will of a people as whose representatives
they posed. The prosperity of Prance served the interests, material and
political, of the victorious party. The cultivation of the vine had in twenty
years doubled its returns. The com-harvest furnished a surplus for export.
Agricultural methods were improving, particularly in the north and east; and
the development of country roads facilitated exchange between producers and the
towns. But this period is conspicuous mainly as the great epoch of a definite
industrial transformation, supported by the improvement of public credit and of
the banks. The consumption of coal which from 1815 increased from one million
to four million tons, the employment of machines which were increased tenfold
in number, and the beginning of railway construction, set capital in
circulation and stimulated manufactures and commercial enterprise. It was not
so much the middle-class with its frugality, its hostility to risk, its
attachment to State security and public offices, as the leaders of the
commercial class, such as the Periers, the Delesserts, who took part in this
economic movement. Their receptions, more than those of the Court, set the tone
to the capital. Moreover, with Guizot they had made of national education their
instrument of power. The great problem in their eyes was, in the words of that
Minister, “the government of minds.” They entrusted the primary schools to the
Church, that she might teach the people the lessons of submission and
resignation. They demanded in return that the Church should cede to the
University the monopoly of secondary and more advanced studies, namely those
which were to form the minds of the commercial classes, their electors. In
their desire to monopolise political power at the expense of the democracy and
the Crown they were forced to adopt the methods of Napoleon.
This
Government, strong as it appeared at the time, nevertheless had its weak
points. Many deputies, who reprobated the riots and intrigues of the
Republicans, were nevertheless uneasy about the programme of repression put
forward by the Conservatives. From 1834 onwards there were visible, even in the
majority, signs of hesitation which betrayed either fear of unpopularity, or a
striving after popularity. These men, whether waverers or ambitious, formed
what was called the Third Party; they included Charles Dupin, whom the
Government had offended by neglecting to consult him, Passy and Sauzet, ardent
friends of liberty, and Etienne, editor of the Constitu- tiormel.
Louis-Philippe, more and more exasperated by the arrogance of his Ministers,
encouraged insubordination in the members of the majority. There even arrived a
moment when for three days he handed over the power to this Third Party
(November 10, 1834). For these malcontents the test was unfortunate, almost
ridiculous; neither by force of numbers nor talent could they replace the
Conservatives.
Pitched
battles in Parliament did not suit them. But as sharpshooters and in ambuscade
they continued to be dangerous.
“To my mind,”
wrote in 1841, a politician who was faithful to the monarchy of 1830, “compared
with the questions of foreign policy, all others which divide our party have
but a secondary importance.” Thanks to Louis-Philippe, in 1830 and 1831 the
Conservatives had avoided the danger of the revolutionary propaganda; but they
had not stifled those aspirations after glory which were as the breath of life
to the French people in that period, and manifested themselves in an
ever-growing attachment to the Imperial legend and interest in military
affairs. These instincts were so strong that each party found itself obliged to
reckon with them. The malcontents kept ceaseless watch upon the Ministry in
expectation of the moment when they could accuse them of sacrificing the
national dignity. Thiers celebrated in 1834 at the Academy the victories of
Bonaparte; Louis-Philippe finished and opened the Arc de Triomphe, and
consecrated the Palace of Versailles to all the glorious deeds of France, and
made of it a Museum of the victories and conquests of the French. Like
Chateaubriand in the Bestoration period, the Conservatives were in their turn
impelled to seek in a spirited and brilliant foreign policy the means of
disarming their adversaries at home, and by a blaze of glory to gain pardon for
their drastic measures of repression. It is sufficient to recall the fact that
on one occasion (April 1, 1834) Broglie was abruptly overthrown for having
granted to the United States the settlement of an indemnity which Napoleon
himself had admitted to be equitable in principle. It is worth noting how
carefully it was arranged that in most ministerial combinations the Presidency
of the Council should be given to generals or officers of the Empire, the Dukes
of Dalmatia, Bassano, Treviso, and Marshal Gerard. Nothing was more dangerous
to the Conservative party than this policy of action, which the King was
determined to control, and which ended in open dissension between King and
Cabinet.
Since 1834
the struggle had been in preparation: the enterprises of Mehemet Ali against
Turkey set it in motion. Russia, summoned by the Sultan to his assistance in
his distress, and encouraged by Austria and Prussia, her accomplices, had
succeeded in imposing by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi (July 8, 1833) her
protectorate upon the Ottoman Empire. Broglie, both in his first Ministry and
when he returned to office in March, 1835, declared openly that he was counting
upon England to defend the position of France in the Levant. Everything in his
conduct and his negotiations showed that he would prevent Russia, by arms if
necessary, from developing her ambitions, and dissociate Europe from the
encouraging attitude of Vienna and Berlin. Louis-Philippe, on the other hand,
had imagined with the help of Talleyrand a different method of maintaining the
status quo—a method at once pacific and subtle—an understanding with
Metternich, towards
which he had
been working since 1834. He was firmly resolved “ not to allow Broglie to go
too far.” “ I would sooner break up my ministerial council," he said on
January 24,1836, to the envoy of Sardinia. And the Duke fell from power for the
second time, apparently in consequence of the action of the Third Party,
dragging with him Guizot and the Ministry of October 11, the Conservative
coalition (February 4). Many well- informed contemporaries attributed this
result to the diplomacy of the King, which was at need as active and cunning
against his own Ministers as in foreign affairs. It was in fact difficult to
avoid a rupture, when a Minister could take upon himself to suppress on its way
to the Tsar a royal letter which was too friendly, and when the King on his
side at Paris carried on secret negotiations with Prince Apponyi, the envoy of
Austria.
However, the
Third Party, with the King’s other instruments, Passy, Sauzet, and the
financier Ganneron, the most obscure and most active of them all, were unequal
as ever to the task of providing the Crown with a parliamentary Government. It
was the defection of Thiers, always desired by Louis-Philippe and now at last
obtained, that gave the King his advantage. The motives that prompted this
defection still further illustrate the importance of foreign questions in these
quarrels.
For four
years there had been no stauncher Conservative than Thiers, equally embittered
as he was against the Duchess of Berry and against the Republicans, supporting
in discussion and eagerly enforcing measures of severity and exceptional
legislation. No man in the Cabinet of October 11 had supported with greater
heat a policy of foreign action, a policy acceptable to the nation and
consequently adapted to make it forget or tolerate a somewhat harsh system of repression
at home. But, even in early days, perhaps on the advice of Talleyrand, his
protector, Thiers had differed from Broglie and his friends on this question of
foreign policy. He conceived resentment against England, who, after having
proved herself a useful ally since 1830, had under Palmerston manifested since
1833 a desire to fetter rather than to assist France. Palmerston’s efforts to
turn to the exclusive advantage of F.nglish power the dynastic and
constitutional troubles of Spain and Portugal— efforts at first discreet but
subsequently made manifest by the Treaty of the Quadruple Alliance (May,
1834)—inspired Thiers, who was moreover ambitious to play the leading part,
with the desire of bringing the English “entente™ to an end, in order to assert
beyond the Pyrenees the authority of France. While Broglie was conciliating
England with the design of bringing her to oppose Russia and the Continental
Powers, Thiers rejoiced to see Louis-Philippe estranged from her and drawing
towards Austria. He was unable, indeed, in May, 1835, to obtain from the King,
“ who was resolved to crush twelve Chambers rather than to make war,” the
military intervention besought by the Ministers of Queen Isabel. But he
attributed this check to the opposition
of his
colleagues, Broglie and Guizot, who had failed to support him. Thenceforward he
only awaited an opportunity to separate himself from them: and when the King
offered him the post of Chief Minister (February 22, 1836) the coveted occasion
seemed to have arrived. He hoped to continue his Conservative policy under the
cover of brilliant action abroad. He accepted office: his mistake was almost at
once apparent.
On one
occasion, Thiers said to the King with a smile, “ Sire, I am very subtle.” “ I
am more so than you,” Louis-Philippe replied, “ for I do not say so.” The
understanding between the sovereign and his Minister, resolved as each was not
to be led but to lead, could not be of long duration. At the very beginning,
the King informed the Prussian Cabinet “ that he hoped still further to
strengthen his system —resistance at home to the revolutionary movement, and
such moderation abroad as enforces respect for existing treaties, while
avoiding all interference in the affairs of other States.” On his side Thiers,
from March 18, 1836, onward, protested to Palmerston against the Treaty of the
Quadruple Alliance, and reserved to France her liberty of action as regards
intervention in Spain. In July, 1836, he made preparations for this
intervention; he increased the foreign legion which the Government had
supplied to the Queen of Spain for use against the Carlists, and offered the
services of a French general, Bugeaud or Clauzel, to command the royal army.
“We intend to annihilate,” he wrote to Sainte-Aulaire, “ Don Carlos, the hero
of Navarre.” Without uttering a word, Louis-Philippe, aided by Montalivet, kept
watch over the actions of his Minister. On August 24,1836, having learnt that,
by agreement with Thiers, General Lebeau, commander of the Foreign Legion, had
announced that a French army would enter Spain, the King, without informing his
Minister, had an official denial inserted in the Moniteur. Next, he demanded
the dismissal of the recruits whom Thiers, without consulting him, had
assembled at the foot of the Pyrenees. “ The King does not desire
intervention,” the indignant Minister exclaimed. “ We desire it, so I resign.”
This
energetic act of royal authority, contrary to the principles of parliamentary
government, displaced a Ministry which had not suffered defeat in the Chambers,
and made clear to the eyes of the country the bad relations which, since the
death of Casimir Perier, had grown up between the monarchy and the Conservative
deputies of the majority. The alliance which had been formed, in the days that
followed the Revolution of July, between the Duke of Orleans, the leading
Doctrinaires, and Thiers, had subsisted so long as the power which they had
combined to reize appeared to be threatened; but now the problems, which bade
fair to divide them, became more and more pressing. The Parliamentary party
remembered that they had made a King and a constitution, but were apt to forget
that without this King they could not have averted
a republic;
they held that Louis-Philippe ought to reign and not to govern. The King, on
the other hand, convinced that without his diplomacy and without his personal
action the militant Republic would have triumphed, and impelled, by a sort of
pride in his skill, to employ the same diplomacy towards his Ministers, aspired
to govern while still keeping the advantage of non-responsibility. The
Doctrinaires, and Thiers, first their ally, then their supplanter, like the
ultra-Royalists of the Restoration, in their turn claimed the government in
order to impose their will, their calculations as to national action abroad,
upon the King whom they had implored to come to their aid against the
Republican propaganda. Louis-Philippe, in order to maintain his system, was
obliged to scheme against or get rid of the men who had dethroned Charles X for
his benefit.
However, in
this crisis, the decisive moment for the July monarchy, the allies of the
Tuileries and the Chamber attempted for some time to avoid a breach and to
resume their life in common. The breach with Thiers brought the King back to Guizot,
who perhaps regretted that six months earlier he had followed the Due de
Broglie into retirement. And Guizot, as a condition of his assistance, demanded
the inclusion in the Ministry of three of his friends, men devoted to his
person and opinions, Duchatel in the Department of Finance, Gasparin at the
Home Office, and Remusat as Under-Secretary of State for Public Works. The
condition imposed by the King and accepted at first by Guizot was that foreign
affairs should be entrusted to a President of the Council, who was a complete
stranger to the designs of the Doctrinaire party, devoted to the policy and
submissive to the opinions of the King. His nominee was Count Mole.
This last
attempt at an understanding was destined to endure only eight months, from
September 6,1836, to April 15, 1837. From the very first day Guizot resented
his subordinate position in a Cabinet where his friends, the Doctrinaires, had
all but a majority. His friends expressed their surprise. “ What! ” the Due de
Broglie wrote to him, “the principal man, the very core and mainspring of the
Cabinet, is forced to hold the lowest place?” The almost immediate result was
that Guteot, his adherents, and the party organs, affected to treat Mole as an
upstart, rewarded beyond his merits by the success of his intrigues at the
Tuileries, and almost drove him to open warfare in defence of his dignity and
legitimate influence. On the other hand Mol£, who, since 1818, had been
alienated from the Doctrinaire party, came to power, thanks to the King’s
confidence, with a programme far different from theirs. An official who, ever
since the Empire, had contrived under all rigimes to improve his own position,
tactful and persuasive in language and bearing, he regulated his conduct rather
by circumstances than by theories. Thus, since he observed that former
Ministers, in order to continue the policy of active “ resistance ”
dear to the
Doctrinaires, had had recourse to manifestations of force abroad which had been
condemned by the King, he deemed it the simpler course to renounce this policy
of repression. “ The true spirit of government,” he said, “consists in meeting
circumstances as they present themselves, with a mind free from all prejudice
arising from the past.” Between this man of expedients, skilful and eloquent,
and the Doctrinaires, there was almost as much difference as in 1823 between
Villele and the ultra-Royalists, enamoured as they too were at the time of
repression at home and glory abroad. Guizot with his friends abandoned Mole at
the end of March, 1837. The King maintained the confidence which he reposed in
him.
Thus between
Louis-Philippe, and, to quote the phrase of an Orleanist, Sainte-Aulaire,
“these princes of the tribune, these great vassals of the representative
regime, who believed that they had a prescriptive right to direct the affairs
of the country, who were indignant that anyone dared to dispute the legitimacy
of that right,” there arose a breach of which this time the country could not
be ignorant, and shortly afterwards open warfare of which it was summoned to
be the arbiter. This war lasted exactly two years, while by force of will and
talent Mold, supported by the King, whose policy he tenaciously defended,
succeeded in maintaining himself in power with uncertain majorities. At this
distance of time the work which this Minister accomplished with the King’s
support can be appraised and judged without reference to the daily contests in
face of which it was performed. The study of this work is no less important in
the history of French institutions than that of the conflicts between the Court
and the Parliament.
“ I have
always been,” said Mole to his friend Barante, “ in favour of a truce, of a
reconciliation between parties, when the right moment should arrive. On
September 6 and still more on April 15, it became necessary at all costs to
start afresh, to change the course, if I was to avoid being carried I knew not
whither. That is what these inflexible spirits, swayed entirely by their
prepossessions instead of looking facts in the face, have never been able to
understand.” After repression, reconciliation. What good was it to the new
regime that they had obtained a decisive victory over the Republican and
Legitimist parties in 1835, if the conquerors did not know how to give or to
obtain the reward of victory—peace at home? Mold’s programme had the merit of
being at once far-sighted and opportune. Among the conquered parties a change
was taking place at that time which turned their thoughts from their past and
their resentments, and fixed their eyes upon the future.
The members
of the Republican party, in prison and in exile, had reflected upon the causes
of the check which they had sustained, and the acts of violence which had
justified their opponents in using against them force and exceptional
legislation. “For an attitude of protest, they
began to
substitute an attitude of discussion.” Ever since 1834, the lawyer Dupont,
founder of the Revue Republicaine, had been engaged in substituting, for the
tradition and methods of 1793, a carefully-considered doctrine which “should
reassure the people while enlightening them.” To define the democratic
ideal—government by the people for the happiness of the people—the duties of
the State and social aims, the question of wages and the conditions of work:
this rather than acts of violence was in his eyes the proper goal for his
party’s efforts. This opinion was shared by Raspail and Kersausie, who said in
the Reformateur, “An end to personal polemics, an end to social strife! ” After
the insurrection of April and the laws of September had confirmed their fears
and the couclusion they had reached, this evolution became more marked. The
National, under Carrel, and afterwards under Charles Thomas, devoted itself to
the study of social and democratic questions. A literary organ, the Nouvelle
Minerve, grouped together old and young Republicans alike for this propaganda
by the force of ideas. Louis Blanc in the Bon Sens and the Tribune des
prolitaires, Considerant in La Phalange, the organ lent to him by Fourier,
popularised in 1836 the principles of the Republican and social school. In
opposition to the middle-class society established under the first Empire, they
brought forward thenceforth, instead of plots and surprises, the steady force
of an ideal of social and political improvement.
No one was of
more service to this ideal than Lamennais, after he had published in the
preface of his Troisiemes Melanges his declaration of adherence to the
democratic party (1836). His book Du Peuple, written in 1837, by its talent and
generous spirit had a far-reaching influence, penetrating even to artisan
circles. “I address myself,” he wrote, “ to cold and philosophic reason. It
seems to me that there is an entire world of truths to reveal. I believe that social
science is far from possessing a complete theory, and that this theory, when it
comes to completion, will be of great assistance towards future perfection. We
are progressing towards a magnificent unity.” This programme of hope and
progress received from 1836 onwards the support of Victor Hugo, who in the
Presse devoted himself to the study of social questions. George Sand became an
enthusiastic Republican, together with Michel de Bourges and Pierre Leroux.
Thenceforward in Republican circles there were no longer heard prophecies of
War, appeals to the Montagnard movement, but hymns of hopefulness or of pity
for the humble, counsels of wisdom and of reason. Moreover there were fewer
Republicans, and more “ democrats ” or “ radicals,” more men like Arago, Dupont
de l’Eure, and Lamartine, who were disposed to admit the possibility of a truce
with a Government which should leave the tribune and the press free for the
inculcation of their doctrines.
It was about
the same period that the Legitimist party, which had been crushed by the defeat
of the Duchess of Beny and humiliated by
her errors,
transformed itself so as to become a great party of principles and of
propagandism, no longer a group of embittered exiles, but of believers, active
and full of dreams for the future. In this transformation the influence of
Lamennais was as powerful as the lesson taught by the events of 1834. The
assistance which he gave to the democrats was itself but the effect of the
resistance which he at first encountered in gaining acceptation for his ideas
among the defenders of the old order, among the priests of Rome and devout
Frenchmen. He might have said, “Strike me, but listen.” For he was attacked and
listened to. He ceaselessly denounced the alliance between the Catholics, the
true conservatives, champions of the order established by God, and courtier or
emigre politicians, blind or interested partisans of a feeble dynasty soon to
be swept away. Without, as he did, breaking with Rome, his disciples,
Montalembert and Lacordaire, invited the youth of the Right, who had been
misled by their talent and their zeal, to leave “ the fatal whirlpool of
politics in order to concern themselves for the future with the things of God
alone.” And, little by little, this band of young men, with Ozanam and the
founders of the charitable societies of Saint-Vincent de Paul, with the
principal writers of the Correspondant and the Univers, Came, Champagny, Meaux,
Foisset, resolutely broke up “the fatal alliance between throne and altar.”
They held the opinion expressed by Lacordaire so early as 1834: “ I have the
greatest respect for the old Royalist party, all the respect that one owes to a
glorious veteran. But I do not rely on the veteran, because with his wooden leg
he cannot keep step with the new generation.” In the eloquent words of Montalembert,
they asked themselves the question: whether they ought to isolate themselves
from the France of July, to withdraw from active and public life, and only to
take part in it to repudiate or hamper the Government, or whether they ought
not rather to accept this Government as an accomplished fact, and to offer to
the country such practical assistance as should further the fulfilment of their
hopes and the realisation of their social and religious ideals.
To all these
men, detached by their youth or their hopes, on the Right from the fatal
methods of the Emigres and the extremists, on the Left from the excesses of the
Terror or the Charbonnerie, a prudent Government could no longer oppose what
had so long been called “resistance.” Resistance to intrigues, to attempts of
violence, was justified by the need of public order. Nothing could justify the
futile repression of ideas and of free speech in a free country.
Mole turned
to the Republicans; and, profiting by the occasion when the dynasty was being
consolidated by the marriage of the Duke of Orleans with a princess of
Mecklenburg, he offered them, not as a concession but as a gift suitable to
the auspicious event, an amnesty which had often been demanded but hitherto
refused by his predecessors (1837). The value of the gift was in proportion to
the hardships which certain
1837-9] Amnesty to Republicans and Catholics.
501
among them,
treated even in sickness, like Trelat, as prisoners of war, had undergone in
the prisons of Clairvaux or of Doullens, and to the sufferings and destitution
endured by more than one refugee in England or in Switzerland. The measure was
also politic, for the sufferings of prisoners and exiles had been the chief
incentive to rebellion and conspiracy.
Mole then
turned once more to the men of the Right, the Catholics. One of his first acts
was to reopen the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. Since the riots in which
it had been sacked, this church had been closed by the Government as a
punishment and as a warning, and lest the provocations of the Legitimists
should once more arouse the people of Paris to violence. The crucifix was
replaced in the Courts of Justice. Montalembert, on May 19, 1837, at the
tribune of the Chamber, congratulated the Ministry upon the two great measures
of reconciliation which redounded to their glory and to their benefit. He
applauded “their amnesty to the Republicans no less than their conciliation of
the Catholics.” He invited his friends, Catholic rather than Royalist as they
were, to recogr. ie that an entirely new system had been inaugurated. He
renounced the regrets and the hopes of the Legitimist party, and proclaimed his
sympathetic adherence to the monarchy of July in order to obtain from it “ an
enlightened protection and impartial tolerance.”
It is
impossible to deny that the two years of this Ministry were years of internal
peace. From 1837 to 1839 there was no Republican conspiracy save that of an
Alsatian workman, a mystical schemer, named Aloysius Huber, and his friend,
Steuble. “ The Legitimist party,” wrote the Duke of Orleans, when visiting the
south, “is collapsing in every direction. The clergy are deserting it.” The
Government applied its energies to its rightful task, that of governing. It
procured the passing, assisted rather, it is true, by the Chamber of Peers,
rather than by that of the Deputies, who were still excited by the animosities
of the parliamentary leaders, of laws of practical interest dealing with the extension
of the jurisdiction of justices of the peace, the care of the insane,
bankruptcies, and the powers of Departmental Councils (February to April,
1838). In 1837 this same Ministry set on foot a great and comprehensive project
for a system of railroads. Confident in the economic future of the country, the
“little Ministry,” which the Doctrinaires treated with disdain, gave proof of
greater foresight and courage than their adversaries; they proposed to the
Chamber, which rejected it, a great State enterprise with a capital of a
thousand millions. They appreciated and encouraged more than their predecessors
or their opponents the needs and the progress of an industrious nation.
Since 1830
the budget of France had borne the burden of a debt of nearly a thousand
million francs contracted during the first years of Orleans rule. This was now
discharged; and, in spite of fresh expenses for the army and the schools, for
which the ordinary resources sufficed,
there
remained over for the nation a surplus of 80 millions, the fruit of its
industry and thrift. Everywhere the great activity in business undertakings of
all sorts, the increase in savings-bank deposits, and the improved yield of
indirect imposts indicated the abundance of capital. Stock at 5 per cent, stood
at nearly 20 francs above par, stock at 3 per cent, was not far below par.
Relying on this credit and this affluence, the State gave out contracts for
public works to the extent of nearly 300 millions—roads, bridges, canals, and
harbours, encouragements of every sort to the national commerce whose
prosperity struck all beholders. “Tranquillity is unbroken,” wrote an
eyewitness, Barante, on May 16,1838, “among the lower classes. They are more
contented than they have been for fifty years.” “ Is it your fault, or your
skill ? ” wrote Royer-Collard to Mole, uneasy at this spectacle of a country
which was thus ceasing to take any interest in politics. “ A thousand causes,
known or unknown, have led to this marvellous result. You have earned general
esteem, together with the admiration of those who understand.” Finally, it was
this Ministry also which had the honour of successfully achieving what one
politician, Jouffroy, called “ the most important national undertaking,” namely
the decisive establishment of France in Africa; “ better than a colony,” he
added, “ an empire, an empire on the Mediterranean, two days’ journey from
Toulon.”
When the
Government of July had received from the Bourbons the almost accidental legacy
of Algiers, in turning it to account, besides the difficulties inherent in the
nature of every colonial enterprise, they had met with obstacles of two kinds:
. from opposition in England, where displeasure was excited by the prospect of
a French settlement in the Mediterranean, and from French opinion, ill-disposed,
either through ignorance or tradition, towards colonising expeditions. The
problem was to instruct the French as to their true interests without alarming
the susceptibilities of the English nation.
When General
Clauzel, a determined partisan of the occupation of Algiers, declared that it
would be to France what India was to England, the politicians, Talleyrand,
Sebastiani, and Casimir Pdrier, urged the need of reticence, “ in order to
avoid arousing feelings in London which would disturb the mutual good
understanding.” When, in March, 1833, Broglie declared that France was mistress
of Algiers and would remain so, Talleyrand declared this language ill-timed,
having regard to England, whose Minister Lord Grey was demanding evacuation on
the ground of promises asserted to have been made by Polignac. Thus the
colonisation had to be carried on, as it were, in secret, and in fact without
the King’s venturing to take a part or to formulate a policy in the violent
warfare waged, from 1831 onwards, in the Chambers and in the journals, between
partisans and opponents of the scheme. For want of men and money the question
remained undecided, so much so that in September,
1833, a parliamentary commission was sent out
to decide the fate of
the
enterprise; and at its departure for Algeria people were still able to believe
in the abandonment of the colony.
This enquiry,
however, was to initiate the first attempt at colonisation since the ruin of
the colonial empire of the eighteenth century. The work of conquest and
administration, begun with scanty resources around Algiers, from Bona and from
Bougie, by Generals Clauzel (1830-1), Berthezene (1831), Savary and Voirol
(1831-3), impressed and convinced the commissioners. Although their
conclusions, published in the month of April, 1834, met with violent opposition
from those deputies who were anxious not to weaken the situation of France upon
the Rhine, or were convinced of France’s unfitness for colonisation,
Republicans, and men of the Right or the Third Party, men like Dupin, Passy,
Jaubert, and Mauguin, yet the Government of Marshal Soult, without overtly
adopting them, set itself to carry them into effect. The scheme was at first
one of colonisation restricted to the littoral, and was set in motion by the
decree of August 13,1834, which established a Government of “ French
possessions in North Africa,” with an intendant, magistrates, receivers of
taxes, an indigenous army, and even schools and a college. In order to induce
Parliament to accept this restricted scheme, Thiers and Guizot undertook to
prevent all extension. As the conquest had been a military exploit, they united
to overthrow Marshal Soult, who had replaced Broglie as leader of the Cabinet,
and who was determined to appoint a general as Governor of the African
possessions (July, 1834). However, the force of circumstances compelled them to
send thither General Drouet d’Erlon.
This scheme
of limited occupation was calculated perhaps to work well in France and to
disarm intrigues and resentments in Parliament; but it left Algeria in
suspense, and the Colonies exposed to the vengeance of the Arabs, who ever
since 1832 had been rallying their forces around Abd-el-Kader in the province
of Oran. The disaster of the French army at the Macta (June 26, 1835), which
made the fortune of the Emir at the expense of General Trezel, was not the
effect of an unfortunate attempt on the part of the French to extend their
domain, but the result of a decisive effort on the part of Abd-el-Kader,
encouraged by their inaction, to drive them into the sea. A regular war was
necessary to repair the consequences of this pacific policy. On the morrow of
the day on which the Opposition had demanded from the Ministry an explanation
as to the excessive number of troops maintained in Africa, Marshal Clauzel was
sent as Governor to Algeria with Bugeaud and the eldest son of the King. Of
sheer necessity, as a result of successes which were always incomplete against
an enemy who refused to be cast down by defeat—the victories of Clauzel (December
4,1835) at Mascara and the Habra, at Tlemcen (January 13, 1836), and that of
Bugeaud on the banks of the Sikkah (July, 1836)—the conquest of the interior of
Algeria had to be undertaken, a costly achievement and one interrupted
504 Colonial policy before and under Mole.
[1835-7
by many
surprises, such as those which happened to General d’Arlanges, massacres, and
sudden attacks. In vain did Guizot struggle to hide the situation from
Parliament, until February, 1836, and even after he returned to power in
September. Thiers meanwhile had declared himself the apostle of Algerian
colonisation, and had approved a system of absolute domination, the complete
scheme of government proposed by Clauzel. The policy of obstinate concealment
pm-sued by the Ministers led to the serious check which the Marshal sustained
before Constantine (November 24,1836), in consequence of an enterprise
attempted with inadequate resources; and the full extent of the problem was at
length made clear to the country.
To Mole
belongs the credit of having worked out the solution, with a sense of
proportion, a fine grasp of possibilities, a knowledge of men, which secured
success. Between those theorists who aimed at limiting the colony to the coast,
and those who followed Thiers and Clauzel in wishing to proceed at once to the
conquest of the country, to rival Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition, and to
satisfy the desire of the country for glory and military achievements, the
Ministry adopted a middle course. While General Bugeaud, in obedience to his
orders to limit operations on the side of Oran, made over the interior of the
province to Abd-el-Kader by the Treaty of the Tafna (June 1,1837), all the
other African generals, Valee, Perregaux, Trezel, and the Duke of Nemours,
united at the head of 15,000 men for an attack on Constantine. The taking of
this town by assault cost Danremont, the Governor-General, his life (October
12-13, 1837), but won for French domination an entire province, which was soon
linked to that of Algiers by the occupation of Biban, or the Iron Gates.
This was no
longer a restricted occupation, such as had long been promised to the
intractable enemies of colonisation by hesitating and timid Ministers, content
to regard the maintenance of French power in Algiers as a fault to be excused
and forgiven. And, although the attack on Constantine was a glorious
retribution, a great effort of conquest, it was not intended to cancel the
Treaty of the Tafna, to initiate an unrestricted African war, to satisfy
national aspirations by any great and hasty enterprises, or to revive with
Thiers and the survivors of the Empire the Napoleonic traditions. The
Government did better; it had calculated the importance and the cost of the
undertaking; it approached the problem for the first time with prudence and
resolution, and framed a policy and a system of colonisation. French Africa was
thenceforward a reality.
Eventually it
was to Marshal Vatee, the conqueror of Constantine, that Mote entrusted the
task of consolidating the results of his victory. Instead of conquering he was
to organise. “I desire the French to restore Roman Africa. I will endeavour to
found cities, to open ways of communication. The army shall no longer aimlessly
scour the
1837-9] Completion of the conquest of
Algeria.-Belgitm. 505
provinces....I
shall go slowly, but I will never retreat. Wherever, at my bidding, France sets
her foot, I shall form lasting stations. The cities which already exist I shall
develop.” This proud declaration had the approval of the Minister; and the
firmness of the Ministry in its turn triumphed over the opposition of a
Parliament hitherto half-comprehending or half-instructed, and obtained (June,
1838) all the necessary credits. When, at the end of 1839, the crisis was
provoked by the resentment of the Arabs, and their religious leader,
Abd-el-Kader, made his last effort, the work achieved during two well-spent
years of truce seemed to the French people precious enough to justify the
sacrifices of men and money, which finally completed and crowned the conquest
of Algeria.
Such were the
results of the policy of internal pacification, aided by the maintenance of
peace abroad. That peace Thiers had wished to break in August, 1836; Mole,
summoned to succeed him, had helped the King to preserve it. Louis-Philippe, to
facilitate his pacific task, had drawn near to Austria. While Mettemich, with
the help of Prussia, held in check the ambitions of Russia aroused by the
Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, and while the Tsar Nicholas, confronted by this
opposition, “entrenched himself amid his ice,” France, by refraining from
intervention beyond the Pyrenees, defeated the schemes of Palmerston. Civil war
pursued its course in Spain, without being complicated by a European war.
Espartero put an end to the civil war (1837-8), which in Portugal also was
subsiding in consequence of the triumph of the Radicals. The peninsula ceased
to be the tourney- ground of European Powers, and France, whose abstention had
brought about this improved state of affairs, herself secured the benefit;
Palmerston was eluded, and the provocations of continental Courts ceased.
All round the
French frontiers, irritating disputes were being settled according to the
wishes of Louis-Philippe. It was at this time that Belgium became definitely
independent. Ever since 1832 the King of Holland, obliged by the Anglo-French
compact to submit to the loss of all that he had won in 1815, had been
obstinately awaiting, with his army ready to march, the hour of revenge. He
thought he had found his jpportunity in 1838, when a misunderstanding arose
which divided France and England. Suddenly, posing as one who submitted to the
peaceful desires of the Dutch, he offered, what he had hitherto always refused,
his recognition of Belgian independence. But he demanded the immediate
evacuation of Luxemburg and of Limburg, which the Belgians had retained in
spite of the Treaty of 1832, but with the consent of the Powers. In these
circumstances the European Powers forgot the value set by the Belgian people
upon these provinces, which had been associated from the beginning with their
struggle for independence, the hope of retaining them which they had been
allowed during six years to foster, and on the
ofher hand
the obstinacy of the King of Holland in not accepting the decision of Europe.
The Powers supported, almost with violence, the King’s pretensions, at the risk
of provoking anger and opposition at Brussels, and perhaps the fresh war on
which Holland reckoned. Prussian troops occupied Luxemburg, while at the
Conference of London, which met in the month of June, 1838, Palmerston demanded
from the Belgians immediate submission.
Yet again
France acted as mediator, relying no longer on England, who seemed willing to
reopen the whole question, but upon King Leopold of Belgium, who was exposed to
innumerable embarrassments. Aided by the diplomacy of Louis-Philippe and his
Ministers, this sovereign, at the beginning of 1889, obtained from the
Conference a reduction of the debt charged by the Treaty of 1832 on the
revenues of Belgium, in exchange for the disputed provinces which he on his
part induced his subjects to abandon. The settlement of April 19, 1839, made
Belgium an independent State, and, though with reduced territories, freed the
Belgians from the last vestiges of control by their neighbours. France
peacefully consolidated the victory which she had won in the cause of liberty.
She obtained
an analogous result in Italy: in order to force Louis- Philippe to withdraw his
troops from Ancona, where they had been stationed ever since the Ministry of
Casimir Perier, Mettemich finally made up his mind in September, 1838, to
withdraw the Austrian regiments which had been occupying the Legations since
1832. “The occupation of Ancona,” said Mole to the Chambers, “has never been anything
but a demonstration to prove that France would not permit any Power to obtain
decisive preponderance in Italy.” Austria retired; Italy was free up to the
frontier of the provinces that had been assigned to Austria in 1815. The
demonstration had no longer any object. It had had its effect. The Ministry
recalled the troops from Ancona.
In Greece,
while the English and the Russians, rivals for supremacy, were exciting against
each other the rival parties of Mavrocordato and Metaxas, France continued to
support the efforts of the new King Otto of Bavaria. Her policy gave valuable
assistance to the Greek patriots of the middle class who were collecting round
Colettis, the national Minister, with the desire of creating for their infant
nation, by means of agricultural labour, trade, and education, resources and a
life of its own, and securing to Greece a material and moral position in
harmony with its independence and newly-acquired rank as one of the States of
Europe.
Throughout
the whole of Europe French diplomacy in 1839 succeeded in forcing upon
individuals and States a peaceful settlement which maintained more surely than
the assertion of a victorious Liberalism the equilibrium necessary for the free
development of national energies. Mote could say on January 14,1837, at the
tribune
of the
Chamber, “ We detest absolute rule, and pity the nations who know their own
strength so little as to submit to it.” And yet he deserved the encomium of the
Courts of Vienna, Berlin, and St Petersburg, that “ the King of France had had
no better Minister for seven years.” He was pardoned, in virtue of the peace
which he procured for Europe, for his sympathies with liberty. And he ought to
have been pardoned in Paris, by virtue of the services rendered to the cause of
free peoples, for the sacrifices which he made in the cause of European peace.
The
Opposition, on the other hand, which had fiercely combated the Mol£ Ministry
for two years, chose this very ground of peaceful policy for their main attack
and overthrew him. It was all but fatal. The chief fault which could be imputed
to Mole was that he had been summoned to power by Louis-Philippe at a moment
when the Thiers Ministry, though in disagreement with the King as to the
general trend of foreign policy, had not suffered a defeat in Parliament. The
second accusation was that he had been retained at the expense of Guizot, who
appeared in the eyes of all to be the true leader of the majority. At the
critical moment, when the King opposed his will to that of the Parliamentary
party, Mote came forward in politics as the obedient servant, as was even
declared by some, the lackey of Louis-Philippe. The complete accord which grew
up between them on all points of home and foreign policy, the praises which on
every occasion were showered on Mote at the Tuileries, definitely attached this
character to his Ministry. The war declared against him in the Chambers was
aimed at the King and his “ personal government.” The struggle was primarily
between the sovereign and the men who had in 1830 established him. One young
Doctrinaire, Duvergier de Hauranne, did not hesitate to state as much in
writing; while another older man with experience of the past, Bertin de Vaux,
said to his friends in the Journal des Dibats: “I have for you as much
friendship as I had for Chateaubriand. But I will not follow you in opposition.
I will not begin again to undermine the Government that I wish to found. Once
is enough.” He was right: it almost seemed that the 221 deputies were ready to
take up once more against the monarchy of July the . arms which they had borne
against the Bourbons.
As a matter
of fact, Louis-Philippe was not Charles X, nor was Mole Polignac. The personal
policy of the King at home, in the form which it had assumed owing to the
alienation of the leaders of the Parliamentary party, might appear to resemble
the imperative will of the Bourbons. But, at bottom, Mote’s efforts were rather
exerted in favour of liberty, pacification, and conciliation. If the
Doctrinaires reproached him with having surrendered to the Republicans, the men
of the Left, from Thiers to Dupin and Odilon Barrot, were indignant at the
concessions to the Catholics which Guizot and his friends approved. The obvious
inability of
the different parties in Parliament to formulate the same criticisms against
the Ministry and the King was the best proof that neither one nor the other was
really imperilling the rights of the Chambers. The single aim of the
Parliamentary party was to defeat and to bring to reason this obstinate King,
who on October 3, 1837, authorised Mole to dissolve the Chambers in order to
establish a new majority. The general election of November 4 did not, however,
decide the issue.
Thiers,
through the medium of the younger members of the two parties, Remusat,
Duvergier de Hauranne, and Jaubert, offered to the Doctrinaires, Guizot and
Duchatel, oblivion of their mutual quarrels and diverse aims, and an alliance.
This understanding was in sight at the beginning of 1838; by the energy of
Duvergier de Hauranne the more advanced group of the Left, the Third Party, the
friends of Odilon Barrot and Dupin, were drawn in by the month of June. The
treaty was sealed on January 18, 1839, on the occasion of the discussion of the
Address. The understanding had become “ the Coalition,” a term of war
appropriate to the strife of disappointed or unbridled ambitions. Formed as it
was against the King, it attacked his special work, his system of foreign
policy, firm without aggressiveness, pacific without feebleness. This ground of
attack was the only one on which the two sections of the Coalition, the one
more attached to order and the other to liberty, could sink their differences
and unite. Should not all parties agree to defend the national honour if it was
proved that the King through an exaggerated fear of war, and his Minister
through servility, were sacrificing the dignity of France at the bidding of
Europe or of the sovereigns? Thus without respite, in the press and at the
tribune, Thiers, Guizot, even the Due de Broglie, Villemain, Odilon Barrot,
DucMtel, Mauguin, on the Republican side, and Berryer on the Legitimist side,
vied with each other in discovering the most startling proofs of this alleged
betrayal.
If France
advised the Belgians to evacuate Luxemburg in order to avoid a war which would
again imperil their independence; if she set in Greece the example of
abstaining from all intrigues which would have hindered the development of this
country by its own efforts; if she evacuated Ancona with the satisfaction of
seeing the Legations evacuated by Austria; if she broke her association with
England so soon as England under Palmerston began to adopt an aggressive
Liberal policy—all these were so many heads of the Parliamentary indictment
against the King. What would really have been necessary to content them, what
they meant by the maintenance of the national honour, was one of those
manifestations of force abroad which Chateaubriand had urged in the time of the
Restoration. By such means, after having reproached and combated the party of “
movement ” in 1830 and 1831, they now themselves hoped to win popularity.
Herein lay
the danger of these attacks for the monarchy, from this time forward reduced to
a single-handed contest against the passionate desire of the French to resume
the great role which the armies of the Convention and the Empire had for some
time played in Europe. In vain had Louis-Philippe flattered himself that by the
conquests in Algeria he was offering a glorious compensation to the nation for
the peace he imposed upon them. In vain too did he hope to content them by
exhibiting in the Museum of Versailles the pageant of their military glory. Led
astray by the Napoleonic legend which spread further day by day, enamoured of
the heroic traditions of the Convention, moved by the brilliant feat of arms
at Navarino, the French nation, especially the younger generation of every
party, Orleanists, Legitimists like Berryer, Republicans like Louis Blanc,
united in demanding a less reasonable Government, one that should show itself
haughty and strong in the face of Europe even to the point of rashness.
Of all the
battles which marked this embittered warfare between Mole’s Cabinet and the
Chambers, the most dramatic was the struggle provoked at the beginning of 1839
by the discussion of the Address to the King. It lasted for nearly a month in
the two Chambers, from December 26,1838, to January 19,1839. It was an
uninterrupted attack upon the Ministry, in which all the conspicuous talent of
the Opposition, extreme Right and extreme Left alike, took part. Thiers spoke
thirteen times, Guizot twelve. Mole fought his single-handed fight with obstinacy
and skill. The angry feelings aroused by this resistance became more and more
acute. Towards the end of the struggle, when Mole spoke of his fatigue, he was
met with cries from the Opposition of “Die, dog,” as if he had been a hunted
criminal. However, he kept his head up to the end and won the day, but only by
13 votes, a narrow and precarious majority.
The last
battle could not now be waged in Parliament, which was divided into two parties
of almost equal strength, too much committed to the mutual struggle for it to
be possible to boring about defections from either side. The opinion of Mole
was that it must be waged before the nation, who would herself in the last
instance act as arbiter of the contest. He persuaded the King to dissolve the
Chamber on February 2, 1839, and to summon the elector’s for March 2. In
response to the appeal of all the party leaders^ united ostensibly against the
Ministry but in reality against the monarchy, whose unconstitutional designs
and concessions abroad were denounced in high-sounding manifestos by Thiers,
Guizot, Odilon Barrot, Gamier-Pages, and Berryer, the country seethed with
resentment. All witnesses agree that no such electoral fever had been seen
since 1830. How could France fail to be moved on hearing that all these
deputies, strongly opposed as they had been after the days of July to all
manifestation of French power and aspirations abroad, the founders of a
monarchy expressly formed to their
own design to
combat these tendencies, now confessed their error, and were denouncing a King
who refused to follow them in this return to the spirit of propagandism and
national pride ? The verdict of France was in fact unmistakable; by a large
majority the country declared in favour of the converted Parliamentary party
against the King, and against the pacific policy to which he was wedded.
Thus, the
defeat which the Coalition inflicted upon the Mole Ministry was all the more
grave in that it was in fact inflicted by the nation itseif on the Orleans
monarchy. “ The throne of July, a throne not raised by my hands, has been
attacked, I will not say shaken,” wrote Royer- Collard, the old master of the Doctrinaires,
blaming the conduct of his disciples. And Beranger on his part said (March 28,
1839), “ The Coalition has just struck a terrible blow at the throne; and the
strange thing is that the monarchists have had the principal share in its abasement.”
Lamartine, one of Mole’s few allies in this battle, the poet- statesman who had
already proclaimed the dangers of the Napoleonic legend, declared later, in
1848, that this crisis was the prelude to the revolution of that year.
In fact, it
did not injure the monarchy alone. The authority of Louis-Philippe had been the
bond of union between two very different parties, the Restoration deputies, who
had resigned themselves with difficulty to the fall of the legitimate monarchy,
and the men of the National, Thiers, Laffitte, and Odilon Barrot, who were
determined champions of .the sovereignty of the people. When they came to seek
other conditions of union, no longer to be found in the monarchy of their
choice, but in a fighting coalition against the dynasty, the split came at
once. The difference of their aims, the clashing of their ambitions, became
apparent, and their impotence for common action was disclosed. This was the
explanation of the ministerial interregnum which followed upon the fall of
Mole, and lasted from March 8 to May 14, 1839. For two months Marshal Soult,
whom Louis-Philippe had called to power in obedience to the people’s will, was
unable to form a Ministry, in face of the rival claims of statesmen who had
united against the monarchy, but in other respects were fundamentally opposed
to one another. “ The Crown,” Odilon Barrot, perhaps the most ardent of the
opponents of Louis-Philippe, declared in public, “ has conceded every point,
material and personal. Thus it is not our institutions that have failed the
country. It is the institutions which lack men.” A striking observation was
made by the Duchess of Dino, the niece of Talleyrand, and thus trained in a
good school: “ It is a tempered form of revolution, but it will not be that
long.” The monarchy of July seemed to be nearing its fall; and Europe began to
ask if the King and those parties who were powerless to govern would not be
forced to allow the nation to decide, not merely the destinies of a Ministry,
but its own fate.
One last
blunder on the part of the Republicans was to delay this
1839]
Interregnum.—Marshal
Soult. 511
reckoning,
and to repair the errors of the monarchists by opening for them a fresh lease
of credit with the nation. In the extreme section of the democratic party were
irreconcilable advocates of violent action and of propagandism by physical
force: a Creole from Guadeloupe, Barbes, a man with the temperament of an
apostle, a Socialist, find a Christian, zealous to the point of courting
martyrdom; Blanqui, one of the combatants of July, resolved on class warfare;
and Martin Bernard, a logician and an admirer of Robespierre. These men banded
together after 1835 to reorganise the secret societies, and collected, in the
artisan society of the “Seasons,” the elements of a democratic insurrection
ready at their call. The paralysis of government, which had followed the fall
of Mole’s Ministry, seemed to them, in spite of the contrary opinion held by
the Republican leaders, the opportunity for revenge upon the middle class and
the monarchy, enfeebled as they were by their differences. Uncertainty as to
the future suspended industrial activity; and it seemed an easy task to rouse
the unemployed to action. On April 4, when the Chamber, elected on March 2, met
without a Ministry and without a royal speech, a tempestuous mob, with shouts
and hisses, mocked the helpless Parliamentary party. The tumult was prolonged
for three or four days in spite of numerous arrests. A month later, the evil
still continuing, the rioters seemed assured of success. Blanqui believed it;
on May 12 he called a meeting in the Rue Saint- Martin of the members of the
“Seasons,” distributed to them arms which had been seized at a gunsmith’s, and
attempted with them to occupy the Prefecture of Police and the Hotel de Ville.
Mere surprise at a disturbance which public opinion had believed impossible,
allowed the insurrection to gain a momentary success. But by the evening of the
same day the forces in the Rue Greneta had triumphed over the insurgents.
Barbes was a prisoner, and Martin Bernard and Blanqui in flight.
On the very
next day, Marshal Soult had managed to get together a list of Ministers to
submit to the King. The Parliamentary party was harshly cured of its divisions
by this threat of insurrection—divisions which were beyond doubt more dangerous
than the insurrection itself to the rule by which, after all, they profited.
Fear and self-interest led them, through terror of the people, back to the
King. Doctrinaire deputies like Duchatel and Villemain, partisans of Mole, like
Cunin- Gridaine, members of the Left Centre, or third party, Passy and Dufaure,
united in separating themselves from their leaders, Mote, Thiers, or Guizot,
all too muc'h compromised by their recent struggles, and offered themselves to
Louis-Philippe without conditions (May 13, 1839). They accorded to him that
almost uncontrolled direction of foreign policy, his assumption of which had
been their chief complaint against him. The Coalition, aware of its mistakes,
finally laid hostility aside. It formed with the King a new contract which,
when closely examined, was not so advantageous as that of 1831. The share of
the Crown, which they
had desired
to reduce to nothing, was thenceforth more desirable than their own.
However, it
was not within the power of the King, nor of his Ministers, nor of their
majority, to calm so quickly the passions which had been aroused in the countiy
by the pao’fic policy of Louis-Philippe, and the boastful appeals of the
deputies and their journals: that fever of national pride so easy to provoke,
so difficult to allay. It had needed two years to appease the “ movement ” of
1830, whose memories were revived by the “movement” of 1839. And, just as in
1831, a great European dispute arose to complicate the situation.
It was not
this time, as with the Belgian question, an affair which England, in pursuit of
a policy of peace, could help the King of France to settle. It was no question
of a people to set free, of a mission for propagandist France to fulfil.
Palmerston, and, still more than he, Ponsonby, his agent at Constantinople, had
encouraged the Sultan Mahmud to declare war upon the Viceroy of Egypt, Mehemet
Ali (June 24, 1839). Palmerston’s conviction was that, if the Turks took
revenge on this too powerful vassal, England would gain an opportunity for
cancelling the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, which was too favourable to Russia.
Thus, it was England who provoked this crisis in the East.
Can it be
that Louis-Philippe and his Minister Soult, of whom Palmerston said at this time,
“ he is a treasure,” did not perceive at the first glance the real intentions
of England against the Viceroy ? Or was it not rather that they were tempted to
obtain by an understanding with England a position in the East which should
make the nation forget the resentments aroused by the Coalition, and the policy
of peace at all costs with which the monarchy had been reproached ? They took,
at any rate, a foremost part in diplomatic action definitely hostile to Russia.
The note of July 27, 1839, which was drawn up after the defeat of the Turks at
Nezib by the French ambassador to the Porte, Admiral Roussin, and which placed
Turkey under the protection of Europe, was “a European Convention intended to
replace the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi.” “ The true object of the agreement was
to restrain Russia, and to force her to handle affairs in the East as a matter
of common interest,” wrote Marshal Soult, proud of his lending part in this
diplomatic victory.
The awakening
was rude and painful. Russia, against whom alone the note of July had been
aimed by France, offered in revenge to join Palmerston in using that note as a
weapon against the Pasha of Egypt. Could not its phrase, the maintenance of the
integrity of the Ottoman Empire, cover the recapture from Mehemet Ali of Egypt
and Syria, regions tom from that Empire ? However, in order not to push matters
too far, the English Cabinet and the Whig leaders Holland and Russell consented
on October 14 not to make further demands upon the Pasha of Egypt, provided
that he withdrew his victorious armies from Syria.
Louis-Philippe,
for his part, could not at first bring himself to consent even to this. For
eight years past Mehemet Ali’s good fortune had appeared to the French, dupes
of a curious illusion and nurtured upon the Napoleonic legend, as a sudden and
glorious revival of conquering France. They grew warm on behalf of the Pasha of
Egypt, the conqueror who was at times as harsh to the Egyptians as to his
enemies, the intractable opponent of Greek liberty in 1827 and later of Belgian
independence. Since Mehemet Ali, with the assistance of Frenchmen, had taken up
the work of civilisation and conquest sketched out by Napoleon in Egypt, he
appeared, to the men of the Left especially, as a kind of Liberal Bonaparte, “a
new man,” as Louis Blanc said, “a son of his works, the chosen man of modem
revolutions.” Hatred of England, that tradition of the Revolution and of the
Empire, ran high in democratic circles at the end of 1839. Now that his system
of pacification was once more called in question, the King of the French had no
other course open to him than to summon to the Ministry Thiers, who had
proclaimed loudly to the country “as a matter of great patriotic interest, a
great question of the national honour,” the obligation to defend Egypt and
Mehemet Ali (March 1, 1840). The aims of Louis- Philippe, however, were the
same as when he had summoned to power the Laffitte Ministry in November, 1831.
He merely gave, as he then did, a pledge, an apparent satisfaction, to the “ party
of movement ”; but he reserved to himself, in his own words, the right “of not
unmuzzling the tiger,” when he should have gained the time necessary for
calming the passions of the populace. The manoeuvre was once more destined to
succeed: at the end of 1840 Thiers resigned and France, by accepting the
Convention of the Straits, bowed to the judgment of Europe given against
Mehemet Ali. The Orleans Monarchy, assured, for a fresh period almost equal in
length to the first, of peace abroad, and of the support at home of the
Conservative deputies, who with Guizot repented of their former campaigns, had
successfully weathered a crisis as formidable for France as for the monarchy
itself.
Men of
letters and writers have never played so great a part in the political life of
France as during this period. From 1830 to 1840 they were the sole and
undisputed guides of the country which was governed even after the revision of
the Charter by a leisured and cultivated middle-class: ministers, ambassadors,
deputies, controversialists, or orators, they divided their time between public
activity and their literary works, which were also for the most part a form of
political action.
In the first
rank is Guizot, historian and philosopher, whose erudite researches are always
subordinated to his views on the development of humanity and of France, as set
forth in his studies on The Revolution in England (1828), on Civilisation m
Europe and in France (1830), and Washington. Near to him comes one whose part
in politics began
oiuch later,
though he was occupied from 1833 to 1835 in discovering the theory of
democracy, in order to apply it to French society—Alexis de Tocqueville,
magistrate and deputy, author of Democracy in America, which almost marked an
epoch. Then followed the narrative historians: Thiers, famous at thirty years
of age (1827) for his History of the French, Revolution, who added to the early
successes of a brilliant political career by the reputation achieved by his
historical work on the Consulate and the Empire (1840-8); his friend Mignet,
more than once his associate in active politics, Keeper of the Archives and
ambassador, who passed from his French Revolution (1824) to the study, by aid
of documents, of the Spanish Succession (1836) and showed the full range of his
research in his Notices and Historical Memoirs; then Henri Martin, who began in
1837 the History of France in twenty volumes; and Augustin Thierry, who
diligently traced the origin of the French middle-class.
Beside the
historians stand the critics and historians of literature. Villemain, whose
lectures in 1828 were considered as intellectual events, deputy and peer of
France, and twice member of the Ministry, as well as permanent secretary of the
French Academy under the monarchy of July, developed, in accordance with the
teaching of Madame de Stael who inspired him, the idea that “ literature is the
expression of society,” and was himself a type of the writers of his time. Of
the same class, also, were Saint-Marc Girardin, and later Nisard; in philosophy
Victor Cousin began to exercise in the University and over French thought a
sort of leadership which at first justified itself by the extended range of its
enquiries, but became by degrees narrow and rigid by the habit of authority and
its abuse for political ends: Jouffroy, his pupil and friend, at one time as
orator and journalist absorbed in the affairs of France, at another engaged in
passionate and painful researches into the destinies of the human soul.
Eloquence was the distinctive note of all these men; moving in a society of
which their speech was the inspiration and the rule, they were too apt, when
carried away by their own eloquence and success, to believe that the July
monarchy could be set as an ideal before the nation; they were even ready to
impose it upon the nation. They forgot what the Revolution of 1830 had done for
the thought and literature of France.
The great
poetic impulse, which, beginning with Chateaubriand, had under the Restoration
given to France a harvest of masterpieces, seemed at first threatened by the
fall of the monarchy and the triumph of Liberalism. “ All these poets of the
old monarchy and of Catholicism, Chateaubriand, Lamennais, Lamartine, Hugo, and
Vigny, are like birds whose tree has been felled, and who know not where to
perch.” Chateaubriand withdrew to the salon of Madame Recamier, to write and
to read there his Memoires (Toutre tombe. Retreat was not possible to his
disciples at the moment when they were greeted by the smiles of victory in the
contest waged by Romanticism against the Classical School. When
the
Revolution of July broke out, Victor Hugo had just “ made in the theatre his
insurrection and his barricades.” It seemed to all these young writers, who had
already entered into their heritage of glory, that liberty, proclaimed upon the
ruins of the monarchy which they had celebrated, offered them, nay rather
imposed upon them, the task of instructing and guiding the nation. In the
preface to the Feuilles d’Automne (1830) Victor Hugo sketched for himself this
programme. He reasserted it in the Chants du Criptiscule (1835), and still more
emphatically in Rayons et les Ombres (1840), where the poet depicted himself as
the star of the people. But it was chiefly by his dramatic works, at the apogee
of the Romantic drama, “ of that drama,” he said, “which is of necessity
democratic”—in Marion Delorme (1831), Le roi s'amuse (1832), Lucrece Borgia,
Marie Tudor (1833), Angelo (1835), and Ruy Bias (1838)—that Victor Hugo gained
the ascendancy which he held over the public and his fellow-writers. Lamartine,
on the other hand, who had preceded him in glory and in the cult of the
monarchy, sought a career in actual politics. In Jocelyn (1836), the Chute (Tun
Ange (1838), and the Recueillements poetiques (1839), he remained a poet,
though he had abandoned the self-revelation of lyric verse, in order to attempt
a mighty epic on human destiny; but so early as 1832 he confessed that he was
“too full of political ideas to write verses,” and in 1837 he said farewell to
poetry in order to become an orator, a leader of men, and eventually President
and Head of the French democracy.
Alfred de
Vigny, more than ever a poet in his solitude, shut himself off from his
fellow-men: surrendering himself to the devouring passion of discovering on
their behalf and revealing to them in symbolical poems of austere beauty, and
in poignant dramas like Chatterton (1835), the secret of their sufferings and
of their destinies.
There was
certainly a wide gulf between these aspirations and the middle-class society
that governed in the name of Louis-Philippe and contented itself with the ideal
of power and wealth which its leaders proposed to it or procured for it. The
impulse of the Romantic School, victorious as it was, seemed to dash itself
against this rock in vain. In the early years following the Revolution of July,
with Victor Hugo as leader of the chorus, who seemed to have succeeded
Chateaubriand, Romantic literature still produced numerous masterpieces: among
novels there were Notre Dame de Paris (1831), in which Victor Hugo recalled to
life the Middle Ages; the tales of adventure of Alexandre Dumas; the lyrical
confessions of one of Rousseau’s most illustrious pupils, George Sand, Indiana,
Lilia, Valentine (1832-3), Mauprat (1837); in drama, the plays of Victor Hugo
and Alfred de Vigny, and those of Dumas, no less celebrated at the time, Antony
(1831), the Tour de Nesle, Charles VII (1832), Kean (1836), Mile de Belle Isle
(1839); and finally in history, the beginning of the greatest effort after
light, poetry, and truth, which has been consecrated to the study of France,
the first volumes of the History
of
France by Michelet, that noble attempt to reflect a nation’s life by the aid of
science (1833-43).
But in other
works, and with other writers, the great opposition between the rigime of July
and the wishes of the younger generation of literary men was apparent in the
anathemas hurled at the apologists of this regime, Guizot and Villemain, and
the cries of anger and disillusionment of the younger men. “The generation,
which succeeded to literary life after 1830, has had a youth of deplorable
sadness,” Maxime du Camp wrote later; and Flaubert at twenty years of age
raised the same complaint. Alfred de Musset was the chief spokesman of this
feeling: from his Confession d’un Enfant du Siecle (1836) and his Nuits
(1835-40) to his exquisite dramatic works, which are also in their way a
confession. Balzac was the avenger of the younger generation, when in his
unrestrained romanticism he used the novel to depict the bourgeoisie of July,
laborious, servile, desirous of riches and power, amassing wealth by commerce
and industry, and found among them the types for his Comcdie Humaine, “ taking
hold upon contemporary society,” as Victor Hugo said, “ and robbing some of
their illusions, others of their hope.” Finally of this “generation so full of
promise in 1830, and so undeceived,” Sainte-Beuve made himself the historian,
after having written in 1834 his novel Volupte. To understand this period and
its uncertainties we must read again his articles published in 1833 on La
Litterature de ce temps-ci, those in 1840 and 1843, Dix ans apres en
litterature, and his Chroniques parisiennes. “While the positive party of the
century,” he wrote, “pursues its progress in industry and material advancement,
the so-called spiritual party is unable to counteract it. It is a magnificent
rout, a forced retreat of all the talents.” And Sainte-Beuve shared in this
rout; he went to Lausanne to write the Histoire de Port-Royal, sought for
success abroad, consoled himself for the present by the study of the past,
wherein he was to find employment for his rare gifts of observation of human
souls, and to become the foremost critic of his time.
Thus in all
departments, poetry, drama, romance, critical history, parliamentary or
religious eloquence, the magnificent literary activity, the true Renaissance of
French intellect which had conferred glory upon the Restoration, pursued its
course. It became, however, more difficult to recognise its direction and
tendency in the conflict of rival influences, literary, social, and political,
among which each was trying to find his path, and endeavouring to predict or to
influence the future in his own way. By the Revolution of 1830, literature had been
mixed up more than ever with party struggles; in the regime of July it found no
firm or sufficient foothold.
THE LOW
COUNTRIES.
Few of the oppressed nationalities had
suffered more under the stern yoke of Napoleon than the Dutch, but the old
spirit of independence had not been crushed out. Exactly a month after the
overthrow of the conqueror at Leipzig, risings took place at Amsterdam,
November 15 and 16, and at the Hague, November 17,1813, against the foreign
domination. The French garrison was weak and unable to offer any effectual
resistance ; the French officials were driven out and the symbols of French
authority destroyed. A declaration of independence was publicly made at the
Hague, November 21; and a provisional Government under Gisbert Charles van
Hoogendorp and van der Duyn van Maasdam was set up in the name of the Prince of
Orange. The Prince, who had been an exile for eighteen years, landed, November
30, at Scheveningen, and was received by the entire population with joyous acclamations.
On the following day at Amsterdam, he received the offer of the sovereignty of
the land, and accepted it under the style of William I, Sovereign Prince of the
Netherlands. The assumption of the title William I, instead of William VI,
while recalling the name of William the Liberator, marked a new departure. It
signified that the old Republic, with its cumbrous and unworkable system of
government, its Stadholders, and burgher-regents, was for ever swept away. The
words Oranje boven (up with Orange) were on every one’s lips, no longer as a
party cry, but as the expression of national trust in the representative of the
famous House, which had played so great a part in the country’s history; and
sovereign powers were conferred upon the Prince under the sole condition that
he should in due course promulgate a free Constitution.
William
Frederick of Nassau-Dietz was a man not unworthy of the confidence reposed in
him; and his personality exercised a great influence upon the whole course of
events recorded in this chapter. Endowed with a clear understanding and
considerable ability, he had, during an exile in which he had learnt and
suffered much, received an excellent training. His mind was richly stored with
knowledge of many kinds; and he had more particularly an intimate acquaintance
with the history and laws of his country. He was an unwearied worker; and to
such a
518 William of Nassau.—The Fundamental Law.
[1813-4
point did he
carry his love of examining all the details of public business with his own
eyes that he mistrusted others. But this close attention to details often made
him lose sight of main issues; and he was rather a great administrator than a
great statesman. He had moreover a firm belief in his own powers of insight and
of judgment, and was in consequence obstinate in his adherence to the opinions
he formed, and easily irritated by opposition. Simple in his habits, a burgher
and man of business rather than a soldier, keenly interested in commercial and
industrial matters, frugal, easily accessible, he was a genuine Hollander. But
the very qualities which won for him the love of his subjects in the northern
Netherlands were to be hindrances to him, as will be seen later, in his real
efforts to acquire the confidence and affection of the people of the Belgian
provinces, over whom by the will of the Great Powers he was soon to be called
upon to rule.
William, in
accordance with the condition under which he had assumed the sovereignty, at
once appointed (December 21) a Commission to draw up a Fundamental Law
(Grond-wet). There were fourteen Commissioners—six for Holland, two for
Gelderland, and one each for Zeeland, Utrecht, Overyssel, Friesland, Groningen,
and North Brabant. Their president, van Hoogendorp, was the author of the
provisional draft, which formed the basis for discussion. Their labours were
completed by February 14, 1814. The Fundamental Law was now presented for the
approval of six hundred notables selected by the Government. This body of
notables, summoned to meet at Amsterdam, March 28, approved the proposed Law by
448 votes to 26. The Fundamental Law thus adopted consisted of 146 articles.
Its principal provisions may be summarised thus:—The succession to the
sovereignty was to be hereditary by right of primogeniture; in the hands of the
sovereign were placed the executive and a considerable legislative power, the
power of peace and war, the control over finance, and the administration of
fleets and armies. The old sovereign rights of provinces and municipalities
were transferred in their entirety to the Sovereign Prince, nothing being left
to them but the administration of local affairs. The rights of the people were
guaranteed by the creation of a representative assembly, bearing the
time-honoured name of the States General, and consisting of 55 members
nominated for three years by the provincial States. The States General
possessed, like the Sovereign, the power to initiate legislation and a veto;
and to them all extraordinary expenditure had annually to be submitted. The Judiciary
was made independent; and equal rights were guaranteed to the members of all
religious persuasions. The entire care of public instruction was given to the
Government. There was no responsible Ministry, no jury, no liberty of the
Press. It will thus be seen that the authority possessed by the Sovereign under
the Fundamental Law of 1814 was to a large extent autocratic.
This erection
of the old Republic of the United Provinces into a
I814] The United Netherlands.—The Eight Articles.
619
unified State
under the sovereignty of the Prince of Orange had not merely been received with
entire approval by the Allied monarchs, but had suggested to them the creation
of a larger Netherland State, which might serve as an effective barrier to
French ambition in north-western Europe. The idea of a union of the entire Low
Countries was, on the initiative of Lord Castlereagh, first considered at
Chaumont (February, 1814), and assumed practical shape in the Treaty of Paris
(May 30). Article 6 of that treaty contains the provision: “ Holland placed
under the sovereignty of the .House of Orange shall receive an increase of
territory.” What this meant is made clear in a secret article annexed to the
treaty:—“the establishment of a just equilibrium in Europe demanding that Holland
be constituted so as to be in a position to maintain its independence by its
own resources, the countries comprised between the sea, the frontiers of France
as defined by the present treaty, and the Meuse, shall be united in perpetuity
to Holland.” The suggestion that the Belgic provinces were to be added to
Holland as “ un accroissement de territoire'" was, to say the least,
impolitic, and could not fail to give rise to needless irritation.
The next step
was taken at the Conference of London, June 20,
1814, when the representatives of the Allied
sovereigns drew up what are known as the Eight Articles. They were not made
public until a year later, but they were submitted to the Prince of Orange,
who, on July 21, in his capacity of Sovereign Prince, accepted them. These
momentous Eight Articles, which defined the conditions of the proposed union
between the northern and southern Netherlands, run as follows:—1. The union
shall be intimate and complete, so that the two countries shall form only a
single State, to be governed by the Fundamental Law already established in
Holland, which by mutual consent shall be modified according to the
circumstances. 2. There shall be no change in those articles of the Fundamental
Law, which assure to all religious cults equal protection and privileges, and
guarantee the admissibility of all citizens, whatever be their religious creed,
to public offices and dignities. 3. The Belgian provinces shall be in a fitting
manner represented in the States General, whose sittings, in time of peace,
shall be held by turns in a Dutch and a Belgian town. 4. All the inhabitants of
the Netherlands thus having equal constitutional rights, they shall have equal
claim to all commercial and other rights of which their circumstances allow, without
any hindrance or obstruction being imposed on any to the profit of others. 5.
Immediately after the union the provinces and towns of Belgium shall be
admitted to the commerce and navigation of the Colonies of Holland upon the
same footing as the Dutch provinces and towns. 6. The debts contracted on the
one side by the Dutch, and on the other side by the Belgian provinces shall be
charged to the public chest of the Netherlands. 7. The expenses requisite for
the building and maintenance of the frontier fortresses of
the new State
shall be borne by the public chest as concerning the security and independence
of all the provinces of the whole nation. 8. The cost of the making and upkeep
of the dykes shall be at the charges of the districts more directly interested,
except in the case of an extraordinary disaster.
These
articles were accompanied by a Protocol, dated June 21, in which the Allied
Powers explain the reasons for their action. In this document they assert that
they desire to consult equally the particular interests of both Holland and
Belgium, with th§ view of bringing about the most perfect amalgamation
(amalgame) between the two countries, and that they are acting in respect of
Belgium in virtue of their right of conquest. They invite the Prince of Orange
to give his formal sanction to the union, to designate a provisional
Governor-General of Belgium, and to take steps in a liberal spirit of
conciliation to bring about the amalgamation desired.
The project
of union, as set forth in the Eight Articles, was largely the product of
British diplomacy, working in secret accord with the Prince of Orange. The
thoroughness of the understanding between the British and Dutch Governments was
evident from the terms of the Convention of London concluded between
Castlereagh and Fagel (August 18). By this treaty Great Britain restored to
Holland her Colonies that had been occupied since 1803 with the important
exceptions of the Cape of Good Hope, and of the Guiana Colonies, Essequibo,
Berbice, and Demerara. The cession of these possessions was the price paid for
Great Britain’s help in the accomplishment of the union with Belgium. Holland
had likewise to assent to the assumption by the new State of the heavy burden
of restoring the fortresses along the French frontier, which had been
dismantled by Joseph II. The goodwill of Great Britain, however, was
conclusively shown by her offer to contribute £3,000,000 towards the cost of
the fortifications.
It will have
been seen that the Belgic provinces had, on the ground that the French had been
expelled from this territory by the Allied forces, been treated by the Great
Powers throughout these transactions as a conquered country whose destinies
they could decide at will. The Austrian Government had no desire to recover an outlying
dependency exposed to French attack. It sought compensation elsewhere, and was
quite ready to support the proposal for the union of the northern and southern
Netherlands under the rule of the Prince of Orange. Pending the negotiations, a
provisional Government had been established at Brussels, at the head of which
was placed the Austrian Baron von Vincent, as Commissary of the Allied Powers
(May 5). On August 1, the Sovereign Prince, after his acceptance of the Eight
Articles of London, took over the government in the place of Vincent, pending
the final decision of the Congress of Vienna upon the boundaries and political
status of his new dominions. Many difficulties arose, and the decision
was still far
off, when the news of the return (March 8,1815) of Napoleon from Elba fell like
a thunderbolt on the ears of the wrangling diplo< matists. On March 16,
William issued a proclamation, in which he assumed the title of William I, King
of the Netherlands and Duke of Luxemburg, and called upon all his subjects to
unite in defending their common fatherland against the threatened danger. The
step met with general approval both in Holland and Belgium; the foreign Powers
did not delay to accept the accomplished fact; and, on May 23, the new kingdom
was officially recognised. The invasion of Belgium by Napoleon (June 15) gave
the Dutch and Belgian troops the opportunity of fighting side by side at Quatre
Bras and Waterloo under the command of the Prince of Orange. The youthful heir
to the new throne distinguished himself greatly by his conduct and courage, and
was wounded at Waterloo. Thus was the union cemented by blood shed in defence
of the common national independence; and the way was made smoother for the
settlement of the difficulties which confronted the King in the task of
bringing about the “amalgamation” of north and south.
These
difficulties were very real and very great. The incorporation of a country
containing 3,400,000 inhabitants—by way of “increase of territory”—with another
whose population amounted to barely 2,000,000 was on the face of it certain to
arouse the suspicion and resentment of the larger community. This would have
been the case, even had Belgium felt drawn towards Holland by the bonds of a
common language and political traditions, of religious sympathies, or even of
material interests. The northern Netherlands looked back upon two centuries of
vigorous independence, made glorious by rare displays of national energy and
achievement. The southern provinces during these centuries had had no history
of their own. They had passed from the rule of one distant foreign sovereign to
another, and had been assigned by the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to the
Spanish, by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) to the Austrian, Habsburgs “pour
servbr de barriere aux Provinces- Unies ” against French attacks. Such a
retrospect could scarcely fail to make the Dutchman regard the Belgian as,
politically, his inferior.
In speaking
thus it must, however, not be forgotten that the term “Belgian,” used for
convenience to signify an inhabitant of the southern Netherlands, does not
connote a people of common origin and language. The population of the Belgic
provinces is sharply divided into two portions—Flemish and Walloon. The
Flemish—in Flanders and the greater part of Brabant, forming about two-thirds
of the whole—speak a language differing little from Dutch; and they are in the
main of the same stock as the Zeelander and the Hollander, though with a larger
Celtic admixture. The Walloons—in Hainault, Namur, Liege—are mainly of Celtic
race and use a Romance dialect akin to French. In 1815, however, the
differences between Fleming and Walloon were to a large extent concealed
beneath a veneer of French culture and French manners.
522
[l815
Among the
upper and commercial classes no language but French was ever spoken; and, in
their dislike to Dutch supremacy, the Flemish Belgians took a kind of patriotic
pride in their borrowed speech, and for a time relegated their native tongue to
the level of a rustic patois. Nevertheless, the advantages to the Flemings and
Brabanters of the opening of the Scheldt to free navigation were so great that
a short time would in all probability have been sufficient to create a real feeling
of common nationality between them and their close kinsmen across the Dutch
frontier, had it not been for the divergence of their religious faith.
In the
southern Netherlands, and especially in Flanders, the policy pursued so
remorselessly by Philip II and Alva had fully effected its purpose; and after
two centuries and a half Belgium remained devotedly attached to the doctrines
of the Catholic Church. In the northern Netherlands, on the other hand, though
a Catholic minority was tolerated, the character both of the people and the
Government had since the days of William the Silent been moulded by adherence
to the sternest doctrines of Calvinism. To fuse two populations dominated by
such opposite and irreconcilable principles was a task presenting almost
insurmountable difficulties. In the north the nobles had long since, and the
Protestant clergy little by little, lost all controlling political power; but
in the south it was very different; here the priesthood wielded immense
influence and used it fearlessly and with astute skill, and could rely upon the
support of a strongly clerical nobility. There was no less striking a contrast
between Holland and Belgium in the sources of their national well-being and
prosperity. The Dutch were a seafaring and commercial people, dwelling in a
land for the most part artificially reclaimed from the ocean, with poor soil
and no natural products, and depending upon imports for the supply of the
necessaries of life. The Belgians before the Union had no sea-ports, but their
country was fertile and rich in mineral wealth, and they had thriven as a
nation of farmers and manufacturers. This clashing of material interests was,
however, as has been already shown, mitigated through the advantages which industrial
Belgium would enjoy under the terms of the Union by the freeing of the Scheldt
to shipping, the revival of Antwerp as a port, and liberty of access to the
Dutch colonial possessions.
The effective
union of the northern and southern provinces may be taken to date from the proclamation
of March 16, 1815, by which the Prince of Orange assumed the title of William
I, King of the Netherlands. The new King, after his recognition by the Allied
Powers, lost no time in carrying out the modification of the Grovd-wet of
Holland stipulated by the Conference of London. He appointed a Commission
(April 22), again under the presidency of van Hoogendorp, consisting of twelve
Dutchmen and twelve Belgians. Catholics and Protestants had equal
representation; and the members were carefully chosen, of varied experience and
capacity, from different schools of political opinion. The
Commissioners
had many thorny questions to deal with, and the debates were warm and lively.
But the members approached their task in a genuinely conciliatory spirit and
with an honest desire to bring it to a satisfactory issue. No change was made
in the direction of limiting the powers granted to the King under the
Fundamental Law of 1814. On the contrary, the influence of the Crown was
increased by the creation of a States General of two Chambers—the First Chamber
to consist of not more than 60 members appointed for life by the King, the
Second of 110 representatives elected by the provincial States. With an irresponsible
Ministry, a First Chamber of royal nominees, and a Second Chamber which had the
right to reject, but not to amend, legislative proposals, and whose control
over the ordinary budget was only exercised decennially, the executive
authority in the new kingdom was virtually placed in the hands of William I. On
two questions of primary importance only—that of the representation of the two
countries in the Second Chamber of the States General, and that of the equal
rights of all forms of religious belief before the law—did the Dutch and
Belgian Commissioners find themselves in fundamental antagonism.
The principle
of religious equality had been one of the conditions laid down by the
Conference of London, and, in spite of the opposition of the Catholic
hierarchy, obtained almost perforce the assent of the majority of the
Commissioners. The representation question, on the other hand, bristled with
difficulties and was practically incapable of a satisfactory solution. The
Belgians, under the leadership of Gendebien, urged that the representation
should be proportionate to the populations of the two countries. The Hollanders
on their part claimed at least equality, on the ground that the northern
Netherlands had for two centuries formed an independent sovereign State into
which by the decision of the Powers the southern provinces were being
incorporated as an increase of territory; and they pointed to their possession
of populous colonial territories beyond the seas. As neither of the two
nationalities was willing to concede a preponderance to the other, there was but
one possible way of sin-mounting the difficulty—equality.
On July 18,
1815, a royal proclamation announced that the Commission had finished its
labours, and that the Fundamental Law would forthwith be submitted to the
representatives of the people for their sanction. At the same time the Eight
Articles of London, which had hitherto been kept secret, were published. The
Dutch States General by a unanimous vote approved the new Constitution (August
8). The result was very different when the Belgian notables met at Brussels,
August 18. There were 1323 present out of 1603 who had been summoned; and, to
the astonishment and vexation of the King, the Fundamental Law was rejected by
a majority of 269. William found himself placed in an awkward dilemma, and he extricated
himself by a coup de mam that was as bold as it was equivocal. He determined
that the 280
notables, who had been summoned, but had not appeared, should be reckoned as
voting for approval. He also declared the grounds—i.e. objection to religious equality—on
which 126 votes had been given for rejection to be invalid, as conflicting with
the conditions laid down by the Conference of London, and directed these votes
to be added to the “ ayes.” In this arbitrary fashion he was able to declare
that the Fundamental Law had been approved by a majority of 263. These
impolitic and high-handed proceedings were not likely to commend the new Law to
the Belgian people.
On September
26, King William made his solemn entry into Brussels; and on the following day
in the presence of the States General he publicly took the oath to maintain the
Constitution. By this act the union of Holland and Belgium was finally
achieved; and the kingdom of the Netherlands began its legal and administrative
existence (September 27,1815). The boundaries of the new State, which now
officially came into being, had been determined by the Congress of Vienna (May
31), and comprised the old Republic of the United Provinces and the former
Austrian Netherlands, together with the prince-bishopric of Liege and various
smaller districts. The King received Luxemburg, erected into a grand duchy
(June 8), in exchange for his ancestral Nassau domains, Dillenburg, Siegen,
Dietz, and Hadamar, and thus severed his connexion with the lands which had
been the cradle of his race. At the second Peace of Paris (November 20, 1815),
the duchy of Bouillon and the districts of Marienbourg and Philippeville were
transferred from France to the Netherlands. A further rectification of frontier
with Rhenish Prussia was effected by supplementaiy treaties in the following
year (June 26 and October 7,1816).
It is not
necessary to follow in continuous order the events of the fifteen years during
which the ill-starred union between Holland and Belgium subsisted; and it seems
better to trace out the grievances and causes of estrangement, which finally
issued in the revolution of 1830. But, before doing so, it must in justice be
pointed out that it was a period during which, under the personal care of the
King, Belgium made great advances in material prosperity. The means of
communication by road and canal were greatly improved. The mineral resources of
the country were developed. Hourishing iron, wool, and cotton manufactures
were established. Liege, Ghent, Verviers, and other places, became thriving
industrial centres; and, owing to the extensive colonial and foreign markets
thrown open by the Dutch connexion, the volume of Belgian trade kept growing
year by year. The southern provinces had thus from the material point of view every
reason to be satisfied with the results of the Union; and there can be but
little doubt that, by the exercise of wise and conciliatory statesmanship, the
friction which was certain to attend the compulsory fusion of two peoples might
have been greatly diminished, so that in process of time Belgian and Hollander
might have
been taught to recognise that the political and commercial advantages of Union
were worth the sacrifices and the concessions required from each for the common
good. But this was not to be.
Of the
causes, which tended to alienation, the following demand a brief notice:
political and administrative inequalities; religious differences ; the
language question; finance; the question of the Press.
Mention has
already been made of the strong protest raised by the Belgian Commissioners to
that article of the Fundamental Law which assigned to Holland with its
2,000,000 inhabitants the same representation in the Second Chamber of the
States General as to Belgium with a population of 3,400,000. As a matter of
fact, on questions affecting diversely the interests of north and south, the
deputies voted together by nationalities; and generally the scale was turned in
favour of the Dutch by the adhesion of a few Belgian officials dependent on the
Government. Thus two most obnoxious imposts were forced upon the Belgians (July
21, 1821) by a majority of 55 votes, two of which were Belgian, against a
purely Belgian minority of 51. On another occasion the annual budget (April 28,
1827) was approved by a majority consisting of 49 Dutcb and 4 Belgians. It had
been settled by Article 98 of the Fundamental Law that the States General
should meet alternately in a northern and a southern city. This was in practice
never carried out. All the Ministries remained at the Hague; and the chief
administrative and all the military establishments had their seat in Holland.
Of the seven Ministers of State in 1816 one only was a Belgian, Due d’Ursel,
who filled the post of Minister of Public Works and Waterways. In 1830 there
were still six Dutch Ministers out of seven. Out of 39 diplomatists 30 were
Dutch. In the civil departments the nationalities were thus represented:
Home—117 Dutch, 11 Belgians; Finance—59 Dutch, 5 Belgians; War—102 Dutch, 3
Belgians. The disproportion in those discharging high military duties was, if
possible, even greater. All the nine directors of the great military
establishments were Dutch. Out of 43 staff officers eight were Belgians; only
one Belgian was to be found among 43 field officers of artillery; of 23 field
officers of engineers not one was Belgian. One of the last grievances before
the Revolt was the fixing of the Court of Appeal at the Hague by a decree dated
June 21, 1830, although the Belgian appeals outnumbered the Dutch in the proportion
of 5 to 1.
Articles
190-193 of the Fundamental Law, giving all religious creeds a position of
equality before the law, and making all the King’s subjects without distinction
of religious belief eligible to all dignities and offices, aroused the bitter hostility
of the ultra-Catholic party in Belgium. Foremost among these was Maurice de
Broglie, Bishop of Ghent, a man of fervent zeal but of fiery and obstinate
temperament. He was the real author of a protest addressed by the heads of
dioceses to the King against any infraction of the inviolable prerogatives of
the
Catholic
Church in the southern Netherlands; and on August 2,1815, the Bishop of Ghent
himself issued an instruction pastorale to his own diocese, in which he forbade
the notables under his jurisdiction to vote for a Fundamental Law containing
articles opposed to the inalienable rights of the Catholic Church. After the
King’s proclamation of August 24, declaring the Constitution accepted, the
Bishop published a jugement doctrinal, in which the taking of the oath to the
new Constitution was spoken of as an act of treason to the dearest interests of
religion. This action of the Belgian prelates met with the approval of the
Pope, who declined (May, 1817) to sanction the nomination of Count de Mean to
the archbishopric of Malines, until he explained that he understood the oath to
imply only that equal protection was given to persons of all religious creeds
in civil matters. To take the oath “dans le sens de M. de Mian™ became
henceforth a common practice with the Catholic recalcitrants. The defiant
attitude of the Bishop of Ghent led to his being summoned before the Court of
Assizes at Brussels. He refused to admit the competency of the Court, took
refuge in France, and was condemned for contumacy, October 9, 1817. The action
of die Government in affixing a copy of the sentence of banishment to a post
between two common thieves set in the pillory in the public market-place of
Ghent was a highly impolitic act of vengeance. Moreover it availed nothing. The
absent prelate continued to rule his diocese through his Vicar-General; and his
pastoral letters from Paris met with the willing obedience of the faithful. The
Vicar- General was in his turn brought before the Court in 1821, but was
acquitted. Fortunately the Chair of St Peter was at that time occupied by a
Pope of moderate views. Pius VII discountenanced the violent counsels of the
extreme Catholic party, and used his influence on the side of peace.
The interest
of the King in the promotion of higher education led to further friction in
1825. He even ventured by a royal decree (July 11) to enact that every
candidate for the priesthood, before being admitted to an episcopal seminary,
must pass through a two years’ course at the Collegium Philosophicum that he
had founded at the University of Louvain. Another decree (August 11) forbade
study at foreign Universities under pain of being shut out from all clerical or
civil offices. The object of this was to prevent candidates from seeking their
education in Jesuit colleges abroad. These regulations gave the greatest
offence to the clerical party and were bitterly opposed by them. The
Government, however, had the support of many Belgian Liberals, foremost among
them Dotrenge and Reyphins; and the measure met with the support of a
considerable majority in the representative Chamber of the States General. Some
of the more intemperate of the clericals were prosecuted. With the desire of
conciliation, the King entered into negotiations with the Vatican for the arrangement
of a
1815-30] Abortive Concordat.—The language
question. 527
Concordat on
the lines of that concluded in France by Napoleon. The agreement was apparently
successfully carried out by the diplomacy of the Count de Celles; and in June,
1827, the Concordat was published. By Article 3, instead of five bishoprics in
Belgium, eight were to be established in the Netherlands, and the Pope conceded
to the King the right of objecting to the names of any candidates of which he
disapproved. On the other hand, the two years’ course at the Collegium
Philosophicum was made optional. The concession made in Article 3 was looked
upon by the King as a real triumph. Unfortunately the Pope, in his allocution
announcing the conclusion of the Concordat, omitted entirely the all-important
clause, and in regard to the education of the candidates declared that it was
to be in accordance with the prescriptions of the Bishops, who would act in
obedience to instructions from Rome. The Government immediately sent a
confidential letter to all the Governors of provinces directing them to adjourn
the execution of the Concordat. A well-meant effort at conciliation thus ended
in failure.
There is
nothing which more contributes to a sense of national unity than the use of a
common language. It has already been pointed out that the language spoken by
some two-thirds of the southern Netherlanders differed very little from Dutch.
The aim of the King from the first, an aim entirely to be commended, was to
foster the use of what he named “ the national tongue.” In this he had the
sympathy of the majority of the inhabitants of the Flemish-speaking districts.
William’s temper, however, was not one to brook delay, or to shrink from
arbitrary measures. When the kingdom of the Netherlands came into being, he
found that French had been the official tongue of the Belgic provinces during
the period of French supremacy, and had been for even a longer time the
language ordinarily used by the Government. Many of the well-to-do classes,
even in Flanders and Brabant, were entirely ignorant of their native idiom. One
of the early acts of William (October, 1814) had been to issue a decrce
legalising the use of both French and Dutch. In 1819 (September 15) the
knowledge of Dutch was made obligatory for admission to all public offices and
employments. Finally (October 26, 1822) Dutch was recognised as the national
language and made official. Such an arbitrary enforcement upon all Belgians of
the tongue of Holland was naturally looked upon as an outward mark of Dutch supremacy
and was accordingly strongly resented, especially by the Walloons, to whom the
so-called “national language” was a foreign dialect, and by the Belgian
advocates. In 1829 the feeling aroused compelled the Government to make
concessions; but it was then too late.
By Article 6
of the Protocol of Union the burden was laid upon Belgium of bearing half the
national debt of Holland. In 1815 the total debt of the northern Netherlands
amounted to two milliards
of florins;
that of the former Austrian Netherlands to 32 millions only. The Dutch
Republic, when it fell under French dominion, had passed through a period of
misfortune and was crippled by a vast mass of accumulated indebtedness. Such
was its financial condition that Napoleon in 1810 had boldly suppressed by
decree two-thirds of the debt. William, however, on attaining to power, had
felt himself in honour bound not to repudiate the obligations of the State. He
had resuscitated the suppressed portion and had divided the debt into
800,000,000 fl. active debt and 1200,000,000 fl. deferred: the latter by a
complicated arrangement was to be transformed gradually into active debt by
annual drawings. The Dutch deficit in 1814 was 16,000,000 fl.; in 1815, owing
to the Waterloo campaign, it rose to 40,000,000 fl. The Belgians naturally felt
aggrieved at being called upon to saddle themselves with a load of debt for
which they were in no way responsible. As a compensation, the prospect of wider
markets and free intercourse and traffic with the rich colonial possessions of
the Dutch was held out to them. But in 1825 a rebellion broke out in Java,
which proved very formidable and led to a large expenditure of money; and the
colonial budgot, which at first had helped the national finances, came to be an
additional drain upon them. There was a constant and growing deficit, which had
to be met by a succession of loans and increase of taxation; and, as the
Fundamental Law, by making the voting of the ordinary budget decennial, had
virtually placed the control of finance in the hands of the King, on him fell
in no small measure the blame for the unsatisfactory state of affairs.
William was
indeed placed in a most difficult position; money had to be raised to meet the
deficits; and unfortunately the measures he adopted more than any other cause
of grievance tended to embitter the feelings of the Belgians against the Dutch.
Unable to discover means to make both ends meet, the Government in 1821 hit
upon two imposts, known as the mouture or gemaal, and the abbatage or geslacht.
The mouture was a tax upon ground corn; the abbatage upon the carcases of
beasts: in other words, they were taxes upon bread and butchers’ meat. Two more
odious and impolitic taxes it is impossible to conceive. The mouture brought in
5,500,000 fl., which was wrung chiefly from the poorest classes of the
community, and fell with particular hardship on the Belgians, whose chief
sustenance was bread. The Dutch consumed more potatoes and vegetables, and not
nearly so much bread as their southern fellow-subjects. The produce of the
abbatage tax was but
2,500,000 fl.; and it was just as obnoxious in principle
as the other. It did not strike so directly at the very poor; but all classes
felt its pressure and resented it; and both taxes were equally unpopular in Belgium.
How
unanimously they were condemned by public opinion in that country may be gauged
by an analysis of the division in the Second
Chamber of
the States General (July 21,1821) by which the taxes were sanctioned. In the
majority of 55 there were but two Belgians, the minority of 51 consisting
entirely of southern representatives. It is indeed strange that any Government
could have been so impolitic as to defy such an expression of Belgian aversion
from their proposals. It was not, however, until 1829 that the objectionable
imposts were abolished. The vote of July 21, 1821, led to a permanent deepening
of the cleavage between north and south. From this time the Belgian deputies,
led by the orators Dotrenge and Reyphins, systematically and on principle opposed
the Hollander Government and seized every opportunity for hampering its action.
With equally determined unanimity the Dutch ranged themselves in a solid
phalanx, as a Ministerial party; and the autocratic influence of the King was
able to command the adherence of a number of Belgians just sufficient to turn
the scale in a close division between two parties so evenly balanced. In such
circumstances the fusion of the two nationalities was year by year further
removed from realisation.
No attempt
was made to cany out Article 227 of the Fundamental Law, which guaranteed the
freedom of the Press. On the contrary, in this, as in the matter of judicial
inviolability, the arbitrary will of the King rode rough-shod over the
enactments of the Constitution, which he had himself called into being and had
sworn to maintain. A royal arrite of extreme severity had been issued on April
20, 1815, in view of thtf dangers with which the Netherlands were menaced by
the return of Napoleon. By it all persons found guilty of disseminating news or
intelligence likely to injure the State or disturb the public peace were liable
to be condemned to a number of serious penalties—exposure in the pillory,
branding, loss of civic rights, imprisonment from one to six years, and fines ranging
from 100 to 10,000 francs. These punishments were to be inflicted without a
jury by the sentence of an extraordinary Court of nine judges, all of them
holding office at the King’s pleasure. Such a decree, if enforced for a
strictly limited period, and so long as the public safety was threatened, was
justifiable; to maintain it after the crisis was past and in the face of
Article 227 of the Fundamental Law was absolutely indefensible.
Nevertheless
in 1817, by the authority of this decree of April 20,
1815, the Abbe de Foere was summoned before the
Court for having published articles in the Spectateur Beige upholding
thejugement doctrinal and the attitude of the Bishop of Ghent. He was condemned
to two years’ imprisonment; and the printer, Corneille de Moor, was fined and
mulcted in costs. In 1818 (February 18), on the proposal of the Government, a
law was passed, which, while slightly modifying the procedure of the temporary
decree, gave the sanction of the States General to its provisions and penalties
in a permanent form. Thus the Press was muzzled, for the law was systematically
and vigorously enforced. In
1819 much
popular indignation was aroused by the prosecution of a writer named van der
Straeten for the publication of a volume in which he had reflected upon the
conduct of the Government. He was sentenced to a penalty of 3000 francs. The
fine was paid by public subscription. The determined action of the authorities,
though it led to the disappearance of some Opposition journals and the
punishment of others, did not intimidate the hostile critics of the
administration. In defiance of edicts and of prosecution, a bitter warfare
continued to be carried on against “ the Dutch Government ” by a number of
clever and pungent writers, who found sympathetic readers far and wide in the
Belgic provinces and gave voice to the general feeling of unrest and
discontent.
One of the
most striking results of the growing estrangement between north and south
through the various causes recounted above was the coalition in 1828 of the
Belgian Catholics and Liberals on the common platform of redress of grievances
and defence of civil and religious liberty. The population of Belgium was
almost entirely Catholic; bnt it was divided during the period of the Union
with Holland, as it is still, into two irreconcilable parties, the
ultra-Catholics or Clericals, and the Liberals, consisting of men imbued more
or less with the principles and ideas of the French Revolution. These parties,
though their representatives in the States General voted together in the
support of Belgian interests against Hollander domination, were in reality
mutually hostile and jealous; and the King, by a statesmanlike policy of
conciliation, might have won over the Belgian Liberals to aid him in his struggle
with Clerical intolerance. William, however, pursued his own well-meaning but
arbitrary course, without paying any regard to the susceptibilities of his
Belgian subjects, whether Catholics or Liberals; and the year 1828 saw the
formation of the Union, an association founded to secure the harmonious action
of both parties in defence of liberty of worship, liberty of instruction, and
liberty of the Press.
Towards the
end of 1828 the unrest in Belgium began to grow acute, and took the form of an
agitation for redress of grievances. Petitions were sent in by the provincial
States of Hainault, Liege, and Namur, praying for the repeal of the obnoxious
mouture and abbatage taxes. They met with an unfavourable reception. These were
matters not of provincial, but of national, concern. The provincial petitions
were therefore replaced by others on a national scale. All classes of people
in every part of the country took part in the agitation. The signatories comprised
nobles and ecclesiastics, merchants and advocates, town artisans and country
peasants. Within a short period a monster petition was presented, signed by
70,000 persons. A series of other petitions speedily poured into the Second
Chamber. The Government was irritated rather than moved by these demonstrations.
The King, in May and June, 1829, made a royal progress through a number of
Belgian towns; and the
personal
regard for him, which still subsisted, secured for him everywhere a popular
welcome. The applause, which greeted him in the streets, misled him, however,
into a serious indiscretion. In a speech at Lidge (June) he referred to the
“pretended grievances” of the petitions, and spoke of the conduct of their
promoters as “ infamous ”— “ une conduite infume.'" It was an unfortunate
phrase, which rankled in men’s minds. In Flanders, in parody of the Beggars of
1566, a mock order of “ infamy ” was instituted with a medal bearing the
inscription “ Jideles jusqu'd ttnfamie.'1'’
The petition
movement was accompanicd by vigorous action on the part of the Belgian
representatives in the Second Chamber, and by daring criticism of and attacks
upon the Government in the Press. The Belgian deputy, de Broukere, brought
forward (December 3, 1829) a motion for the abolition of the decree of 1815. It
was rejected by the unanimous vote of the Hollanders, aided by seven Belgians.
On December 11 a royal Message was sent to the States General which caused no
small sensation. In it the opposition to the Government in Belgium was
described as the work of a few political agitators, and a new law replacing the
decree of 1815 for restraining the excesses of the Press was announced. But,
while certain concessions were promised in regard to the use of the national
language, education, and taxes, a responsible ministry was refused and the
principle of monarchical absolutism laid down uncompromisingly. “We have never
desired to exercise our rights in an unlimited manner, but, of our own motion
(de notre propre mouvement) we have always restricted them.” This was followed
on the very next day by a circular from the Minister of Justice, van Maanen,
calling upon all subordinate civil officials to give in their adherence within
24 hours to the principles laid down in the royal Message. From this date van
Maanen became a special object of reprobation to the Belgian publicists and
pamphlet-writers.
The effects
of the attitude of the King were quickly seen. The decennial budget came on for
discussion at the end of December. “Point de redressement de griefs, point
Sargent" became the rallying-ciy of the Belgian deputies. The decennial
budget of ways and means was rejected by 55 to 52, although that of expenditure
had been accepted by 61 to 46. The Minister was obliged to propose a new budget
to provide the ways and means for one year only, from which he had withdrawn
the obnoxious mouiure. This was passed by a unanimous vote. The anger of the
King at this unexpected check led him to take unwise and unworthy action. A
royal decree (January 8,1830) deprived six deputies who had voted in the majority
of their posts and salaries. William was at this time feeling deeply incensed
by the continuous and bitter attacks of the Belgian Press, which undoubtedly to
a man of his character and temperament appeared not only unjustified, but unjustifiable.
Such indeed was the unmeasured violence of the language
used to stir
up popular passions against the Government that it was almost impossible to
leave it unnoticed.
The offending1
journalists were chiefly young advocates. Foremost among them were de Potter and
Gendebien in Le Beige', Ducpetiaux, de Potter, van de Weyer, and Nothomb in the
Courrier des Pays-Bas; Barthels in Le Catholique of Ghent; Lebeau and Rogier in
Le Politique of Liege. In November, 1829, a particularly furious onslaught in
the columns of the Liberal organ, the Courrier des Pays-Bas, contained the
words: “ Jusqu'ici on a traque les Jesuites; bafouons, honnixsons, pour-
suivons les ministeriels.’" These were from the pen of Louis de Potter and
led to his prosecution. He was condemned to eighteen months’ imprisonment and
a fine of 1000 florins. But he was not silenced; and from his prison he carried
on a campaign of pamphlets. He was looked upon as a patriot-martyr by his
fellow-countrymen; and all his writings were devoured eagerly and tended to
increase the growing excitement of men’s minds.
The most
daring of all the publications of de Potter was his Lettre de Demophile au Roi
containing a pungent criticism of the Message of December 11. “ No, Sire, you
are not the master of the Belgians, as people would have you believe, you are
only the first among them; you are not the master of the State, you are its
head, the most elevated of its functionaries.” Such words as these were a
direct challenge to the King’s claim to unlimited authority, and as such they
were accepted. The climax was reached by the publication (January 81, 1830) in
seventeen journals at once of a project, set on foot by de Potter, for a
national subscription to indemnify the deputies who had been deprived of their
posts and salaries because of their voting against the budget. The
correspondence of de Potter with his friend Tielemans, former editor of the
Beige and the Courrier des Pays-Bas, and at that time Beferendary in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was seized and published; and proceedings were
instituted against de Potter and Tielemans, and also against Barthels, editor,
and de Neve, printer, of the Catholique. All were condemned (Api il, 1830), and
were sentenced to banishment, de Potter for eight years; Tielemans and Barthels
for seven years; de Neve for five years.
Not content
with prosecution, the Government determined to counteract these attacks of the
Press by the establishment at Brussels of a Ministerial organ, the National. It
was a wise resolve, and, had it been wisely conducted, might have produced good
fruit; but, with a perverseness which might almost be regarded as a kind of
political insanity, a certain Libri-Bagnano was selected as editor. No more
unfitting choice could have been made, for Libri-Bagnano, though a very clever
writer and polemical controversialist, was an Italian by extraction, who in
France had twice been sentenced to hard labour for forgery. His editorship of
the National was conducted in a manner
which added
fuel to the flames. His declaration “that the Belgians ought to be muzzled like
dogs” was looked upon as reflecting the opinion of the hated Minister of
Justice, van Maanen; and the names of both men became objects of public
execration. Nothing could exceed the general indignation, when it was
discovered that Libri-Bagnano had received from the Government for his services
no less than 85,000 florins from a public fund, known as the “ million of
industry.”
Thus passed
the first six months of 1830, with a growing feeling in the north as well as
the south that the attempt to fuse the two peoples into one nationality had
proved a hopeless failure and was no longer desirable. Few, however, even among
the extreme anti-Dutch partisans in Belgium, dreamt as yet of disruption.
Loyalty to the dynasty was widespread; and their aim was administrative
separation under one Crown. The great strides made by Belgian industries and
trade under the personal fostering care of William I had won for the House of
Orange the allegiance of the mercantile, manufacturing, and artisan classes in
some of the large towns, notably in Ghent and Antwerp. The Dutch indeed were
jealous of the rapid material progress made by the southern provinces, and
resented the protective duties, which were maintained to the advantage of the
Belgian manufacturers, but to the hindrance of their own sea-borne commerce and
carrying-trade. The inhabitants of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in particular, saw
with envious eyes the rapid rise of Antwerp at their expense to a prosperity
scarcely exceeded in the thriving days of Charles V. Timely concessions in
regard to their more crying grievances would have gone far to reconcile the
great majority of Belgians to the Dutch connexion; and there were signs in the
spring of 1830 that King William was in a more yielding mood. Royal decrees
were issued, May 27 and June 4, which modified the regulations regarding public
instruction and the use of the Dutch language. The momentary satisfaction given
by these tardy concessions disappeared, however, when by a subsequent decree
(June 21) the King established the Supreme Court of Appeal at the Hague. It was
clear, moreover, from the retention of van Maanen in the Ministry and of
Libri-Bagnano as editor of the National, that his Majesty had no real intention
oi yielding to the pressure of Belgian public opinion.
At this
critical stage came the days of July and the rising of Paris, which overthrew
the throne of the Bourbons. The news excited extraordinary interest at
Brussels, but was followed by no revolutionary demonstrations. On the contrary,
the Belgian capital was celebrating in festal fashion the holding of an
exhibition of national industry. The King himself and the Princes paid a
hurried visit, and had no reason to complain of the character of their
reception. The intention was to close the festivities by a grand pyrotechnic
display on August 23, and general illuminations in honour of the King’s 59th
birthday on the 24th. Nevertheless there were many premonitory symptoms of a
coming storm.
Leaflets were
found scattered broadcast containing the words: “ le 23 Ao&t: feu
d'artifice; le 24 AoM: anniversaire du Roi; le 25 Aofit: revolution.'"
Inscriptions on the walls denounced the Dutch, van Maanen, and Libri-Bagnano.
The civil Governor of the province, Baron van der Fosse, and the local
officials, were not ignorant that incendiary agencies were at work among the
people; but no steps were taken for securing the maintenance of the public
peace.
The King,
despite the warnings that reached his ears, did not deem it necessary to
strengthen the hands of the authorities by remaining in person at Brussels, and
actually refused to sanction an increase of the garrison at the request of
General Bylandt, the military Governor of Brabant. The total number of troops
cantoned in the city only amounted to 1800 infantry, 260 horse, and 6 field
pieces of artilleiy. The excitement of the public was far from being allayed by
the action of the city corporation. Under the pretext of bad weather, the
fireworks and illuminations were countermanded. This act of weakness caused
much disappointment, for the night was fine. It was equally weak to permit on
the 25th the first performance of an opera of Scribe and Auber, La Muette de
Portici, which had been previously prohibited. This opera treated of the
Neapolitan uprising under Masaniello against Spanish rule; and its
revolutionary sentiments and appeals to popular passion were eminently fitted
at that juncture to inflame men's minds. The theatre was crowded; and the
performance roused the audience to a frenzied state of patriotic ardour. The
infection spread into the streets, which were thronged; and a terrible riot was
the issue.
In no city of
Europe at that time were so many political refugees from every nation to be
found as in Brussels; and to such as these a revolutionary outbreak was as the
breath of their nostrils. The rioters rushed to the offices of the National and
the residence of van Maanen. These were pillaged and burnt; and attacks were
likewise made on the dwellings of the director of police and the provincial
Governor, and on several manufactories. Disorder and anarchy reigned supreme
during the night, unchccked by any demonstration of force on the part of the
authorities. The small pickets of troops on duty were ignominiously driven away
or compelled to surrender, while the main body was withdrawn to the upper part
of the city and piled arms in front of the Royal Palace. This extraordinary
supineness on the part of General Bylandt and Major-General Wauthier, the City
Commandant, is quite inexplicable. The troops at their disposal were picked
men; and with a little resolution the streets might have been cleared, and
possibly the whole issue of events changed. On the following day, the 26th, the
tumultuary outbreak assumed a more national and patriotic character. The old
Braban9on flag was raised, and the Royal insignia were tom down from many
buildings. Finding the military forces of no avail, the nobility, merchants,
and municipal authorities, met together
and took
steps to provide for the public security. An appeal was made for volunteers;
and a burgher-guard was organised and placed under the command of Baron
d’Hoogvorst. It was divided into sections to patrol the different quarters of
the town; and order was restored, though not without bloodshed. On the 28th an
assembly of notables was held at the Hotel de Ville; and a deputation of five
was appointed, foremost among them Alexander de Gendebien and Felix, Count de
Merode, to present to the King a respectful and loyal address, asking him to
take into consideration the just grievances which had given rise to the present
crisis, and to convoke the States General.
The King, on
the receipt of the news of the riot, was much moved, but was undecided how to
act. His pride made him unwilling to grant concessions or to dismiss van Maanen
at the demand of a riotous mob; and, despite the appeal of the Prince of Orange
in favour of conciliatory measures, he would only consent to the Prince
visiting Brussels, not armed with full powers to deal with the situation, but
merely on a mission of enquiry. The Prince and his younger brother, Prince
Frederick, set out at once, reaching Antwerp on the 29th and Vilvorde, where a
considerable body of troops was encamped, on the Slst. Here Prince Frederick
took over the command of the military forces in Belgium; and the Prince of
Orange, after receiving a deputation from Brussels headed by General
d’Hoogvorst, agreed to proceed to the capital unaccompanied, except by his
personal staff. He made his entjy on September 1, through serried masses of the
burgher-guards and through streets filled with unfriendly crowds. Not a single
cry of welcome met his ears, but on the contrary from time to time shouts of
“Down with van Maanen—Down with the Dutch !”
Conferences
which lasted for three days (September 1-3) effected no good result. The Prince
himself was popular in Brussels, and there was as yet no pronounced movement
for a change of dynasty; but he had no powers to do more than promise that he
would represent the wishes of the people to his father, and his mission was a
failure. He took upon himself, however, to order the royal troops to quit
Brussels; and on his departure the city found itself for the time being
confided to the care of its own citizens. Such an act, though intended to be
conciliatory, was looked upon rather as a sign of weakness in the face of armed
insurrection against the royal authority. Meanwhile the King at last met the
demands for redress of grievances by the dismissal of van Maanen (September 3)
and the summoning of a special session of the States General for the 13th. But
it was too late. A body of Liegeois, four hundred strong, headed by Charles
Rogier, with many other provincials and foreigners had entered Brussels, all
determined to push matters to extremities. The King’s proclamation, when
published on the 7th, was tom down by the mob. For some days a struggle went on
between the moderate and the revolutionary parties within the town.
A Committee
of Public Safety had been appointed, consisting of eight members: Gendebien,
Rouppe, van de Weyer, Count Felix de Merode, the Prince of Ligne, the Due
d’Ursel, Baron de Secus, and Ferdinand Meeus, a banker. Of these the first
three were Liberals, the others Moderates; but Ligne, Ursel, and Secus declined
to take any active part in the proceedings. The revolutionary party, headed by
Charles Rogier and Ducpetiaux, made repeated attempts to proclaim a provisional
Government, but were thwarted by the firm attitude of the Committee, and of the
two Barons d’Hoogvorst (Emanuel and Joseph), who possessed great influence with
the respectable and well-to-do classes. The despatches of Thomas Cartwright,
the first secretary of the British Legation at the Hague, who had been sent to
Brussels to make a confidential report of the state of affairs in that
capital, offer a first-hand and most vivid description of all the phases of
this interval of doubt and struggle. Writing on September 19, he states: “The
Committee of Public Safety as yet maintains its ground, and firmly resists the
projects of the Liberals to proclaim a provisional Government; but the Moderate
party is so undermined, it is very probable the present fabric will fall within
48 hours.”
His
foreboding was correct. On the 20th the Hotel de Ville was seized by the
populace; the burgher-guard was compelled to lay down its arms; and the
Committee of Public Safety thenceforth disappeared. Many members of the upper
class fled from the town, where the Liegeois and other revolutionary bands,
headed by the most violent of the Liberal leaders, Ducpetiaux, Rogier, and
Pletinckx, were now masters. During this precious time, when decided action on
the part of the King—such as a frank declaration of his intention to redress
grievances accompanied by the promise of an amnesty—might, in the opinion of
Cartwright, have saved the situation—the States General had met. The King’s
speech, with its firmly expressed determination to maintain law and order and
not to yield to faction, only stirred up to greater fury the passions of the Brussels
mob, who burnt copies of it publicly in the streets. Two questions had been
submitted by his Majesty to the consideration of the States General: whether
experience had shown the necessity for a modification of the national
institutions; and, whether the relations between the two parts of the kingdom
should be altered ? On September 29, by 50 votes to 44, and 55 to 43, both
questions were answered by the Second Chamber in the affirmative. But, while
deputies were deliberating at the Hague, decisive events had been occurring at
Brussels.
The news that
the extreme faction had gained the upper hand in the Belgian capital caused the
Dutch Government to take immediate action. Orders were sent to Prince Frederick
at Vilvorde to enter the city with his army and protect property. The Prince
had under his orders about
10,000 men, and on September 23 the troops
advanced at daybreak
and
penetrated as far as the park; but the streets beyond had been barricaded, and
a desperate resistance was offered by the armed populace under the command of
Pletinckx and other energetic leaders, among them Ducpetiaux, Gregoire, and
Everard. Bullets rained upon the soldiery from every window and roof, and they
suffered considerable losses. For three days almost without cessation the
contest continued, with little result save that the troops rather lost than
gained ground. At last in the night of the 26th Prince Frederick withdrew his
men from the town.
This decisive
check was irreparable, and its effect upon men’s minds instantaneous. On the
following day a provisional Government was established at the Hotel de Ville,
which comprised among its members Gendebien, Rogier, van de Weyer, Emanuel
d’Hoogvorst, and Felix de Merode. A few days later it received an important
addition in the person of the exiled Louis de Potter, who returned in triumph
to Brussels. Writing on September 28, Thomas Cartwright reports: “ All parties
have united, and this rebellion has now become a national question. The
Moderates and better-disposed inhabitants, who ten days since were actually
begging for the entry of the troops, from the moment they saw the efforts of
the armed populace were to be successful, and that the army would be repulsed,
joined the cause, declared themselves, and they are all now identified with the
Liberals, and form but one party and have but one object, to drive the troops
back to Holland. This is their cry; and every moment confirms me more in the
opinion that a general rising cannot be prevented.”
Prince
Frederick led his army into Antwerp on October 2. In a little more than a
fortnight every other town had declared for the national cause; and the royal
garrisons—the Belgian contingents siding with their compatriots—either
surrendered or withdrew. On October 4> the provisional Government declared
the Belgian provinces to be an independent State, and summoned a National
Congress. The very same day King William made a last attempt to preserve the
southern Netherlands for the House of Nassau. The Prince of Orange was sent to
Antwerp to take over in the King’s name the government of Belgium, and carry
out a policy of tonciliation. The Prince, however, found himself in an
impossible position; his efforts to put himself at the head of the revolution
met with no response; and on October 24 he found it necessary to escape from
his embarrassments by returning to Holland. His departure was followed by a
tumultuary attack upon the Dutch troops, as by the order of General Chasse they
were retiring from the town to the citadel ; and a number of them lost their
lives. By way of reprisal (October 27) the town was bombarded from the citadel
and the gun-boats in the river—an act which increased the growing bitterness of
feeling between Dutch and Belgiaus, and deepened the desire of both peoples for
a political separation, which should be final and complete.
The National
Congress, which consisted of 200 members directly
elected by
all Belgian citizens above 25 years of age, met at Brussels on November 10. On
November 18, by a unanimous vote, Belgium was declared to be an independent
State. Opinions were divided as to the form of government; but the monarchists
were in a large majority. After some stirring debates the assembly by 174 votes
to 13 decided (November 22) for a monarchy, and two days later, by a
preponderance of opinion only slightly less pronounced (161 to 28), declared
the House of Orange-Nassau for ever excluded from the throne. The moderation
displayed by the Congress was strongly distasteful to men holding extreme
democratic views, like Louis de Potter, who resigned his post in the
provisional Government, and returned to France. The task of drawing up a
Constitution occupied some months; but the new Fundamental Law was completed
and promulgated on February 7,1831. By its provisions the executive power was
assigned to an hereditary King, who was to govern through Ministers appointed
by himself, but responsible to a legislative body consisting of two Chambers.
The independence of the judiciary, and the liberty of the Press, of worship, education,
association, and petition, were carefully guarded. It was, in fact, the aim of
the Congress to set up a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary institutions
modelled upon those of England.
While the
Congress at Brussels was thus occupied, the affairs of Belgium had been an
object of solicitude to the Great Powers. The kingdom of the Netherlands had in
1814 been created by Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, as a bulwark
against French ambition. King William had on October 5 informed all the
signatories of the Articles of London of the serious state of things in the
Belgic provinces, and had called upon them to assist by force of arms in the
restoration of order. But the Europe of 1830 was no longer the Europe of 1814;
and William was disappointed in his hopes of regaining by a European mandate
his lost authority in the southern Netherlands. England and France had already
come to an understanding to act together in the interests of peace; and on
their proposal it was arranged that the plenipotentiaries of the Five
Powers—France being now represented in the Concert—should meet in conference at
London to deliberate upon the situation. They met on November 4; and by their
mediation an armistice was accepted by Holland and Belgium, pending the decision
of the Powers as to the future relations of the two countries. France was
favourable to the Belgian cause; Great Britain not unfriendly, so long as
precautions were taken against the aggrandisement of France; Austria and Russia
were, from the end of November, too much occupied with the Polish Revolution to
desire any armed intervention in the Netherlands. Prussia alone would have
taken action on behalf of the King of Holland, so closely connected with the
Prussiaii royal House, but was overborne by the determination of the two
western Towers to seek a peaceable solution of the difficulties.
On December
20, to the chagrin of King William, the Conference accepted in principle the
independence of Belgium, and the dissolution of the kingdom of the Netherlands.
This preliminary step was followed by the promulgation on January 20 and 27 of
two Protocols. In the first the conditions of separation were set out. To
Holland was assigned the boundaiy of 1790. The rest of the Netherlands, save
the grand duchy of Luxemburg assigned to the House of Nassau, were to form the
new Belgian State, which was to be perpetually “ neutral ” under the guarantee
of the Powers. By the second the proportion of the joint debt to be borne by
Belgium was assessed at sixteen parts in thirty-one; and it was declared that
no King of the Belgians should be recognised, unless he assented to the
conditions of the two Protocols, and was in other ways acceptable to the
Powers.
These
conditions were far from palatable to the National Congress at Brussels. The
Belgians had set their hearts upon the inclusion of Luxemburg, Maestricht, and
Dutch Flanders within their territory, and . had already determined to proceed
to the choice of a King without consultation with anyone. The Protocols were
received with indignant resentment. By 163 votes to 9 the Cougress protested
(February 1) against the assignment of Luxemburg to the King of Holland, and
two days later by the election of the Duke of Nemours, the second son of
Louis-Philippe, declared their preference for a close dynastic connexion with
France, although it was known that European diplomacy would not assent to any
member of the reigning families of any of the Great Powers, and least of all to
a French prince, being seated upon the Belgian throne. This was no hurried
vote. The names of several candidates for the kingship had been freely
discussed since the previous November. Of these, two speedily stood out—Duke
Augustus of Leuchtenberg, son of Eugene Beauhamais, and Louis de Nemours, the
cadet of the House of Orleans—the one the representative of the Napoleonic
tradition, the other of the principles of the monarchy of July.
On the day of
election (February 3) Nemours obtained 97 votes, Leuchtenberg 74, and Archduke
Charles 21. The result was gratifying to Louis-Philippe, rather from the
rejection by the Congress of the candidature of the Bonapartist Duke, than
because of the election of his son. The French King had previously warned the
Belgians that he could not imperil his good understanding with England and run
the risk of European complications by sanctioning the candidature of the Duke
of Nemours, and he now in his son’s name declined the proffered crown. He had
really no option but refusal, unless he were prepared to uphold an Orleanist monarchy
in Belgium by force of arms; for the Conference lost no time (February 7) in
signifying that it could not recognise the Duke of Nemours as King. A period of
unrest followed, during which the Orange partisans were active in fomenting
plots at Antwerp, Ghent, and other places; and, though the election of Baron
Surlet de
Chokier as
Regent (February 24) strengthened the executive power, which was able without
difficulty to put down disturbance and maintain the public peace, it was felt
that, if the independence of Belgium was to be assured, speedy action must be
taken in the choice of a King acceptable to the Powers. For King William was
astutely watching the trend of events; and, while biding his time, he had
thought it politic to put himself on good terms with the Conference, by
accepting (February 18) the conditions set forth in the Protocols of January 20
and 27.
It was at
this time that the candidature of Prince Leopold of Saxe- Coburg began to be
seriously considered. The most active part in pressing the matter to a definite
issue was taken by Lebeau, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new Belgian
Government; his predecessor, van de Weyer, was actually the first to bring
forward the name of the Saxon prince. Having carefully sounded the dispositions
of the English and French Governments on the subject, Lebeau was able to report
to the Regent and to the Congress that the candidature of this Prince, while
acceptable to Great Britain, would not be opposed by King Louis-» Philippe.
Finally four commissioners were despatched to London to lay before Prince
Leopold the state of affairs in Belgium, and to make him the offer of the
Crown, subject to ratification by the Congress. The commissioners were likewise
instructed to seek, through the Prince’s mediation, should he be willing to be
a candidate for the throne, some modification of the Protocols.
After many
negotiations and discussions, both the objects of this mission were
accomplished. On June 4 Leopold was elected King of the Belgians by 152 votes
against 43; and the efforts of the new King and the Belgian commissioners
resulted in the substitution by the Conference of the preliminaries of peace
between Holland and Belgium, known as the 18 Articles (June 24), for the
Protocols of January 20 and 27, which a later Protocol of April 17 had declared
to be “fundamental and irrevocable.” Important concessions were made to
Belgium: that the question of the boundaries in Luxemburg and at Maestricht
should be reopened and dealt with in a separate negotiation; and that the debt
assigned to Belgium should be that which she bore at the date of union,
together with a portion of that incurred since 1815. The preliminary treaty
received the signatures of the plenipotentiaries of the Five Powers on June 26;
and on the same day Leopold wrote to the Regent to say that, so soon as the
conditions contained in the 18 Articles, to which he was definitely bound, were
accepted by the ^Congress, he would feel that all the difficulties which had
stood in the way of his acceptance of the Crown were removed, and that he would
be ready to sail at once for Belgium. On July 9, after stormy debates, Congress
by 126 votes to 70 ratified the 18 Articles; on July 17 the King-elect entered
Belgium. He was everywhere enthusiastically welcomed. The ceremony of taking
the oath to the Constitution took place publicly at Brussels, July 21, in
541
the Place
Royale in the presence of the Regent, the Ministers, and a vast crowd of
people, amidst every demonstration of national rejoicing.
The new reign
was, however, in its opening stages to be beset with difficulties; and it was
fortunate for the Belgians that they possessed in their King a man of
character, sagacity, courage, and discretion. Leopold of Saxe-Coburg had by his
marriage with Princess Charlotte Augusta, the short-lived heiress to the throne
of England, and his subsequent long residence in that country, acquired an
intimate knowledge of international politics, and a wide experience of men and
things, and was conspicuous among his contemporaries for the breadth of his
views, and his cosmopolitan sympathies. A ruler with these qualifications was
well-fitted to guide the destinies of a nascent State through its days of storm
and stress. But the rejoicings at his enthronement, and the satisfaction at the
modification of the Protocols of January 20 and 27, were doomed to be
short-lived.
Amid the
general enthusiasm the possibility that the King of Holland might refuse his
assent to any cession of territory was wholly disregarded. If he would not
yield he must be coerced; “ the Prince [Leopold] has declared it, and he will,
if need be, make war, to obtain Luxemburg and Maestricht”—said the Minister
Lebeau in the debate in Congress. But William, who had collected a powerful
army on the frontier, was in no yielding mood. He expressed himself (July 12)
deeply aggrieved that the Powers should have gone back upon their solemn
declaration that the conditions of peace between Holland and . Belgium as set
forth in the Protocols of January were “ irrevocable,” and he announced that he
should regard as an enemy anyone who accepted the Crown of Belgium on any other
conditions. Despite the warning of the Powers (July 25) that a renewal of
hostilities would not be permitted, the King, with a politic boldness justified
by the event, was resolved to convince Europe that the Dutch nation was strong
enough to maintain its rights single-handed. The easy triumph of the revolution
in September and October, 1830, had induced a feeling of contempt for the power
and prowess of Holland. William had the whole-hearted support of his people in
his determination to teach the Belgians a lesson and to abase their pride.
The Prince of
Orange, invested with the supreme command by a royal Decree of July 29, placed
himself at the head of a well-equipped field force of 36,000 men with 72 guns,
and on August 2 crossed the frontier. The Belgians were unprepared for the
onset. In numbers they were perhaps not inferior to their opponents, but they
were badly organised, and at the beginning of August their main army,
consisting of some 25,000 men, was divided into two corps—the army of the
Scheldt under de Tieken de Terhove, and that of the Meuse under Nicolas Daine.
The Prince of 0range proved that he had not served his
apprenticeship in arms under Wellington in vain. He threw himself into the
gap between
the two Belgian corps, which were able to offer no effectual resistance. The
corps of Tieken was forced back from post to post; that of Daine retreated
rapidly and in the utmost disorder upon Lidge. Leopold himself joined Tieken,
and did all that man could do by courage and example to stem the Dutch advance
upon the capital. At Louvain (August 12) he made a last stand against
overwhelming odds, and repeatedly exposed his life; but it was all in vain, and
Louvain had to be abandoned. The situation is thus described by Lebeau in a
letter to van de Weyer (August 11): “ The army of General Daine is
completely
routed without having fought................. Belgium,
it must be owned,
has no
regular army; it is an armed mob and nothing more. We have no real military
capacity; we have no want of muscle and individual courage, but veiy great want
of an organising head.”
At Louvain,
however, the brilliant campaign, which had inflicted so terrible a humiliation
in the very first weeks of its existence upon the Belgian kingdom and its
sovereign, came to an end. With the sanction of the Powers, and at the
invitation (which had been withheld as long as possible) of King Leopold and
his Ministers, a strong French army under Marshal Gerard entered Belgium, and
advanced towards Louvain. But the Dutch had accomplished their task, and had no
intention of engaging in hostilities with France. By the mediation of Sir
Robert Adair an armistice was concluded; and it was agreed that the Prince of
Orange should evacuate the Belgian territory. The Dutch army recrossed the
frontier (August 20); and their retirement was speedily followed by that of the
French.
The
Conference met again at London; in the words of Nothomb, despatched on a
confidential mission to London, “ the 18 Articles had perished at Louvain ”;
and Belgium paid for its defeat. On October 15 the Conference published, in 24
Articles, a new treaty of separation, which was declared to be final and irrevocable.
By the 24 Articles Maestricht was assigned to Holland, and the western portion
only of Luxemburg was granted to Belgium, and this in exchange for certain
districts of Limburg. The charges for the debt were fixed in a manner
disadvantageous to Belgium; and the freedom of navigation in the Scheldt was
hampered by the payment of dues to Holland. Hard as these conditions were,
Leopold saw plainly that the existence of Belgium as an independent State was
at stake and that they must be accepted. His threat to abdicate, if the assent
of Congress were refused, had the desired result. The 24 Articles were ratified
by the Chamber of Representatives by 59 votes to 38; in the Senate by 35 votes
to 8. The treaty was signed in London (November 15). The kingdom of Belgium was
thus formally recognised by the plenipotentiaries and its independence
guaranteed. The actual ratification by the different Powers was delayed for
various reasons. That of England and France was given on January 31, 1832; that
of Austria and Prussia on April 18, lastly that of Russia on May 4.
1832-e] William refuses to recognise Belgian
independence. 543
The
settlement with Holland was however not yet attained. Before the Ten Days’
Campaign King William had refused to accept the 18 Articles; and now his
striking military successes had rendered him more obdurate than before. He
hoped to obtain more advantageous terms than were offered in the 24 Articles;
and he refused to sign them or to evacuate the citadel of Antwerp or other
places that he occupied within the frontiers assigned to Belgium. Finding that
he was not to be moved from his resolution, the Powers determined to use
coercion; and to England and France was deputed the task of driving the Dutch
from Belgian territory. The joint fleets of those Powers blockaded the coast of
Holland, and, in particular, the mouth of the Scheldt; and a French army of
60,000 men under Marshal Gerard marched upon Antwerp (November, 1832). The
siege lasted from November 30 to December 22, when the Dutch garrison under
General Chass^, after a brave defence, capitulated. For some little time longer
the blockade continued, to the great injury of Dutch trade; and the King felt
himself compelled to make overtures for peace. By the Convention of London (May
21, 1833) it was agreed that, pending the drawing up of a definitive treaty,
there should be no renewal of hostilities with Belgium, and that navigation on
the Scheldt and Meuse should be entirely free and open. William, however,
obstinately refused to recognise the independence of Belgium under the
conditions of the 24 Articles; and the Convention of London was really nothing
more than a maintenance of the status quo, Belgium remaining as before in
possession of Luxemburg (except the fortress) and of Limburg without Maastricht.
The navigation of the Scheldt was still subject to dues paid to Holland, while
that of the Meuse was regulated by a special convention signed at Zonhoven in
Limburg, November 18,1833.
For a period
of well-nigh five years, no steps were taken to disturb the status quo or to
convert the Convention of May 21, 1833, into a definitive treaty. The King of
Holland had refused to sign the 24 Articles; but, in agreeing to the
Convention, he had undertaken as a preliminary to a final settlement of the territorial
question to obtain the assent of the Germanic Diet and the agnates of the House
of Nassau to the proposed exchange of the Walloon portion of Luxemburg for a
portion of Limburg. Year after year passed by, but this assent was not
produced; the Conference did not meet; and the whole of Luxemburg without the
fortress and of Limburg except Maestricht were treated as integral parts of the
Belgian kingdom. The people of the two provinces were quite contented with
their lot, and cheerfully paid their taxes; and, when certain overtures that
were made in October, 1836, by King William to Lord Palmerston for the
reopening of the negotiations of 1833 proved abortive, public opinion in
Brussels began to look upon the possession of Luxemburg and Limburg as permanently
sanctioned. The new kingdom of Belgium found itself able to get on
644 Final settlement of outstanding questions.
[i838-42
exceedingly
well without any formal treaty with or recognition from Holland, and no longer
troubled itself about the matter.
But it was
otherwise with the Dutch people. They had given the King their hearty and
practically united support in 1831 and 1833; but with the lapse of years their
views began to change. They saw Belgium prospering and in quiet possession of
territories which the Powers in Conference had assigned to Holland; and the
burden of maintaining a large force under arms in readiness for emergencies
pressed more and more heavily upon them. Dislike of these extraordinary charges
grew stronger each year both in the country and in the States General. At last
even the proud and obstinate spirit of the King felt that the time had come to
yield to the force of circumstances. But William saw clearly that the 24
Articles of 1831 offered far more advantageous conditions of peace than were
likely to be obtained by a continuation of the negotiations of 1833; and on
March 14, 1838, he gave instructions to his envoy in London, Dedel, to inform
Lord Palmerston that he gave his adherence to the conditions of separation
which the Five Powers in their note of October 15, 1831, had declared to be
final and irrevocable, and was ready to sign the treaty of the 24 Articles.
This
unexpected step caused the greatest emotion in Belgium. The thought that in
1838 they should be called upon to make the territorial cessions to the Dutch
in Luxemburg and Limburg, which had been imposed upon them in 1831 in the hour
of their defeat, aroused a feeling of universal indignation. The strongest
efforts were made to influence the Powers to make the conditions of the treaty
more favourable to Belgium. It was represented that the refusal of King
William to sign the treaty of 1831, and the subsequent negotiations of 1833, in
which he had taken part, had rendered the 24 Articles null and no longer
binding. But the Conference showed itself inflexible, and insisted on the
carrying out of that part of the treaty which related to the territorial
settlement. On one point only did the efforts of the Belgian Government succeed
in securing a revision of the terms of 1831 in their favour. The annual charge
of 8,400,000 fl. placed upon Belgium on account of its share in the debt was
lowered and fixed at 5,000,000 fl. The treaty was signed in London, May 19,
1839. By this treaty the kingdom of Belgium at last, after eight years of
negotiations and diplomatic bickerings, finally took its place, under the
guarantee of the five Great Powers, as an independent but neutral State in the
European family of nations. There still remained many details to be arranged
between Holland and Belgium concerning the frontiers, the free navigation of
the Scheldt and Meuse, and finance; but all was settled amicably, and a final
treaty between the two countries was signed at the Hague, November 5, 1842,
when their relations were permanently placed upon a friendly tooting.
MEHEMET ALI.
The Eastern Question, obscured for the
while by the more immediate perils to European peace caused by the revolutions
of 1830, so soon as these perils were past, emerged again to trouble the
chanceries with yet acuter developments. Of its many episodes one had been
closed by the establishment of an independent Greece under the aegis of the
three Powers; but the Question itself remained, patent to all the world, since
the Treaty of Adrianople had revealed the “ mouldering empire ” of the Ottomans
lying at the mercy of an all-devouring Russia, able now—as it seemed—to exploit
its weakness for her own ends. This was the outstanding fact of the situation,
determining the attitude of the Powers for years to come, and not least
strangely that of Russia itself. For the understanding of the somewhat obscure
workings of European diplomacy during the ten years’ crisis provoked by the
revolt of Mehemet Ali against the Porte, it is necessary to know something of the
international interests involved, of the views of those responsible for the
policy of the several Powers engaged, and of the external influences by which
their policy tended to be modified.
Alone of the
Great Powers, Great Britain, Navarino notwithstanding, seemed to maintain
unbroken the tradition of her policy in the East: that of upholding the
integrity of Turkey as a barrier against Russian designs on India. The Peace of
Adrianople and its consequences had made this policy all the more urgent; since
Russia, with new prestige, was intriguing in Persia, stretching out feelers
through Armenia and. Kurdistan and so far south as Baghdad, and threatening to
cut off the trade-route to India by the Euphrates valley just when the
invention of steam power had given to this route a new prospective value for
British commerce. Of the other Powers traditionally friendly to Turkey, France,
since Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, had developed ambitions on the
Mediterranean coast of Africa, little consistent with the integrity of the
Ottoman empire and culminating in the conquest of Algiers. Austria, whose zeal
in support of the Sultan’s legitimate authority had, after all, been no more
than the sudden outcome of the establishment of
Russian
influence on the Lower Danube, was showing a disposition to second the Tsar’s
ambitions in the East, unaccountable to those who were as yet ignorant of the
new direction given to Russian policy after 1829. It was this ignorance that
made the diplomatic discussions of the years that followed so largely a game of
cross questions and crooked answers. The two western Powers, cut off by their
Liberalism from the Tsar’s august confidence, interpreted Russian activities in
the East by what they knew of the traditional policy of Peter the Great and
Catharine. The establishment of Russia on the Black Sea littoral, pushed
forward with every fresh victory of her arms, made it inevitable that she
should aim at holding the key to the only gate by which her commerce and her
fleets could pass from the Euxine to the outside world. The conquest of
Constantinople, which would have upset the whole balance of power in the
Mediterranean, seemed to be not only a natural ambition but, as Lord Pousonby
pointed out, “ the duty ” of the Tsar.
Yet it was
precisely when the ambitions of the Tsar’s predecessors seemed on the point of
realisation, that Russia deliberately turned aside from them. At the close of
1829, the Emperor Nicholas had appointed a committee of statesmen to enquire
into the attitude to be taken by Russia in the event of a break-up of the
Turkish empire; and discussion had revealed the dangers and inconveniences to
be expected from any final collapse of the Ottoman power in Europe. Of these an
international Congress, in which the interests of Russia would be subordinated
to those of Europe, seemed the least. On the other hand, in the event of war,
Russia might gain a few provinces; but she would risk the creation of strong
States in southern Europe and the consequent loss of that steady influence over
her weak neighbours which was the surest safeguard of her interests. The
committee, therefore, reported in favour of the preservation of the Ottoman
empire; the Emperor Nicholas, however reluctantly, accepted their, verdict; and
the maintenance of the status quo in southern Europe became for the next few
years the basis of Russian policy.
Had this
attitude been frankly explained to the other Powers interested in the Eastern
Question, it might have set bounds to a whole sea of troubles. Unhappily the
immediate issues were complicated to an unusual degree by the general European
situation. Austria, in sympathy with the attitude of the Emperor Nicholas
toward the revolutionary spirit, was admitted to his counsels—a fact which
expJ ained the otherwise inexplicable attitude she assumed during the crisis
which culminated in the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. Towards the Liberal Powers
the Emperor maintained a haughty reserve, which afterwards went so far as to
allow them to remain under the false impression that, by the secret Convention
of Miinchengratz (September 18,1833), he had arranged with Austria for an
eventual partition of the Ottoman empire. A situation already sufficiently
difficult was thus rendered yet more
delicate; and
Great Britain, not unreasonably, saw in the patent fact of Russian
preponderance at Constantinople the penultimate stage in the process which
would end by placing Russia formally in possession of the gates of the Black
Sea. Such, broadly speaking, was the international situation, when, in the
autumn of 1831, the news reached Constantinople of the revolt of Mehemet Ali,
Pasha of Egypt, and of the invasion of Syria by his son Ibrahim at the head of
a disciplined and well-appointed army.
Like Ali of
Janina, whose adventurous career had come to an end ten years before, Mehemet
Ali was an Albanian ; a native of Kavala, a small sea-port on the frontier of
Thrace and Macedonia, where his father was an Aga, or yeoman farmer. Bora in
1769, he lived in his native town as a petty official and trader in tobacco
until, in 1798, Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt gave him his opportunity. He
took service as second in command of a regiment of Albanian Bashi-Bazuks
recruited in his neighbourhood, went to Egypt, and at Aboukir, on July 25,1799,
was driven into the sea with the routed Turks. Saved from drowning by the gig
of the British admiral, Sir Sidney Smith, he returned to Egypt in 1801, this
time in command of his regiment, and on May 9 won distinction by heading a bold
cavalry charge at the battle of Rahmanieh. In the troublous years that
followed, Mehemet Ali, leader of a compact body of Albanian clansmen, was in a
position to make the most of the many possibilities opened to his ambition in
the struggle for power between the Mamelukes and the representatives of the
Porte. In 1803 he cast in his lot with the former; in the following year he
turned against them and declared his loyalty to the Sultan; a year later, the
sheikhs of Cairo, weary of the perennial anarchy, elected him Pasha; and in
1806, after due delay, a firman of the Sultan confirmed their choice. The
disastrous British expedition of 1807 followed; and, while at Constantinople
the prestige of the Sultan was being weakened by the series of revolutions
which in 1808 brought Mahmud II to the throne, that of Mehemet Ali was enhanced
by the exhibition at Cairo of a captive British force and an avenue of posts
decorated with the heads of British slain. The situation revealed to the astute
Albanian a boundless vista of possibilities. In spite of his recent victory,
his experience of war with European troops had proved to him the superiority
of European methods; and, as the first step towards the empire of which he
already dreamed, he determined to create for himself an army and a fleet on the
European model. The beginning of the fleet was made in 1808, with the aid of
French officers and engineers. In 1811 the massacre of the Mamelukes removed
the last peril to Mehemet Ali’s ascendancy in Egypt, while the foundations of
his empire beyond were laid by the war against the Wahabis and the conquest of
the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Progress at first was slow. The Wahabi war
dragged on till 1818, when Ibrahim, the Pasha’s son, who in 1816 had
driven the
remnant of the Mamelukes into Nubia, was sent to end it. This done, the Pasha
turned his attention southward to the vast country watered by the Upper Nile.
In 1820 the oasis of Siwa was subdued; in 1823 were laid the foundations of
Khartoum.
Meanwhile, in
order to secure the funds necessary for his vast plans, Mehemet Ali had devised
that bizarre system of state socialism which, while it made his initial success
possible, led ultimately to the failure of his schemes. The beginning had been
made so early as 1808, when, on the pretext of restoring the system established
by Selim I at the time of the Ottoman conquest in 1517, he abolished all
private ownership of land and made the former freeholders of Egypt his own
tenants. The gratifying financial results of this expedient led to further
experiments of a kindred nature, till in a few years’ time there was not an
article of prime necessity in the country that had not become a monopoly of the
Government. Besides his efforts to exploit for his own use the native
industries, Mehemet Ali endeavoured to introduce others; and in 1822 a
beginning was made with the establishment of manufactories under government
control in the Delta. At the same time the army was undergoing a thorough
reorganisation under the French Colonel Seve, known in Islam as Suleiman Pasha.
The true nature and tendency of these “ reforms ” were long hidden from the
world, dazzled by the novel spectacle of a Turkish Pasha posing as the
enlightened patron of modern progress. Only those most intimately acquainted
with the actual conditions in Egypt were aware of the fundamental weakness of
a system built up on a false economic basis, of which the first outcome had
been to convert a nation of free cultivators into a nation of serfs. When, in
the crisis of the war of Greek independence, Sultan Mahmud appealed for help to
his powerful Vali, men drew from the contrast between Egyptian efficiency and
Turkish incompetence a moral which the sequel was, in large measure, to belie.
It was only
with reluctance that Mahmud in 1822 had bestowed upon Mehemet Ali the pashalik
of Crete. The Sultan’s whole policy had been directed, with success, to
crushing the various forces within the empire, whether the Janissaries or too
powerful Viceroys, which hampered the omnipotence of the central power. Nothing
but stem necessity would have induced him to add to the threatening authority
of Mehemet Ali. Besides the Morea, the pashaliks of Syria and Damascus—objects
of ambition to every Egyptian ruler from time immemorial—were to have been the
Pasha’s reward. The intervention of the Powers had cheated Mehemet Ali of his
reward, so far as Greece was concerned; the failure of the Egyptian arms in
face of this intervention gave the Sultan the excuse for withholding the rest.
Every motive now spurred the Pasha to revolt: disappointed ambition, and the
instinct of self-preservation. In the spring of 1831 the rebellious Pashas,
Hussein of Bosnia and Mustafa of Skutari, had been
crushed by
the Sultan’s forces under Reshid; the Sultan hated the upstart whose power
overshadowed his own, and was surrounded by the personal enemies of the Pasha
of Egypt, notably by Khusrev, the Seraskier or commander-in-chief, who, as
Pasha of Egypt, had been outwitted and humiliated by Mehemet Ali in 1803.
Mehemet Ali felt that his own turn would come next, so soon as the reform of
the Ottoman army should give a reasonable prospect of overthrowing him. He
determined to forestall the danger. On November 1, 1831, a force of 9000
Egyptian infantry and 2000 cavalry invaded Syria and met at Jaffa the fleet
under Ibrahim as commander-in-chief. Siege was at once laid to the fortress of
St Jean d’Acre.
Such was the
news which greeted Sir Stratford Canning when, in April, 1832, he arrived at
Constantinople to arrange the final settlement between the Ottoman empire and the
new kingdom of Greece. The scope and meaning of the Pasha’s action were not as
yet clear; Ibrahim was delayed by the stubborn resistance of Acre; and
meanwhile the air was full of the wildest rumours. The Moniteur Ottoman spoke
of a plot of the Pasha to claim the Khalifate in collusion with the Shereef of
Mecca, and denounced the sacrilegious ambition of this upstart. Mehemet Ali, on
the other hand, disclaimed any disloyal intentions; his immediate aim was to
chastise the ex-slave Abdullah, Pasha of Acre, who had dared to harbour the
refugees from Egypt whom his “ reforms ” had driven out, and Khusrev who had
aided and abetted in the refusal to surrender them; his ulterior aim was to
secure the fulfilment of the Sultan’s promises in respect of Syria and Damascus.
As for Mahmud, he refused to listen to any suggestion for coming to terms; but
he was hampered by continued unrest in Albania and Bosnia, by the weight of his
unpaid debt to Russia, and by his resentment at the enforced concessions to
Greece which made him for a moment listen to the ,uggestions of those who bade
him yield all, so as to secure peace in Islam and turn a united front of
defiance to Europe. Meanwhile Mehemet Ali held the command of the sea, the
efforts of the Ottoman Government to replace the fleet destroyed at Navarino
breaking down on the old difficulty of finding efficient crews. Nor were
Turkish military preparations much more advanced; and, before the Ottoman
troops had begun their march, Ibrahim had occupied Gaza and Jerusalem as well
as Jaffa. It was not till April 19 that Hussein Pasha, the commander-in-chief,
left Constantinople with the cavalry; not till the third week in May that the
Sultan’s hesitations were ended and the ban of outlawry launched against
Mehemet Ali. Some ten days later (May 27), Acre was stormed by Ibrahim’s Arabs;
and on June 15 Damascus opened its gates to him.
The
conditions under which the Egyptian commander was able to follow up his initial
successes without delay were due as much to his political acumen as to his
military genius. As he advanced northwards, the
Lebanon, with
its warlike tribes of Christians and Druses, lay on his left flank, the Syrian
desert, with its nomad Arabs, on his right. Had these remained faithful to the
Sultan, the rapid march of the Egyptian would have been impossible; even the
hostility of the more peaceable Syrian cultivators of the plains would have
seriously hampered his progress. Ibrahim had known how to conciliate all these
conflicting elements, united only in their common hatred of the dominant Turk.
The Emir Beshir, chief of the Lebanon, was won over, and his tribesmen
reinforced the Egyptian army or garrisoned the conquered towns; the Christians
were gained by a promise of equal rights, as an earnest of which Christian
governors were appointed in the coast cities; the peasants welcomed the
deliverer who promised to relieve them of the intolerable oppression of Ottoman
misrule; lastly, the Arabs, in more or less, chronic revolt against the Porte,
actively sympathised with an invasion which had assumed the character of an
Arab movement against the Turks. Under' these circumstances Ibrahim could press
forward without misgiving. Within a month of the capture of Damascus he met and
defeated the Turkish advance-guard, under Mehemet, Pasha of Aleppo, at Horns, a
hundred miles to the northward (July- 9), and again, two days later, at Hamah
(July 11). The army of Hussein, panic-stricken at the news, fled northwards in
disorder. At Aleppo the Ottoman commander collected the scattered battalions
and led them to Alexandretta, where the Turkish fleet lay at anchor. But
Ibrahim, as usual, was swift to follow up his victory; on July 17, after a
series of forced marches, he entered Aleppo; on July 29 he came up with Hussein
himself, strongly posted in the pass of Beilan near the sea. Once more the
Egyptian arms were completely victorious; all Syria was lost to the Sultan; and
the vanguard of the Egyptian army, under Abbas, the future Khedive, was free to
pass the mountains and occupy Adana in Asia Minor.
The news of
these crushing defeats struck the Seraglio with consternation. Sultan Mahmud
was under no illusion as to his own intense unpopularity, and the corresponding
enthusiasm of all classes of his subjects for the hated Mehemet Ali. In effect,
the Sultan’s policy had illustrated once more the danger of half-measures. Such
changes as he had hitherto introduced had irritated the fanatical temper of his
people, without any corresponding improvement in their material condition. The
Mussulman world resented with growing murmurs the intrusion of European ideas
which, since 1829, seemed to symbolise the state of -assalage towards Russia
into which the Sultan had fallen; and the Khalif was hated as a traitor to
Islam. Mehemet Ali had thus the advantage of a twofold prestige: to Europe he
posed as the pioneer of modern civilisation in the East, to the. Mussulman
world as the champion of Islam against the infidel Khalif. Had there been no
question but that of a duel between the Sultan and the Pasha, the issue,
in the
opinion of those most competent to judge, could not have been doubtful.
In these
straits Sultan Mahmud humbled his pride, to seek help from the Powers. But here
again he was in a situation of extreme difficulty. Russia, indeed, was prompt
in offering assistance; but, save at the last extremity, the Sultan refused to
enter into an engagement which would rivet yet more firmly the bonds of his
vassalage to the Tsar. Austria, for the time, was but the faithful handmaid of
Russia. France, the ancient ally of the Porte, had become, since the conquest
of Algiers, against which the Sultan had never ceased to protest, scarcely less
suspect than Russia. Great Britain alone remained, and to her Mahmud turned; on
August 9, Stratford Canning wrote to Palmerston that he had received from the
Ottoman Government direct proposals for a formal alliance. In Canning’s view,
this was the only way to keep Turkey out of the arms of Russia, who had already
shown her hand by withdrawing her consular agent from Egypt. Canning was
himself on the eve of his return home; but, four months later, in a letter
dated from Paris on December 19, he urged Palmerston to a formal alliance, and
suggested a settlement, the general outlines of which anticipated that of 1841.
Palmerston, however, was unwilling to venture on a policy so bold and so
uncertain in its results. He did not share Canning’s belief in the revived
power of a reformed Turkey; he held that an isolated intervention of Great
Britain would mortally offend not only Russia, but France, and that in France
Mehemet Ali, resenting his disappointed ambitions, would find a support which
would render him doubly dangerous.
Meanwhile,
however, the progress of events in Asia Minor was forcing the Sultan to a very
different decision. During the autumn of 1832 he had despatched against Ibrahim
the army which, under Reshid Pasha, had been pacifying Albania. The hostile
forces met at Konieh on December 21; and once more the Ottomans were routed.
The news of this crowning disaster, coincident as it was with the arrival of
Count Muravieff on a special .mission from the Tsar, brought matters at
Constantinople to a head. Russia renewed her offers: a squadron of five sail of
the line and four frigates would be placed at once at the Sultan’s disposal for
the protection of Constantinople; Russian troops would be brought by sea for
the same purpose, while reinforcements would march southward from Silistria,
still in Russian occupation. For a while, the Porte hesitated to accept the
perilous succour. Halil Pasha was despatched to Alexandria to tempt Mehemet
Ali to come to terms; a Turkish agent was sent to Ibrahim at Konieh. This
mission was reinforced by a letter from Varennes, the French charge d'affaires,
who at the request of the Reis Effendi wrote to Ibrahim announcing the
intention of the Porte to call in the aid of Russia in case of his advance; a
French frigate from Smyrna carried to Alexandria the news of MuraviefTs mission
and its significance. Muravieff himself followed and, in an interview with
552
Russian ships in the Bosphorus.
Mehemet Ali,
announced to the victorious Pasha the Russian Emperor’s immutable hatred of
“rebels”; while Count Prokesch-Osten demanded explanations on behalf of the
Austrian Government. While Mehemet Ah was protesting to the Pow ers the loyalty
of his intentions, Ibrahim replied to the representatives of France and Great
Britain that, as a soldier, his duty was but to obey his father’s instructions.
These were to push on with all despatch. News reached Mahmud that the Egyptians
had advanced to Afium-Karahissar and Kiutayeh; whence Ibrahim, true to the
spirit of this loyal rebellion, wrote to ask the Sultan’s permission to advance
to Brusa. The situation was now desperate. Ibrahim was at the head of 50,000
regular troops and as many irregulars, flushed with victory and in excellent
condition. The Ottoman army survived only as a scattered and demoralised
rabble. Before Muravieff returned from his mission to Alexandria, the Sultan
had determined to take what seemed the lesser of two risks; and, at the
beginning of February, 1833, a formal demand was made for the naval and
military assistance of Russia. “A drowning man,” said the Seraskier-Pasha,
“clings to a seipent.”
The representatives
of Great Britain and France redoubled their efforts to secure a reversal of
this fatal step. The Ottoman Government, tossed between conflicting fears, and
tom by divided counsels, promised now one thing, now another. The Russian envoy
was requested to suspend the departure of the Russian troops; and the Reis
Effendi promised that, if Ibrahim would obey the admonitions of the Powers,
Turkey would dispense altogether with the assistance of Russia. But, while the
other Powers were threatening and promising, Russia had made all her
preparations to act; and, on February 20, a Russian squadron entered the
Bosphorus.
In view of
this situation it became imperative for the objecting Powers to take some
definite step; and, with the full concurrence of Mandeville, the British charge
d’affaires, the new French ambassador, Admiral Roussin, who had arrived on
Februaiy 17, signed an agreement by which he engaged, on behalf of his
Government, that Mehemet Ali should accept the terms offered by the Sultan, the
Porte undertaking to invite the Russians to quit the Bosphorus and to renounce
the idea of calling in foreign aid. At the same time Frederick Pisani, dragoman
to the British embassy, was despatched to Ibrahim, to urge upon him the
necessity of suspending his advance, pending the outcome of this new
negotiation.
A month or
more of suspense followed. In spite of the polite request for their departure,
the Russian ships remained in the Bosphorus, detained by contrary winds; and,
by the time the wind had changed, the political conditions had changed also.
The Emperor Nicholas heard with indignation the news of the Franco-Turkish
agreement, and sent orders for the Russian fleet to remain in the Bosphorus
until Ibrahim should have repassed the Taurus mountains. Ibrahim, on the other
hand, though he
drew back to
Kiutayeh, showed no disposition to relax his hold on Anatolia, which was
overrun by his agents and his troops. Lastly, the outcome of the French mission
to Mehemet Ali was the scornful rejection of the Sultan’s terms. He had been
offered the districts of Acre, Naplous, Jerusalem, and Tripoli, magnified into
“ pashaliks ” for the purposes of the negotiation. He complained that he had
been betrayed by France, and refused to be satisfied with anything less than
his full demands: the pashaliks of Syria, Adana, Itcheli, Aleppo, and Damascus,
with the seaports of Selefkeh and Alaia. Ibrahim was instructed to continue
his advance, if. within five days of the return of the Ottoman envoy, Reshid
Bey, to Constantinople, a favourable answer had not been received.
In this
emergency, both the English and French representatives pressed the Porte to
make some concessions; and Reshid Bey was sent at once to Ibrahim with the
Sultan’s offer to yield Syria, Aleppo, and Damascus. Adana and the sea-ports,
which would have established the Egyptian navy in perilous proximity to the
Straits, were still withheld. This was at the end of March; within a week, on
April 5, a second division of the Russian fleet arrived off Constantinople, and
6000 Russian troops were landed under General Ungebauer on the Asiatic shore of
the Bosphorus.
The presence
of this force at once became the determining factor in the situation. The Porte
plucked up courage, and proposed to Admiral Roussin to withdraw the offer of
Aleppo and Damascus. But Great Britain and France had now been forced into a
position where they had to figure as the supporters of the Pasha against the
Sultan; for them the question must be settled at any cost, so as to secure the
withdrawal of the Russians at the earliest possible moment. Roussin therefore
refused to risk a breakdown of the negotiations by any serious modification of
the terms proposed. On the other hand, the presence of the Russians on the
Bosphorus, and the threat of General Rosen, the Governor of Georgia, to occupy
Trebizond and Erzeroum, induced Ibrahim to yield; on April 8 the preliminary “
Convention of Kiutayeh,” granting Adana as well as Syria, was concluded; and
the Egyptian retreat began. But on April 16, when Ibrahim received the list of
official appointments •ssued in the Sultan’s name, in which, though Mehemet
Ali’s nomination to the other pashaliks was announced, Adana was expressly
reserved by the Sultan, he at once arrested his march.
On April 22
the Russians encamped at Bekos were reinforced by the arrival of some six or
seven thousand additional'troops; and on the 27th the whole force was reviewed
by the Sultan in person. The presence of this new army, curiously enough,
worked in Ibrahim’s favour. The Egyptian occupation of Asia Minor had cut off
from Constantinople its usual source of supplies; there was dearth in the
capital, which the presence of the Russians threatened to convert into a
famine; and the Sultan found himself compelled to bend his pride to a last concession,
in order to
avert disaster. On May 8 a firman announced the appointment of Ibrahim as
Mouhassil, or collector of the crown revenue, in Adana. The Egyptian, in
deference to the Sultan’s feelings, was content to waive the style of Pasha,
while asserting his intention of exercising, under whatever title, the full
prerogatives of sovereign power.
Peace was
thus restored between the Sultan and his rebellious vassal; but when, on May 1,
Lord Ponsonby, the new British ambassador, at length arrived at Constantinople,
he found the situation still extremely critical. The western Powers had, in
fact, in their fear of Russian aggression, played into Russia’s hands, by
forcing the Sultan to a settlement which he felt as a humiliation. They had fed
him with promises and protestations of friendship; but their squadrons, which
might so easily have swept the Egyptians from the sea, now that they had
appeared in the Archipelago, had for their objective the Dardanelles and
Constantinople, and seemed to the Sultan but a new force for the coercion of
his will under the pretence of protecting his interests. Prince Orloff, who
arrived on May 4 as the Tsar’s representative, had little difficulty in
persuading the Seraglio that its safety depended upon the good-will of Russia;
at his instance the request of the French admiral for permission to pass the
Straits was refused; if need were, he declared that Russia would join her arms
with those of Turkey to resist the pretensions of France and Great Britain ; in
any case, in accordance with the Tsar’s will, the Russian force would remain at
the Sultan’s disposal until Ibrahim should have withdrawn beyond the Taurus
mountains. “ It is manifest,” wrote Ponsonby on May 22, “ that the Porte stands
in the relation of vassal to the Russian Government,” tdii:ng that
he believed that an agreement had been come to between Austria and Russia for
the partition of Turkey. In any case, all the signs pointed to some sinister
design on the part of the Tsar’s Government. Though the conclusion of peace had
been known at St Petersburg since April 29, preparations for the despatch of
further Russian troops continued at Odessa; the strengthening of the fortifications
of the Dardanelles was hurried on under the direction of Russian engineers;
and, though OrlofTs suggestion to garrison them with Russian troops was
rejected, the significance of the work was accentuated by the permission given
to six of the Tsar’s war-vessels to pass the Straits.
The meaning
of all this was soon clear. By the middle of June it became known that a treaty
was being negotiated between Russia and Turkey within the walls of the Seraglio
and without the participation of the Council of the Empire. On June 25 the
arrival was announced of the British squadron, under Sir Pulteney Malcolm, in
the Bay of Tenedos; but, on OrlofFs assurance that his action was due to its
being a point of honour not to appear to be coerced by France, the admiral was
directed to weigh anchor for a cruise, pending further developments.
The
Russians now began their withdrawal; on July 9 the troops were embarked and,
next day, the Russian fleet was reported as passing the narrows to the Black
Sea with a fair wind. Before this happened, however, a treaty of offensive and
defensive alliance between Russia and Turkey had been signed, on July 8, 1833,
at the palace of Unkiar Skelessi. •
The public
articles of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi stipulated for no more than mutual
aid and succour between the contracting parties in case of need; but by an
additional secret article it was arranged that Russia should waive her rights
to assistance in men and money under the treaty in return for an undertaking of
the Porte to close the Dardanelles to the war-ships of all nations “au besoin.”
In the ambiguity of this last phrase lay the whole sinister significance of the
treaty. Without it the secret article was but a meaningless repetition of the
Treaty of 1809, to which Great Britain with the other Powers had subscribed.
But that it was not without meaning the whole attitude of the Russian and
Ottoman Governments made abundantly clear. The British ambassador could obtain
none but garbled versions, till the Reis Effendi, whose patriotism revolted at
the humiliating surrender of the Sultan, supplied an authentic copy “ at the risk
of his head.” A little pressure now extracted from the Seraskier-Pasha that “au
besoin” could only mean “ at the demand of Russia.” In face of this admission,
the contention of Count Nesselrode that the closure of the Dardanelles
constituted “ no new engagement,” and that “ no maritime Power could complain
of being deprived of a right which Russia had not established as an exception
in her own favour,” carried little weight. His boast that the treaty “
legalised the armed intervention of Russia ” in the Ottoman empire showed that
he realised its significance; to the maritime Powers it seemed equally clear
that the treaty, if made effective, would prove an obstacle to any interference
on their part.
During the
years that succeeded the signature of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi the
relation established by it between Russia and the Ottoman Government was a
dominant factor in the international situation as well as in the affairs of the
Turkish empire. The news of the conclusion of the treaty was received in France
and England with immense excitement. Palmerston declared that, so far as Great
Britain was concerned, it had no existence; and identical notes, protesting
against its terms, were handed in at St Petersburg by the British and French
ambassadors. At the same time, at the suggestion of Ponsonby, instructions were
sent to the Admiral commanding the British squadron stationed in the Bay of
Vourla, for eventual cooperation with the French fleet, should a renewal of the
war with Mehemet Ali lead to Russian intervention. In the actual temper of the
Sultan such a contingency seemed by no means remote. In Mahmud’s breast
overmastering hatred of Mehemet Ali had obscured every other consideration. He
knew that the Russian
alliance was
odious to every class of his subjects; he knew that, even among his Ministers,
plots were afoot for br gmg the Pasha of Egypt to Constantinople in order to
shake off the infidel yoke. In the protection of Russia he saw the sole
guarantee of his safety and of his ultimate revenge. To the dragoman of the
British embassy he poured out the bitterness of his heart, contrasting the
selfishness of his selfstyled friends with the generosity of his hereditary
enemy. If he had thrown himself into the arms of Russia it was because Great
Britain had refused to help him in his need ; if she desired to win his trust,
let her, like Russia, prove her good-will by more than friendly words. For all
the influence they had in the Serag >, the British and French ambassadors
might as well have left Constantinople; and the Seraglio was for the present
the Government of Turkey. Mahmud remained shut up in his palace, accessible
only to Orloff, and to those of his servants who for their private ends were in
the Russian interest. After weeks of effort, Lord Ponsonby could find no other
channel for conveying the views and the warnings of Great Britain to the
Sultan’s ear than Abdy Bey, the Court jester. It was clear that the ambassador
had not exaggerated when he said that Turkey had become the vassal of Russia;
equally clear, so it seemed, that Russia intended to use this vassalage to oust
from the empire any influence but her own. A single detail may serve to
illustrate this. While the messengers of the Russian embassy were supplied, on
the road from the capital to Adrianople, with relays of horses by the Ottoman
Government, those of the British embassy were forced to cover the whole
distance without a change.
A situation
at any time intolerable was rendered yet more serious by the growing rivalry of
Great Britain and Russia in Central Asia, which about this time was beginning
to excite the anxious attention of the chanceries. The expansion of the Tsar’s
empire eastward at the expense of the semi-barbarous tribes of Central Asia
was, indeed, as inevitable as the similar expansion of the Company’s Raj in
India, and equally little the result of any far-sighted policy of conquest. In
spite of the rivalry of Russian and British agents in Persia and Mesopotamia no
acute questions had as yet arisen; but men had none the less begun to ask what
would happen when the advancing tides should meet. Palmerston himself perceived
that here was a problem whose issues might eventually overshadow the narrower
question of the Near East, and remarked to the Russian charge d'affaires that the
peace of Asia would be assured at the moment when Russia and Great Britain
could come to a clear understanding. But the path to such an understanding was
blocked for Great Britain by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, for Russia by the
Emperor Nicholas’ resentment at the unholy alliance between the “ legitimate ”
Government of England and the revolutionary monarchy of Louis-Philippe. The
estrangement due to the attitude of the western Powers in the Belgian Question
had been increased by the
Reform Bill
of 1882, by consenting to which King William IV had, in the Tsar’s opinion, “
thrown his crown into the gutter.” In March, 1832, Nicholas had proposed to
Prussia a league of the three eastern monarchies for the support of “ Divine
Right ” against the two Powers which had “the courage to profess aloud
rebellion and the overthrow of all stability.” In September, 1833, the Emperors
of Russia and Austria, and the Crown Prince of Prussia, met at Miinchengratz
and there cemented a new “ Holy Alliance,” which was embodied in the formal
Convention signed at Berlin on October 15. By a Convention signed at Munchen-
gratz it was also agreed that the three Powers should combine, not to
partition, but to maintain the integrity of, the Ottoman empire; and by
separate articles the contracting Powers undertook to oppose any combination
threatening the sovereign power of the Sultan, either by a change of dynasty or
by the extension of the rule of Mehemet Ali over the European provinces.
Finally, in the event of the failure of their efforts to uphold the Ottoman
Power, Russia and Austria agreed to act in perfect accord in any settlement of
the reversion. In this Convention there was nothing that could not have been,
with excellent effect, communicated to France and Great Britain. But, in spite
of Metteruich’s advice, the Emperor Nicholas preferred to shroud the
transaction in a dangerous mystery, rather than communicate its terms to the
two Powers whom he chose to regard as for the time being outside the European
Concert.
The acccssion
to office of Sir Robert Peel, in December, 1834, first paved the way for a
better understanding. The Duke of Wellington, now Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, was & persona grata at St Petersburg; and, though he too insisted
that the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi stood in the way of any satisfactory
agreement upon the Eastern Question, the relations of the two Powers were
sensibly modified for the better. The Tsar, though he refused to abrogate the
Treaty, consented to have it shelved among the Russian archives “ as an
interesting and honourable historical relic ”; and, on March 16, 1835, the Duke
wrote to Lord Ponsonby, countermanding the instructions of Palmerston for the
eventual action of the British naval commander in the Levant.
The Tory
Government was short-lived; and, though the general election of 1835 belied the
alarmist views as to the probable effect of Reform, for the present no lasting
change in the relations between Russia and England ensued. In April Palmerston
returned to the Foreign Office, and between him, “the Jacobin” and the
protector of “oppressed nationalities,” and the Government of Nicholas I, the
possibility of any mutual confidence seemed remote. In the aspect of aftairs hi
the East, indeed, there seemed little enough to invite it. To Lord Ponsonby,
ignorant of the agreement of Munchengrtttz, the intention of Russia to absorb
Turkey seemed obvious. Rightly or wrongly, he attributed to the intrigues of
Russian agents the
perpetual
unrest in the Ottoman Court and empire by which the Porte was kept weak and
dependent. Russia had helped the Sultan against Mehemet Ali; she was now (he
thought) inciting Mehemet Ali against the Sultan, in order to rivet yet more
firmly the fetters of her “ protection.” To Russian agents were due the
grievances of which British merchants made reiterated complaints, and the
obstacles which both the Porte and Mehemet Ali put in the way of the British
expedition despatched under Colonel Francis Chesney in 1835, to endeavour to
establish a new mail-route to India by steamers on the Euphrates. Most serious
of all, to Russian intrigues was ascribed the attack made in 1838 by Persia
upon Herat, which seemed to veil the first active aggression of Russia in the
direction of the Indian frontier. To this last rumour the Emperor Nicholas
thought it worth while to give a personal denial. Russia, he affirmed, aimed
only at securing her legitimate share of the trade of Central Asia, hitherto
monopolised by Great Britain, and might in her turn justly complain of the
intrigues of British agents in the border khanates and of the presence on
Persian soil of a British force.
However
pregnant the situation in the East may have been with future trouble, it,
nevertheless, suggested no danger so immediate as to prevent Russia and England
from coming to an understanding, should circumstances make it on both sides
desirable. For Nicholas the moment came when the loosening of the tie of the
entente between France and England gave him the long-desired opportunity of
breaking, by modifying his attitude in the Eastern Question, the hated alliance
of the western Powers. In May, 1839, he paved the way by sending the Tsarevich,
afterwards the Emperor Alexander II, on a visit to England. His handsome
presence and amiable manners appealed to the English people; and the Emperor
took advantage of the good impression made in England by this visit to send
over Baron Brunnow to attempt a settlement of all outstanding questions, now
complicated by the renewal of the war between the Sultan and Mehemet Ali (April,
1839).
The
Convention of Kiutayeh had never been considered by either of the contracting
parties as establishing a permanent settlement. The very form of the
concessions made by Sultan Mahmud was significant of his intention to reverse
them on the earliest opportunity. Mehemet Ali held the pashaliks which
constituted his empire by the ordinary tenure, subject to annual renewal; he
knew that he would at once be deprived of them, and of his life, so soon as
this should be in the Sultan’s power, and that what he had won by the sword he
must keep by the sword. The Russian squadron had scarcely left the Bosphorus,
after the signing of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, before rumours were rife as
to the Sultan’s intention of taking advantage of the promise of eventual
Russian aid to renew the war with Mehemet Ali. Every embarrassment
of the Pasha
was eagerly noted at Constantinople; Mahmud was with difficulty restrained from
sending his fleet to the assistance of the rebellious Cretans; and Reshid
Pasha, with the Sultan’s connivance, from his command in Anatolia fomented the
rapidly-growing resentment of the Syrians at the Egyptian rule. Mehemet Ali,
for his part, was credited with stirring up the formidable insurrection that
broke out in Albania, and intriguing at Constantinople for the deposition of
Mahmud and the proclamation of his son.
It was not,
however, till the spring of 1834, when the discontent of the Syrians had issued
in wide-spread revolt, that the crisis became acute. The cause of the revolt is
not far to seek. So long as Ibrahim, whom the Syrians had welcomed as a
deliverer, had obvious need of their good-will, they had had little cause to
complain of his rule. Some, indeed, of his reforms survived: the equality of
all religions before the law, and the system of government by which a divan, or
council, consisting of Mussulmans and Christians, was established in every
town, subject to the divan meshura at Acre, which acted as a Court of Appeal,
received the revenues, appointed public officers, and reported to the Great
Divan of Egypt. So far the non-Mussulman population had no cause to complain of
a system which had effectually removed its sufferings and established general
security. But in Syria, as in Egypt, the military exigencies of Mehemet Ali’s position
vitiated the whole system. A powerful army and a great revenue to support it
were the conditions of his security. To obtain money, Ibrahim introduced the
system of monopolies; to obtain soldiers, he had recourse to conscription. Not
only silk, the staple industry of the Lebanon, but almost all the necessaries
of life, down to vegetables and the gardens in which they were grown, were
subjected to Government monopolies and farmed to the highest bidder; while the
ruthless system of conscription, which neither spared the wild clans of the
Lebanon nor the free Arabs of the desert, completed the impoverishment of the
country by tearing the peasants from their fields at harvest-time and leaving
the crops to rot.
,
The first to revolt were the Turks, resentful of the loss of their ancient
privileged position. Saida, Aleppo, Damascus, Nazareth, in turn defied the
Pasha. The Samaritans, and the Fellah Arabs of the Haouran and Decapolis
followed suit. For a while Ibrahim was hard pressed, especially when the Druses,
who had helped to crush the revolt in Damascus, turned against him. Mehemet Ali
himself had to come to the assistance of his son, before, in August, his
authority could be restored. But, though the revolt had been drowned in blood,
the prestige of the: Pasha as a deliverer from oppression was irrevocably gone;
the mild system of the first months was changed; military governors replaced
the Christian princes in the towns; and the whole country was flooded with
troops. ,
On the first
news of the insurgent successes Mahmud struggled, like a
hound
straining at the leash, to break the diplomatic bonds that prevented him from
hurrying to their assistance. He protested that it was his duty as Sultan to go
to the help of his subjects when oppressed by one of his servants. Even when,
to his great wrath, Russia refused to support him, in the event of his being
the aggressor, he pressed on the preparations for war. He ordered Reshid to
advance on Orfa, a fortress commanding the pass into Anatolia, which Mehemet Ali
had improperly retained in his hands; thence he could sound the temper of the
Syrians, with a view to a further advance on Damascus. To the ambassadors of
Great Britain and France he urged, through the Prince of Samos, that Mehemet
Ali had violated his engagements by refusing to surrender Orfa and withholding
his tribute, and suggested that the Powers should aid him to force back the
Pasha within the limits of Egypt and the pashalik of Acre. For months the
crisis remained more or less acute. Mehemet Ali refused to pay money which he
knew would be used in raising an army to attack him, or to surrender a fortress
which protected the gate of Syria against an Ottoman invasion. He threatened
that, should the Turkish fleet appear to the south of Rhodes, he would attack
it and at the same time throw off his allegiance. In October he sounded Great
Britain, France, and Austria, as to the possibility of their recognising his
independence, and took the first step toward the assertion of his wider claims
by describing himself as Viceroy in his correspondence with the Porte. It
needed all the diplomacy of the Powers, with threats directed now to one side
now to the other, to keep the peace. These were so far successful that, on
December 14, Lord Ponsonby reported that there was no longer any cause to fear
hostilities.
This optimism
was short-lived. So early as January 21, 1835, another despatch declared war to
be imminent. The Ottoman fleet was being prepared for action; in Syria the
unrest continued, and culminated, in the early spring, in a series of revolts
and massacres. In May the Turkish fleet was coasting off Syria, while that of
Mehemet Ali lay ready for action in Suda Bay. A fresh revolt in Albania, so
opportune as to lead once more to a suspicion of Mehemet Ali’s instigation,
alone postponed the renewal of the war. That this was delayed for fully three
years longer was due to the attitude of the Powers, who made it clear that
their sympathies would not be with the aggressor. Even Russia, on whom Sultan
Mahmud mainly relied, was unwilling to risk what she had already gained by
plunging into an enterprise of which the issue was uncertain. She had moreover
her own troubles in Poland and the Caucasus, and was impoverished by a famine;
while, in the event of any change in her attitude, Austria might prove but a
doubtful ally. Great Britain and France, meanwhile, acted cordially together,
holding a common language, and making it clear to the Porte that, were their
advice neglected, they would not go to war to save the Sultan from the
consequences of his own folly. In the event of the Ottoman empire
1835-9] Commercial
treaty.-^-Outbreak of war.
561
breaking up
in such circumstances, wrote Palmerston, Great Britain would “look to other
combinations” for preserving the security of Europe.
By such means
a precarious peace was preserved for a year or two longer, both sides meanwhile
preparing their forces and manoeuvring for the sympathy of Europe. At last,
early in 1838, it was clear that a crisis was once more approaching. In March
the Egyptians suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the Arabs of the
Haouran; and, though the Porte agreed to keep quiet, it hurried on its naval
and military preparations. Mehemet Ali, indeed, seemed anxious to precipitate
the inevitable conflict, before the new national militia, which Mahmud had been
organising with the aid of Moltke and other German officers, should have become
too formidable a fighting force. He had yet other motives for provoking a
crisis. Great Britain, whose trade had. suffered owing to the Pasha’s system of
monopolies, was negotiating with the Porte a commercial treaty extending to the
whole empire, by which that system would have been destroyed. Mehemet Ali’s
countermove was again to threaten to proclaim himself independent. This would
have been to strike at the root of the Sultan’s power, by depriving him
nominally as well as actually of his tenure of the holy cities, on which his
claim to the Khalifate was largely based. But, if the Pasha had hoped by this
presumption to stir the Porte to an act of aggression, he was for the time
disappointed. The commercial treaty with Great Britain was signed on August
16,1838, by the Sultan, the more readily since he knew that it dealt a shrewd
blow to his enemy. Months of suspense followed, of anxious negotiation among
the Powers, of preparation on both sides for war, which both felt to be
inevitable, though both shrank from striking the first blow. In such a game of
fence Mahmud was no match for Mehemet Ali. Palmerston had warned him, in his
downright way, of the consequences, should he be responsible for breaking the
peace: Great Britain would aid him, were he attacked by Mehemet Ali; but,
should he be the aggressor, she would leave him to a fate which could scarcely
be doubtful. The Sultan’s accumulated passion had, however, placed him beyond
the control of any argument but that of hate; the hand of death was upon him,
and he was determined at all hazards at least to attempt to revenge himself
upon his enemy before he died. “ I would rather die,” he exclaimed, “ or become
the slave of Russia, than spare my rebellious vassal.” The Ottoman army, under
Hafiz Pasha, had been massed at Bir, on the Euphrates, opposite the ruins of
ancient Babylon. On April 21,. 1839, by the Sultan’s orders, it crossed the
stream and invaded Syria.
The news of
this aggression set the diplomatic world buzzing like a hive of agitated bees.
Envoys hurried to Cairo and to Constantinople, to urge the necessity for
suspending operations. Mehemet Ali, since his enemy had placed himself
hopelessly in the wrong, could afford to assume
a
scrupulously correct attitude; but, before his messengers could reach Ibrahim,
the end had come. On June 23, the Turks concentrated at Nezib; and Ibrahim,
next day, thinking his position menaced, attacked them. The result was an
Egyptian victory more complete than any in the campaign of 1832. The Ottoman
camp, with all the artillery and
15,000 prisoners, remained in the hands of the
conqueror. The road to Constantinople once more lay open to Ibrahim, who
pressed on the defiles of the Taurus, and there halted, pending the development
of the diplomatic situation. For Sultan Mahmud had not lived to hear of this
crowning disaster, the news of which reached Constantinople as he lay unconscious
on his death-bed. He died early on July 1, leaving his empire to Abd-ul-Mejid,
a lad of sixteen. Simultaneously, the crushing news was brought to. the
capital, that Ahmed Pasha, the Ottoman admiral, had sailed to Alexandria and
there, on the pretext that Khusrev and the other Ministers of the dying Sultan
were sold to Russia, had handed over the fleet to Mehemet Ali.
The Ottoman
empire now seemed hopelessly doomed; but the advisers of the new Sultan decided
to attempt a direct appeal to Mehemet Ali. In the name of Abd-ul-Mejid the
Grand Vizier wrote to the Pasha enlarging on his master’s desire to avoid the
effusion of further Mussulman blood, promising him pardon for his offences
against the late Sultan, together with the highest personal honour it was possible
for him to bestow, and a settlement based on a grant of the hereditary pashalik
of Egypt to Mehemet Ali himself and of the government of Syria to Ibrahim— the
latter to be restored to the Sultan in the event of Ibrahim succeeding to Egypt
on his father’s death. To these overtures Mehemet Ali returned a diplomatic
reply. They represented, indeed, far less in the way of concession than he had
counted on receiving; but he knew that he must depend ultimately on the
good-will of one or more of the Powers, and that this could only be gained by
studied moderation. Moreover, if the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi were ever to be
more than “an interesting historical relic,” the time had now obviously come
for its practical application. The attitude of Russia was for the moment
doubtful. She was not averse from an independent agreement between the Pasha
and the Porte, which would relieve her from her obligations under the Treaty of
Unkiar Skelessi, and at the same time would not deprive her of her preponderant
position at Constantinople, untrammelled by any concert with the other Powers.
But this was precisely what the other Powers wished to avoid. While commending
the conciliatory attitude of the Porte, Marshal Soult therefore wrote to
deprecate any negotiations on its part with Mehemet Ali save through the good
offices of its allies; and Palmerston wrote strongly to the same effect. As to
any possible attempt on the part of Russia to interfere under the Treaty of
Unkiar Skelessi, ift the event of the Russian fleet entering the Bosphorus, the
British ambassador was to demand that the British fleet should be allowed to do
the same.
Meanwhile,
however, the crisis was beginning to reveal considerable shifting of opinion
within the councils of the Great Powers. Austria, now that the revolutionary
ferment of 1830 had died down, had no longer pressing need of the Tsar’s
support in Europe, and was beginning to revert to her traditional policy of
suspicious opposition to Russia in the East. This tendency, which had been evidenced
for some time by the more cordial relations of the Austrian intemuncio at
Constantinople with the ambassadors of the Maritime Powers, had not been lost
upon the Emperor Nicholas; and when, therefore, Mettemich supported Palmerston’s
proposal for a Conference to be called at Vienna, the Tsar refused to be a
party to it. Such a Conference, he said, could only be directed against Russia,
which would run the risk of finding herself isolated in it. At the same time he
declared that he was ready to consider himself bound by all the articles of the
Convention of Miinchengratz and to act in concert with Austria in the
settlement of the affairs of Turkey. But, though the idea of a Conference was
thus rejected, all the Powers were at least agreed as to the necessity for
gaining time by presenting a united front at Constantinople; and on July 27 the
ambassadors of Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, presented
to the Porte a joint Note. “The undersigned,” it ran, “have this morning
received from their respective Governments instructions, in virtue of which
they have the honour to inform the Sublime Porte that an agreement on the
Eastern Question has been reached between the Five Great Powers, and to urge it
to suspend all definite decision made without their concurrence, pending the
effect of their interest in its welfare.”
In a despatch
to Palmerston of the same date, Ponsonby noted the excellent effect produced by
this common action in strengthening the Porte in its determination to resist
the demands of Mehemet Ali, and thus opening the way to the realisation of the
aims of British policy. Palmerston himself fully gauged the importance of
impressing the Sultan’s Government with the unanimity of the Powers, and, on
August 1, in a despatch to the ambassador, insisted on this point, reporting
“an almost entire identity of opinion between the Five Cabinets,” while at the
same time urging that it was “of great importance that in any step to be taken
at Constantinople, or in any communication which is to be made by the
representatives of the Five Powers, those representatives should act not only
simultaneously in point of time, but identically in point of manner.” The need
for this was the more urgent, since the solemn announcement of an agreement
between the Five Powers had only been rendered possible by the fact that they
had not as yet clearly defined their several views as to the ultimate
settlement; though it might fairly be taken as an earnest of their intention to
effect this settlement in concert. It was this element of uncertainty that
contributed mainly to the misunderstandings which culminated in the breach
between France and England.
Hitherto the
western Powers had acted cordially in concert. Both had consistently opposed
the preponderance of Russia in the Ottoman empire ; both saw in the policy of
placing Turkey under the protection of the European Concert the best means of
retrieving the situation. But here their agreement ceased. Palmerston believed
that the Ottoman empire would never be secure until “the desert had been placed
between” Mehemet Ali and the Sultan; and his whole policy was directed to
pressing the Pasha back once more within the frontiers of Egypt. French
opinion, on the other hand, was greatly excited in favour of Mehemet Ali, on
whom the mantle of Napoleon seemed to have fallen, and who might prove a
valuable ally of France against the sea-power of Great Britain in the
Mediterranean. In this divergence of view the Emperor Nicholas saw his
opportunity. In coming to a good understanding with England he was well aware
that he could sacrifice none of Russia’s real advantage in the East. Her
influence at Constantinople was due to causes altogether outside the Treaty of
Unkiar Skelessi—to her geographical position, and to the Orthodox population in
the Turkish dominions, which looked to her for protection. The Treaty itself
represented no more than a snatch victory due to the circumstances of the
moment, “honourable” indeed to Russia, but hardly of any practical value, since
any attempt to translate its terms into action would expose her to the risk of
war with united Europe. To surrender it therefore, as the price for the rupture
of the Liberal alliance of the western Powers, seemed no great sacrifice.
Baron Brunnow
was, therefore, sent to London with instructions to approach Palmerston with
offers so magnanimous that, if his report is to be believed, they struck the
British Minister, hitherto the Tsar’s most uncompromising opponent, “ with
surprise and admiration.” The Emperor stated that he was prepared to accept
the views of Great Britain on the Turco-Egyptian Question; to allow the Treaty
of Unkiar Skelessi to lapse; and to act henceforth in Turkey only in concert
with the other Powers; finally, in return for an international agreement
closing the Dardanelles to the war-ships of all nations, to extend the same
principle to the Bosphorus, which Russia would undertake only to enter, should
the defence of the Ottoman empire demand it, as the mandatory of Europe. The
Russian ambassador was further instructed to arrange a coalition of the Great
Powers for the settlement of the Egyptian Question; and in this coalition the
Tsar was willing that France, for political reasons, should be included, though
he stated his personal desire for her exclusion.
The Tsar’s
overtures to Great Britain had been in part due to his suspicions of Austria.
Mettemich, however, though annoyed by the breakdown of the idea of a
Conference—over which he would have presided—accepted the situation, and, early
in August, informed the Russian Government that Austria was determined to hold
to the spirit
of the Treaty
of Mlinchengratz, and to act in concert with Russia on the Eastern Question.
Prussia, as usual, followed the lead of Austria. It remained to be seen what
attitude France would take up. By adhering to the other Powers in presenting
the joint Note to the Porte she had committed herself to a concert with them ;
the logical and proper sequel to this would have been for her to accept in
principle whatever policy the majority might decide upon, while obtaining for
her protege Mehemet Ali the best possible terms. The alternative was to have
placed herself outside the Concert altogether by her own act, so soon as she
became aware that the differences between her views and those of the other
Powers were fundamental and insuperable. Neither of these courses was adopted;
though it was soon abundantly clear that in favouring the Egyptian view France
was completely isolated. The Emperor Nicholas had from the first declared that
the proper objective for a naval demonstration was not Constantinople, but
Alexandria; and in this he was in complete agreement with Palmerston. General
Sebastiani, who had arrived in London as French ambassador about the same time
as Brunnow, wrote, on September 5, to Marshal Soult that Palmerston would hear
of no settlement that should leave Mehemet Ali in a position to renew his
attacks on the Porte. As the result of weeks of negotiation, Palmerston, who
was sincerely anxious to preserve the Anglo-French entente, proposed a
compromise which represented the limit of possible concession; and, on October
3, Sebastiani wrote that the British Government was willing to allow Mehemet
Ali to receive the hereditary pashalik of Egypt, together with that of Acre,
excluding the fortress and town. Had the French Government accepted the logic
of the situation, France might have been spared a serious humiliation and
Mehemet Ali would have garnered at least some of the harvest of his gigantic
efforts. But public opinion in France continued violently opposed to the idea
of depriving the Pasha of any of the fruits of his victories; and Soult shared
the erroneous popular estimate of the invincibility of Mehemet Ali and Ibrahim.
Sebastiani, accordingly, was instructed to press for further concessions.
Palmerston’s reply was to withdraw those already made; and, when the French
ambassador advanced yet further propositions, these were received “ with a
polite but icy silence.” Early in 1840 Sebastiani was replaced as ambassador to
the Court of St James’ by Guizot, a more pronounced partisan of Mehemet Ali,
but at the same time a persona grata in London, by reason of his great
reputation and his many ties with English life and thought. Palmerston, for his
part, was prepared to meet the fresh advances half-way. “ England,” he said,,“
is willing to go on, but not to stand still with France”; and he promised to
make the utmost possible concessions to the French demands on behalf of the
Pasha. Unfortunately, before Guizot arrived in London, the Cabinet of Marshal
Soult had been defeated, and resigned on February 29. Next day Thiers was
commissioned to form a Government.
The new
Minister was an even more ardent supporter of the claims of Mehemet Ali than
his predecessor, and, in order to secure his position, under yet greater
necessity of humouring public opinion; and Guizot fully grasped the extreme
difficulty of the mission on which he was despatched. He was, he said, in the
position of being unable either to offer or to accept anything. Palmerston had
all along insisted on the probable necessity for an eventual coercion of
Mehemet Ali, and had even declared, so early as September, 1839, that, in the
event of all the Five Powers not being able to join in such a policy, Great
Britain would be prepared “ to act in concert with a less number than four”;
the French Government had been equally obstinate in refusing assent to any
measures for depriving the Pasha of Syria.
It was
necessary therefore for Guizot to walk warily. He began by approaching the
Austrian and Prussian ambassadors, whom he found more amenable to his arguments
than Palmerston; and, after two months of negotiation, a compromise was
suggested that seemed to present a solution of the difficulty. On May 5 Baron
Neumann, on behalf of the Austrian Government, formally proposed to Palmerston
that his former offer should be somewhat extended, so as to meet the views of
France; Mehemet Ali was to receive, besides Egypt, the pashalik of Acre as far
as the frontiers of Tripoli and Damascus, including the town of St Jean d’Acre.
Before this proposal was made, Palmerston had made yet another effort “ to
prove our anyiety to conceal nothing from France, and to carry France along
with us,” and, in concert with the other three Powers, had formally proposed to
convene a Conference of all Five at London to settle the whole Turco-Egyptian
Question. This overture Thiers had rejected, on the ground that, in the
probable event of the four Powers deciding on coercive measures against Mehemet
Ali, France would refuse to be a party to them, and that such refusal would
render her separation from the other Powers more marked than if no Conference
of the Five had taken place. In spite of this uncompromising attitude,
Palmerston was willing to give every possible pledge of his anxiety to keep on
good terms with France; and on May 7, in an interview with Guizot, he signified
his acceptance, though with obvious reluctance, of the Austrian proposal.
Guizot’s able
diplomacy was rendered vain by the intractable temper of Thiers. On May
11,1840, he replied to the ambassador’s despatch announcing the result of the
negotiations, that France could never accept on the Pasha’s behalf the idea of
a partition of Syria. In coming to this decision he disclaimed any selfish
motives on the part of his Government. But Mehemet Ali, he urged, would never
listen to such a proposal, the very enunciation of which would drive him to
continue his arrested march over the Taurus and “ set light to the powder.” As
for the idea of coercion, the allied fleet might reduce a few coast-towns, but
could never drive the Pasha out of Syria.
After this
declaration, which reads oddly enough in the light of subsequent events, any
further negotiation between France and Great Britain would have seemed idle;
and, if Thiers believed so firmly in the invincibility of the Pasha, he should
have broken with the Concert and ranged France openly on his side.
Unfortunately for his own reputation and the prestige of France, he took no
such straightforward course; and, before long, circumstances came to the
knowledge of the British Government which seemed to point to the fact that he
was merely protracting the negotiations at London in the hope of securing an independent
settlement in accordance with French views. The opportunity for this was given
at this juncture by a change in the situation at Constantinople. Khusrev Pasha,
the Grand Vizier, had been dismissed; and Mehemet Ali hailed the fall of his
inveterate enemy as removing the main obstacle to a reconciliation with the
Sultan. He proposed to Cochelet, the French consul-general at Alexandria, to
make advances to the Porte and, as an earnest of his peaceful intentions, to
begin by sending back the Ottoman fleet, “ not doubting,” so the
consul-general’s despatch ran, “ that this spontaneous action on his part would
lead to a direct and amicable arrangement of the Turco-Egyptian Question.” On
June 21, his envoy, Sami Bey, actually arrived at Constantinople, ostensibly to
congratulate the Sultan on the birth of his daughter, really, with the aid of
French influence, now all-powerful at the Porte, to pave the way for a
settlement. The despatch of the French consul- general was forwarded to Guizot
on June 30, Thiers adding: “ This condition of affairs argues strongly in
favour of postponing any decision in London. I have written to Alexandria and
Constantinople to counsel moderation on both sides; but I have been careful to
forbid the agents to enter on their own account, and as a French undertaking,
on a negotiation of which the avowed aim is a direct arrangement. If such an
enterprise is imputed to us, you will be in a position to deny it.”
It is clear
that, in spite of the somewhat disingenuous disclaimer contained in the last
paragraph, this action of Thiers was a violation of the spirit, if not of the
letter, of the agreement implied in the joint Note of July 27, 1839. His proper
course would have been to have at once communicated Mehemet Ali’s proposal to
Palmerston, in order to concert with the other Powers measures to meet the new
situation revealed by it. As it was, the discovery of what seemed an underhand
intrigue on the part of the French Government produced on the Powers exactly
the effect which Thiers had foreseen and deprecated. “ They have seen in this,”
wrote Guizot on July 11, “or at least they believe themselves entitled to see
in it, an action long concerted between the Pasha and France, who has long been
preparing it at Alexandria as at Constantinople. They consider the act of
Mehemet Ali and its success as involving, first, the ruin of the Note of July
27,1839, suid of the common action of the Five Powers; secondly, the complete
individual triumph
of France at
Alexandria and Constantinople.” This was certainly the view of Palmerston, who
believed that the cause of France’s dilatory tactics was now revealed. His
reply was prompt. On July 17, he read to Guizot a long memorandum, in which he
announced that the four Powers, in consequence of the refusal of France to
share their views, had been reluctantly forced to conclude with the Ottoman
Porte a Convention for the settlement of the affairs of the Levant, without the
concurrence of the French Government. At the same time he expressed the hope
that, since France had often reiterated that she had no objection to the
arrangements which the four Powers wished Mehemet Ali to accept, provided he
should consent to them, she would not oppose the measures which they, in
concert with the Sultan, might judge necessary in order to secure that consent;
and, finally, that this “ partial and temporary disagreement” would do nothing
to disturb the relations of sincere friendship which he wished to see preserved
between the two countries.
For a while
it seemed as though this pious wish were not to be realised. The news of the “
mortal affront ” to the honour of France, as Guizot termed it in the first
moment of chagrin, was received in Paris with immense excitement. The whole of
the press was clamorous for war, and Thiers himself exclaimed that the alliance
with Great Britain was shattered. Under his direction the country was filled
with warlike preparations. Palmerston watched these demonstrations with an
equal mind. France, he argued, was no longer the France of Napoleon; the rule
of a military caste, which depended for its wealth on the plunder of Europe,
was one thing; that of the bourgeois class, drawing a comfortable income from
rentes, another. The bellicose tone of Thiers’ public utterances was in fact
intended mainly to satisfy the amour-propre of the French public. His language
to Guizot, who remained in London, revealed a more circumspect temper. “ Be
careful,” he wrote on July 21, “while allowing our just resentment to be felt,
to avoid a peremptory tone. We must take up our position and view the future
with sangfroid. The King is very calm; we are as calm as he. Without noise, we
will make preparations more solid than apparent. We will make them apparent
should the situation demand it.” In view of the extreme delicacy of the
situation, both parties were indeed careful to diminish the risk of a violent
rupture by studious moderation. The French Government instructed its admiral
in the Levant to avoid all misunderstanding with those of the allied fleets;
and Palmerston, for his part, undertook that no blockade of Egyptian ports
should be declared; that, should the Sultan exercise his right of blockading
his subject’s harbours, the Allies would take no share in any such blockade;
and that the rights of neutrals should be strictly protected.
The
Convention of London, of which the draft had been prepared by Palmerston so
early as the previous January, but of which the first
definite
knowledge was conveyed to the French ambassador in the interview of July 17,
was signed on July 15. By this instrument it was agreed that, the Sultan having
come to a complete understanding with the signatory Powers as to the terms to
be granted to Mehemet Ali, the High Contracting Parties were to unite their
forces, if necessary, in order to compel the Pasha of Egypt to accept the settlement,
and, in the event of his continuing his march on Constantinople, to protect the
capital and the Straits against him, continuing their joint occupation so long
as the Sultan should judge necessary. Care was taken to make it clear that this
cooperation in the protection of Constantinople and the Straits was accorded at
the express invitation of the Sultan, and only applicable to the special case
defined in the treaty. As to the terms of settlement, it was arranged by
separate articles that, in the event of Mehemet Ali yielding within ten days,
he should receive the hereditary pashalik of Egypt together with the
administration for life of southern Syria, with the title of Pasha of Acre and
the command of the fortress of St Jean d’Acre. If at the end of ten days he
should remain obdurate, the Sultan’s offer of Syria and Acre would be
withdrawn; and if at the close of yet another ten days he were still defiant,
the Sultan would hold himself at liberty to withdraw the whole offer and take
such measures as his own interests and the counsels of his allies might suggest
to him. By a protocole reserve of the same date it was agreed that the
Convention should be put in force without awaiting the exchange of
ratifications. Finally, by a Protocol signed at London on September 5 and
communicated to Guizot on the 17th, the Allied Powers formally disclaimed any
intention of deriving separate advantages from their intervention.
Meanwhile the
action of the Allies under the Convention had begun. On August 11, Sir Charles
Napier had appeared off Beirout and summoned Suleiman Pasha to evacuate the
town and Syria. As yet, however, no shot had been actually fired; and the
French Government pressed Mehemet Ali to moderate his terms. On September 17
Thiers wrote to Guizot that the Pasha would accept the hereditary pashalik of
Egypt and that of Syria for Ibrahim for life. Palmerston, however, would hear
of no modification of the terms of the Convention of July 15. In any case it
would have been too late to avert hostilities. On September 11, Napier
bombarded Beirout and landed an Ottoman force to operate against Ibrahim in
Syria. Four days later the Sultan, who had broken off all negotiations with
Mehemet Ali’s envoy on the first news of the revolt in Syria, which had taken
place in August, declared Mehemet Ali deposed and nominated his successor, on
the ground that the term allowed by the additional articles of the Convention
had expired. At Alexandria, on September 23, the consuls of the four Powers
notified to the Pasha their own removal and at the same time the approaching
arrival of the Sultan’s sentence. “Mehemet Ali received them and their
notification of his own deposition with great sangfroid, observing
that such
denunciations were nothing new to him; that this was the fourth, and that he
hoped to get over it as well as he had done the other three, with the help of
God and the Prophet.”
The pious
confidence implied in the last phrase was doubtless reinforced by a not
unnatural expectation of French support. The news of the events in the East had
created intense excitement at Paris. An extraordinary meeting of the Ministry
was held; and, on October 8, instructions were sent to Guizot to inform the
British Government that France would never tolerate the execution of the
Sultan’s ban of deposition. Palmerston, realising the gravity of the
situation, instructed Ponsonby to press upon the Sultan, in the event of
Mehemet Ali’s >peedy submission, not only to withdraw the sentence of
deposition, but to confer on him the hereditary pashalik. But this was not
enough to satisfy French opinion, which saw in the Convention of July a new
coalition directed against France. Thiers talked at large of reviving the
glories of 1793, placing France at the head of the Revolution, sweeping away
the flimsy barriers of the treaties of 1815, and advancing the French frontiers
once more to the Rhine. Military preparations were hurried on, and for a while
war seemed inevitable. The Emperor Nicholas, who had been using the crisis to
draw closer the ties of a good understanding between Great Britain and Russia,
of his own accord offered to send a squadron to the assistance of the British
in the event of their being attacked by France.
At the last
moment, however, Louis-Philippe shrank from the appeal to arms, the probable
consequences of which Lord Melbourne had been careful to point out to him
through Leopold, King of the Belgians. The new Chambers had been summoned for
October 28; and Thiers had prepared a speech from the Throne which would have
been practically a gage of defiance to Europe. “ France,” it declared, “ which
has not been the first to expose the world to the fortune of arms, must hold
herself ready to act on the day when she believes the balance of the world to
be seriously menaced.” This was language which Louis-Philippe felt himself
unable to use. On October 21, accordingly, Thiers and his colleagues resigned;
and a new Cabinet was formed under Marshal Soult, with Guizot as Foreign
Minister. The new Chambers met on November 5; and the King’s speech, which,
under a cloud of brave phrases, was evidently intended to cover a retreat,
raised a hurricane of protest in the country and in the Parliament. Out of the
chaos of criticism, accusation, and personal recrimination, only one clear fact
emerged: that nobody wanted a war which everyone felt to involve risks out of
all proportion to the contingent benefits. The address on the Egyptian Question
proposed by the Government was carried on December 4; and peace was assured.
This result
was aided by the unexpectedly rapid collapse of Mehemet Ali’s power. The French
had reckoned on his being able to keep the
Allies in
check, at least till France should be in a position to interfere, if she
decided to do so, with a decisive result. But their belief in his invincibility
and their admiration for him as the champion of French enlightenment against
Ottoman barbarism had alike received some rude shocks, before the fall of
Thiers definitely marked the abandonment of a warlike policy. The combined
squadrons of Great Britain, Austria, and Turkey, had hardly appeared off
Beirout in August, before all Syria rose in a passion of revolt against the
tyranny of Ibrahim. On October 3 Beirout fell; and Ibrahim, cut off from his
communications by sea and surrounded on all sides by a hostile population,
began a hurried retreat southwards. On November 3 Acre surrendered to the
allied fleet. The fate of Egypt itself seemed to tremble in the balance,
opening up a fresh vista of possible international complications.
The critical
situation was ended by the prompt action of Admiral Napier. On November 25, he
appeared with part of his squadron before Alexandria, and, partly by
persuasion, partly by threats of force, induced Mehemet Ali to sign a
Convention in which he promised to submit, and to restore the Ottoman fleet so
soon as the Powers should guarantee him the hereditary pashalik of Egypt. At
the same time an envoy was despatched on a British ship with orders to Ibrahim
to evacuate Syria. At Constantinople the news of the Convention, by which
Mehemet Ali had been guaranteed against the Sultan’s vengeance just when this
promised to be complete, was received with very mixed feelings. But Palmerston
had ratified the Admiral’s action ; the other Powers had adhered to it; and on
January 10, 1841, a joint Note was presented by the four ambassadors to the
Sultan, recommending the bestowal upon Mehemet Ali of the hereditary
governorship of Egypt. On the Porte endeavouring to procrastinate, a Memorandum
followed on the 30th, in which the Powers, while inviting the Sultan “ to show
himself generous ” to Mehemet Ali, explained that, in taking this action, “they
were not conscious of advising a course out of harmony with the sovereignty and
legitimate rights of the Sultan, or contrary to the duties imposed on the
Pa&ha of Egypt as a subject appointed by His Highness to govern a province
of the Ottoman empire.” This principle was elaborated in the firman, issued on
February 13, by which the Sultan conferred on Mehemet Ali and his heirs by
direct descent the pashalik of Egypt. Care was taken to define the limits of
the powers thus delegated: the Pashas of Egypt were to take rank on equal terms
with the other viziers of the empire; all laws made for the Ottoman empire were
to have force in Egypt, which was also to be bound by all treaties concluded
between the Sultan and foreign Powers; taxes were to be collected in the
Sultan’s name, and a fourth of the revenue was to be paid into the treasury at
Constantinople; finally, the number of troops maintained by the Pasha in time
of peace was not to exceed 18,000, and these were to form an integral portion
of the
imperial
Ottoman army. By a second firman, dated February 13, 1841, Mehemet Ali was
likewise invested with the government for life of Nubia, Darfour, Khordofan,
and Sennaar, with their dependencies.
The solemn
promulgation of the firmans at Alexandria, on June 10, 1841, marked the close
of this perilous phase of the Egyptian Question. Mehemet Ali, now an old man,
and soon destined to lose those keen powers of intellect which had carried him
so far, passes off the stage of history. As regards the general diplomatic
situation, however, there remained one step to be taken before the whole
incident could be considered satisfactorily closed. This was to apply a salve
to the wounded amour-propre of France and draw her once more within the
European Concert. Fortunately this was a problem not difficult of solution. The
proposal of Guizot, which had the support of Metternich, to place the Ottoman
empire under the guarantee of the Five Powers, was indeed rejected by
Palmerston as too obviously aimed at Russia. But it was agreed between the
Allied Powers and France that, the differences between the Sultan and Mehemet
Ali being satisfactorily settled, the four signatory Powers of the Convention
of July 15 should sign an Act recording the “ closure ” of the incident, and
that in this instrument mention should be made of the opportunity “ of
consecrating in the most formal manner the respect due to the ancient rule of
the Ottoman empire, by virtue of which vessels of wax belonging to foreign
Powers have always been forbidden to enter the straits of the Dardanelles and
the Bosphorus.” To this separate Act, known as that of “ the Straits,” France
was to be invited by the Sultan to adhere. This course was accordingly
followed. The “ Protocole de Cloture ” was signed by the four Towers on July
10, 1841. Three days later, on July 13, the “Protocole des Ditroits,” pledging
the Powers to respect the principle proclaimed by the Sultan with regard to the
passage of ships of war, was signed by all Five Powers.
This
Convention, which was renewed in 1879, was regarded by Russian statesmen at the
time as a triumph for their diplomacy, since it appeared to secure for Russia
all the advantages of the secret articles of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. The
unsoundness of this view was proved by the events of 1854, when the existence
of the Protocol did not prevent the fleets of France and Great Britain from
passing into the Black Sea; it might have been suspected from the absence of
any pledge on the part of the signatory Powers to enforce the principle which
they undertook to “respect.” Whatever its essential weakness, however, the immediate
moral effect of the Protocol was certainly great. Not only had the
Anglo-Russian entente of 1839 become, for the moment, an effective
understanding, full of possibilities unhappily not destined to be realised; but
the principle of the Concert of Europe had been reaffirmed, the breach between the
Eastern and Western Powers had been, for the time at least, healed; and, in the
words of Count Nesselrode, “ the federative system oi the European States had
been reestablished on its old basis.”
GREAT
BRITAIN.
(1815-32.)
The triumphant close of a war, waged by
an enemy with the view of reforming or overturning the' existing frame of
things, might well have ensured to England a long period of political reaction.
Devotion to King and Church might well have been strengthened; acquiescence in
the control of government by aristocratic landowners might have been assured;
the recognition of old prescriptive rights and traditions might have been
universally acknowledged. But none of these results followed. Within seventeen
years every one of these old traditions and institutions had been criticised,
shaken, or remoulded, and the greatest constitutional change of the last two
centuries had been accomplished in direct defiance of representatives of the
old order. The cause of these extraordinary changes is to be found in the
Industrial Revolution, which had created a class of rich merchants and
capitalists. These owed everything to their own individual enterprise and
nothing to the aid of the Government, and were naturally induced, by their
increase of wealth and power, to demand more influence in politics. It is
obvious that their influence, together with the growth of wealth and political
self-consciousness in the middle-class, would compel the readjustment of the
existing relations between Church and State, between land and capital, and
would involve extensions of political privilege and concessions of religious
equality. Such tendencies and changes are therefore to be seen throughout the
four epochs, into which the period (1815-32) naturally falls.
In the first
epoch (1815-22) the universal popular distress temporarily induces the middle
classes to unite with the old aristocracy against Radicalism, and postpones the
development of their influence. In the second epoch (1822-7) the extensive
financial and legislative reforms of Huskisson and Canning reveal the influence
of that middle-class of which those statesmen were members. In the third epoch
(1828-30) Wellington vainly struggles to support the landed interest and the
old governmental system, and is forced eventually to yield. In the fourth epoch
(1830-2) is to be discerned the complete triumph of the middle classes, who
overthrow the old aristocratic predominance and secure for
themselves a
preponderant political influence. Thus the period has an underlying unity, for
it exhibits throughout the struggle of the middle classes to reform the old
institutions in their own favour. The economic and social transformations
originated by the industrial revolution bring about a transference of political
power and an alteration in the balance of the Constitution.
The
Government in 1815 had for its chief members: Castlereagh, as leader in the
Commons, Eldon as Lord Chancellor, Liverpool as Premier, and Vansittart at the
Exchequer. The first two appear to have dictated the policy of the Cabinet.
Their general aim was professedly to carry out the polity of Pitt, but the
policy of Pitt after, and not before, 1793. The French Revolution had
engendered a fear, almost a hatred, of all experimental or remedial legislation;
and the wave of reaction had not spent its force. Eldon was the Walpole of a
new era, imploring the country to enjoy the blessings of peace and of order. To
secure the stability of the State, not to provide for its growth, was, in his
view, the true end and object of all statesmanship. Castlereagh deferred too
much to Eldon in this policy of excessive caution and timidity. For this
reason, therefore, the years 1815-22 were singularly barren in legislative or
administrative achievement. The movement in favour of state education was
checked; and, though sinecures were cut down, fresh pensions were created. No
adequate attempt was made by the Ministers to draw up factory or combination
laws, to reform the criminal code or the poor laws. In finance, at a moment
which demanded the most drastic legislative remedies, the only real reform
proceeded from a committee, whose chairman was a private member.
Distracted as
it was by internal weakness and divisions, the Opposition was unable to exert
effective pressure on the Government. Lords Lansdowne, Grey, and Grenville,
their leaders in the Lords, differed in their opinions on fundamental points.
Tierney, the official leader in the Commons, was a good speaker, but
unacceptable to the aristocrats as a representative of the commercial classes,
and destitute of skill in party management. The main body of the Whigs in the
Commons was disheartened; several sections, such as those led by Bankes and
Grattan, were quite independent. The Grenvillite Whigs, led in the Commons by
Wynn, seceded in 1818, and openly joined the Tories in 1822. Cochrane and
Burdett headed the few Radicals, and helped, by their violent denunciations
and extravagant language, to bring into discredit the Whig party, to which they
owed indeed no allegiance, but with which they were sometimes confounded. But
for the energy and oratory of one man, the Opposition might have had but little
influence. The greatness of Henry Brougham was indeed purely intellectual, for
his vanity and instability often led him into amazing extravagances. Yet,
though doing little to unite his party, he had immense influence in forming not
only their opinions, but those of the Government and the nation. His unrivalled
industry
and knowledge
enabled him to survey every department of domestic and foreign policy.
Exercising an almost complete tyranny over the Edinburgh Review (for which he
wrote innumerable articles), he was enabled to mould to his views the official
organ of Whig opinion. Against the greatest debater and almost the greatest
orator of his time, the platitudes of Vansittart and Castlereagh availed
nothing. It was not till Canning entered the Ministry in June, 1816, that a
defender was found with gifts of eloquence and learning sufficient, on
occasion, to reduce even the great Whig orator to silence.
Early in 1816
Vansittart brought forward his first peace budget, and at once revealed that he
had no comprehensive scheme for averting the imminent prospect of general
distress and failure. His principal proposal was to convert the ten per cent,
property or income-tax into a five per cent. tax. Brougham denounced the
iniquity of retaining the tax at all, on the ground that, having been imposed
for the war, it ought to be withdrawn at its close. At last the scheme was wholly
rejected; and Brougham, finding the House in a fit of hysterical joy, carried a
childish resolution for the destruction of all records relating to the hated
tax. Though the Government had thus received a severe defeat, though
Castlereagh and Vansittart had both declared the retention of the tax essential
to the maintenance of the nation’s credit and power, they showed no disposition
to resign. They even yielded yet further, and abolished the extra or war-duty
of 2s. on every bushel of malt. This concession was intended to please the
country gentlemen, and cost the Exchequer nearly three millions. When
remonstrance was made, Castlereagh coolly remarked that this loss made no
difference, as the Government would in any case have to arrange for a large loan.
These utterances and actions show that the Ministry were so accustomed to the
recklessness of war expenditure, that even the warning signs of universal
distress could not impress upon them the need of the most rigid economy.
The burden of
the largest debt ever as yet incurred by any nation, and the reaction of
exhaustion after the sustained effort of war, combined to produce a terrible
crisis. The days of rejoicing and the nights of illumination were scarce ended,
when men began to find that disasters follow upon peace as well as upon war.
The sudden close of a long war dislocated commerce and industry, alike in their
widest extent and in their minutest detail. The trades created or enlarged by
the war were the first to suffer. A sudden cessation of demand caused great
distress among gunmakers, braziers, and workers in steel and iron, among
contractors, clothiers, and tanners. Half-a-million of men—once soldiers,
sailors, or camp-followers—suddenly found themselves without employment,
Landlords and farmers experienced a sudden and enormous depression in their
prices, which had been artificially stimulated by the Continental System. The
increasingly rapid introduction of labour-
saving
machinery—especially that of power-weaving—was impoverishing the handloom
weavers, destroying by-industries, and causing widespread distress and
displacement of labour within special areas. The landlords had profited by the
increased stringency of the com law, and the capitalists by the abolition of
the income-tax. Many of both classes also drew part of their income from
interest on the debt. The poorer classes, taxed to pay the interest on the debt
and to make good the deficit from the abolition of the income-tax, had, of
course, no opportunity to benefit therefrom. Thus the inequitable assessment
of taxation tended to benefit the rich, and to lay the burden of the debt on
the classes least able to bear it. Certain special circumstances contributed,
together with these more general causes, to render distress general and acute
during the years 1815-6. The year 1816 produced a very bad harvest; many
farmers gave notice to quit, farms went out of cultivation, and in some
parishes half of the inhabitants were supported from the rates. The reduction
of the price of iron by one-half caused widespread distress in manufacturing
districts. The miseiy of the poor was extreme; and industrial reacted upon
agricultural depression.
The
unsympathetic attitude of the Government aggravated the consequences of this
universal misery. The labourers, ascribing their distress to the landlords and
capitalists, proceeded to bum the ricks of the one and to destroy the machinery
of the other. The Luddite riots have been described as the most formidable of
all outbreaks against the introduction of new machinery. In reality they appear
to have originated in wage disputes with employers, and were actually directed
against machinery which had long been in use. Whatever their origin, the
Luddite riots were numerous and formidable in the big cities of the Midlands
during 1816-7. Bread riots were also frequent and widespread in the towns. The
distress of the people was the opportunity of the demagogues; and the flame of
popular indignation was steadily fanned by a small knot of Radicals, who
naturally used the prevailing distress as an argument for the necessity of
their sweeping proposals. Some of these men were visionary and sincere, others
unprincipled and self-seeking; but all were united in the violence of their
denunciation and abuse. The different sections of the so-called Radicals are
easy to distinguish. There were the Owenites and Spencean philanthropists, the
members of the Hampden Clubs, and the followers of Cobbett, Hunt, and
Thistlewood. The followers of Owen and Spence were the precursors of socialism;
but their ideas were vague, dreamy, impracticable, and harmless. The Hampden
Clubs, created in 1815 by Major Cartwright to work for the securing of
universal suffrage, were equally innocuous. The more efficient forces of the
agitation were directed by Cobbett, Hunt, and Thistlewood.
In general,
Cobbett is important rather as representing temporary gusts and short-lived
outbursts of popular opinion, than as developing
any
consistent plan of social or political improvement. He seems to have never
cared much about Parliamentary Reform. No man was guilty of more amazing
inconsistencies or extravagant absurdities. But the immense and decisive
influence exerted by him upon the movements and events of 1816-7 can hardly be
denied. During these years Hazlitt’s epigram, that Cobbett formed a Fourth
Estate in himself, was almost literally true. At the end of 1816 Cobbett
suddenly reduced the price of his famous paper, The Weekly Political Register,
from one shilling and a halfpenny to twopence. The effect was prodigious; for
the first time the lower classes had within their reach a journal, conducted
not only by a man of the people, but by one who was a writer of genius in his
irregular way. The vigour of his style drew the attention of the upper classes,
that of his opinions commanded the enthusiasm of the lower. By a single stroke
Cobbett had enormously increased the power of the Press. His wild remedies,
such as the immediate withdrawal of all paper-money, and of all interest on the
National Debt, and the destruction of British foreign commerce in order to
bring the labourer back to the land, were calculated to fill the propertied
classes with groundless reasons for alarm, and to commend themselves to those
driven half-mad with hunger and distress.
Hunt was a
powerful mob-orator, but was far inferior in influence to Cobbett, and from his
emptiness and vanity a mere tool in the hands of. others. The real leaders of
the Radical party were a group of obscure and somewhat desperate characters, of
whom Thistlewood and the two Watsons were the chief. Their ostensible programme
resembled that of Cartwright, and included annual Parliaments, the ballot,
payment of members, and universal suffrage. But darker rumours were afloat; it
was said that the Radicals planned to fire the London barracks and to march on
the Tower. On November 15,1816, they held a meeting at Spa Fields, which was
broken up by the police. On December 2 they met again, and inflammatory
speeches were made; the younger Watson led the crowd into the City, where a
gunsmith’s shop was stormed and a bystander wounded. The mob was soon
dispersed, and the ringleaders were arrested. As this outbreak synchronised
with bread and machinery riots in other districts, the propertied classes at
once connected the three kinds of disturbance, and regarded them as evidence of
a carefully-planned simultaneous rising. In February, 1817, the alarm was
enhanced by an attack on the Regent, whose coach-window was shattered by a shot
or stone on his return from opening Parliament.
Secret
committees of both Houses were at once appointed to consider the state of the
nation. The reports which they presented were of a most alarming character.
They dwelt upon the dangerous and revolutionary tendencies of the Spencean
philanthropists and the Union clubs, both of which societies were—as is now
known—of a perfectly harmless, if slightly extravagant, character. The
committees
were to some
extent successful in producing evidence of wild or revolutionary opinions, but
had almost nothing on which to base their belief in designs for the active and
immediate use of force on the part of the Radicals. The Spa Fields riot was the
one fact on which they could rely; and even here evidence of treasonable design
rested on the sole testimony of one Castle, a hired informer of infamous
character. Both committees concurred in attributing to the Radicals designs for
an immediate and general insurrection, whose object was “a total overthrow of
all existing establishments, and a division of the landed and extinction of the
funded property of the country.” The reports ended by pronouncing the existing
laws inadequate to deal with the situation. On February 24 Castlereagh
introduced Bills entrusting the Government with extraordinary powers, and
suspending the Habeas Corpus Act. A Seditious Meetings Bill was passed,
requiring licenses to be obtained from the magistrates for the holding of
meetings, lectures, and debates on whatever subject. Early in March Sidmouth,
the Home Secretary, issued a circular to the Lords-Lieutenant, drawing their
attention to the circulation of blasphemous and seditious literature, and
recommending magistrates to apprehend persons charged with publishing or
writing such libels. The code of repressive legislation was completed by this
attack on the freedom of opinion and of the Press.
Before the
Seditious Meetings Bill had passed into law, the Ministry was thrown into great
alarm by accounts of two meetings held in Manchester on March 3 and 10. A mob
assembled there to protest against the repressive measures of the Government,
and proposed to march on London and lay their grievances before the Regent. As
each petitioner carried with him a blanket, those who set out on this march
were called Blanketeers. Ringleaders were arrested on warrants from Sidmouth;
dragoons and yeomanry scattered or turned back some of their followers; cold
and exposure disposed of the rest. After this utter failure to impress the
capital, the northern Radicals turned their attention to making demonstrations
in their own particular districts. Under pressure from the local magistrates,
the Home Secretary again issued warrants of arrest, which resulted in the
capture and imprisonment of various ringleaders. This action caused the
failure of several projected meetings, but did not prevent serious riots at
Derby and Huddersfield. At Derby the rioters killed a man, but afterwards
surrendered quietly to the yeomanry. Thus was easily suppressed the sole riot,
of the series beginning with the Spa Fields meeting, which seemed likely to
have dangerous consequences. But the Government relaxed none of its severity,
and again set its secret committees to work. On the production of further
alarming reports, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act—which would have
ceased with the session— was extended until March 1, 1818. Since that date the
Habeas Corpus Act has never been suspended in England.
The Ministry
seem to have been induced to take this momentous step by a real belief in the
existence of plans for a universal insurrection as evidenced by the late riots.
The juries, before whom the accused came, certainly did not concur in this
view. Watson and other Spa Fields rioters were discharged; some score of
persons, charged with high treason, were acquitted in the north. The Government
succeeded only in the conviction and execution of three of the Derby rioters,
whose guilt was clear and obvious. The trials of journalists and writers went
still more unfortunately for the Government. Two obscure writers— Wooler and
Hone—were acquitted amid general acclamations, though in the last case Chief
Justice Ellenborough used means of very doubtful propriety in order to secure a
conviction. The results of these legal proceedings certainly go far to
discredit the evidence on which the Government relied. In times of danger a
Minister may have to act at once, depending upon sources of information which
he would not accept upon other occasions. But the evidence of Castle and
Oliver, the witnesses chiefly responsible for the measures taken by Parliament
in February and June, 1817, respectively, was most dubious in the one case and
gravely suspect in the other. It was widely believed at the time that the
Government had deliberately stimulated the conspiracy through its agents. This
view is untenable; but Sidmouth and Castlereagh undoubtedly showed themselves
somewhat eager and credulous, so that the trade of informer became profitable
and every motive was supplied for exaggerating the danger. Both Oliver and
Castle admitted having fomented the plots they professed to discover, just as
in 1820 another government spy admitted that he had encouraged the Thistlewood
conspiracy. All the evidence goes to show that, even if plots had been hatched
by a few desperate men, the theory of a general conspiracy was utterly baseless.
The Ministry
justified themselves by alleging the danger of contagion from France, by
quoting the example of Pitt, and by recalling the precedents of 1794. Proofs of
French influence were to be found in the fact that some of the rioters had
forged pikes, assumed the red cap of Liberty, or displayed the tricolour. But
in 1794 the French were urging the English people to dethrone their tyrants,
and preparing an army to aid them in the task. In 1817 there was no European
war and no French Revolution ; in point of fact, order was being restored in
Europe and in France by the sternest means, and the danger feared was
imaginary. Moreover, whatever be the view held of the justice or necessity of
his measures, Pitt undoubtedly had overwhelming support from popular opinion.
In 1817 large parliamentary majorities supported Castlereagh; but the public
feeling of the nation as a whole was, if not actually hostile, at least divided
and uncertain. Not Jacobin theories, but economic and social facts, were the real
causes of disturbance in 1817. And, though much distress could not have been
averted, the
Government
certainly showed itself momentarily more ready to devise repressive than
remedial measures. Their real motive lay in the fact that they were supported
in the main by the propertied classes, irrespective of party or political
opinion. Grenville and a large section of the Whigs declared their
whole-hearted adhesion to the Government’s measures. Even men like Tierney,
Brougham, and Mackintosh, who criticised the evidence of crime, and pleaded for
less severity of punishment, declared their belief in the gravity of the
crisis and disclaimed any connexion with the “ deluded Radicals.”
The
consequences of this attitude were very serious, for the aim of the Radicals,
which had been to separate the people from allegiance to either of the two
official parties, was thus fulfilled. It was now really possible, with some
show of plausibility, to argue that neither Whig nor Tory party had any
political principles, and .that their only differences were about office,
pensions, and jobs. It could hardly be denied that they had united to refuse
all concessions to helplessness and misery, and that the rich exercised, to the
disadvantage of the poor, those very rights of combination which were declared
illegal for working-men. It is this feeling which explains the extraordinary
violence of the pamphlets of the time, of the utterances of Hobhouse, Cobbett,
or Hunt, and of the passionate lyrics in which Byron and Shelley exhibited
Castlereagh and Eldon for the ridicule and detestation of mankind. The
influence of Byron in particular became enormous, though less in guiding than
in exciting public opinion. The movement towards dissatisfaction with all
existing institutions, towards vague unrest or mad anger, was immensely
strengthened by the influence of a great writer in whom the spirit of revolt
was incarnate.
The year 1817
was remarkable for the abundance of its harvest, and with economic prosperity
political disturbance gradually subsided. Though the agitations had almost
ceased, the Government insisted on pressing to a conclusion the third
prosecution of Hone. Of all the repressive measures of this Government their
attack upon the Press is least easy to justify. It is perhaps hard to draw the
line between the expression of violent opinion and incitement to violent
action. But it is absurd to suppose that many of the five hundred writers, who
suffered more or less severe penalties in the period 1809-22, were actively
engaged in promoting rebellion or conspiracy. In the case of Hone, as in some
others, the Government’s action was most impolitic, and exalted an obscure and
scurrilous journalist to the dignity of a hero and a martyr. Hone was accused
of blasphemy, but covered the Government with ridicule, by quoting from
Canning’s Anti-Jacobin in defence of his own works. Parliament met during the
flush of popular indignation against the Governme»t, which followed upon his
triumphant acquittal. The Ministers at once proceeded to pass an Act,
indemnifying them for measures taken during the suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act. Fresh
1819] The “ Manchester Massacre.”—The Six Acts.
581
secret
committees (almost identical in composition with the previous committees) again
presented reports. The majority in both Houses, relying on the statements of
committees, which virtually reported on themselves, passed the Bill into law.
The Ministry
then adopted a strange measure. In spite of the need for economy, a million
pounds were granted for the purpose of building new churches for the
Establishment, apparently in the belief that iiTeligion had been a prime cause
of Radical outbreaks in 1816-7. But even more practical measures could hardly
have done much to mitigate the effects of the bad harvests and industrial
depression which marked the year 1819, and produced an almost exact repetition
of the political discontents and the governmental repressions of 1816-7. The
increasing agitation for reform culminated in a gigantic meeting, held at
Manchester on August 16, 1819. Fifty thousand persons assembled to listen to
the eloquence of Hunt; and banners were displayed bearing the mottoes, “Equal
Representation or Death,” “Liberty or Death.” The magistrates became terrified,
attempted to arrest Hunt, and finally ordered the yeomanry to charge the crowd.
The result was the “ Manchester Massacre ” or “ Battle of Peterloo,” in which
one man was killed and some forty were wounded or otherwise injured. The
Ministry, within a day of receiving the news, despatched a letter signed by the
Regent, approving the action of the magistrates. This ludicrous haste to
commend the magistrates for the use of violence, before it was clear whether it
had been employed wisely and in accordance with the law, did much to discredit
the Ministry.
Parliament
now met, and the Government proceeded to the passage of the notorious “ Six
Acts.” These formed a new edition, revised and enlarged, of the temporary
measures of 1817. It was not thought needful again to suspend Habeas Corpus;
but Acts, and not circulars, now empowered magistrates to seize arms, and to
prevent the publication of seditious and blasphemous libels. Another Act
extended the Stamp- duty to all pamphlets, and thus made it impossible for
Cobbett to issue his “ Twopenny Trash.” The most important of all the Acts
restricted the right of assembly. It confined public meetings in parishes to
the ordinary parochial meetings or to those summoned by five magistrates, in
corporate towns to those summoned by the Mayor, in counties to those summoned
by the Lord-Lieutenant. The power to grant the assemblage of large meetings was
practically placed in the hands of the wealthy upper-class, at the discretion
of magistrates or Lords- Lieutenant. It would be difficult to secure
assemblages of any kind in unincorporated towns, such as Wolverhampton,
Sheffield, Birmingham, and Manchester. The hardship in the case of the last two
towns was extreme; for, as they returned no members to the Commons, they had no
legal means of making their grievances or distresses known to Parliament.' Lord
Holland recorded a protest in the Lords, that the laws already existent
582 Thistlewood's plot.—Riot at Glasgow. [1819-20
were
sufficient to prevent confusion arising in popular meetings; that the powers
entrusted to the magistrates were liable to abuse; and that sweeping
restrictions were extended to the whole kingdom, on account of disturbances
confined to particular districts. Lastly, he used the strong argument, that
large meetings acted as “a vent, comparatively innoxious, of that ill-humour
and discontent which, if suppressed, might seek refuge in secret cabals and
conspiracies.” This put the new attitude of the Whigs with force and clearness.
They had regarded the measures of 1817-8 as immediate and temporary remedies
for specific evils. They now feared that the Government advocated force, as a
general method of dealing with all popular movements and opinions. Hence arose
the vigour and unanimity with which they now opposed the Six Acts.
Just after
the Bills became law two extraordinary events occurred. Thistlewood, forbidden
to address meetings or declare opinions, sought other means for the
satisfaction of his anger and discontent. With the assistance of a government
spy, he hatched a monstrous plot to murder the whole Cabinet. It was discovered
on February 23, 1820; and he and other conspirators were executed. Atrocious as
were their crimes, their dying utterances are really pathetic. They are those
of men utterly unable to understand the severity of their rulers, and goaded to
their crimes by a belief in the malign intentions of the Government. This event
went far to support Lord Holland’s contention, that the suppression of open
meetings led to the creation of secret conspiracies. A second event, however,
worked for the justification of the Government. On April 2 a riotous mob
assembled near Glasgow and was dispersed by arms. The “Battle of Bonnymuir” was
a Scotch version of the “ Battle of Peterloo,” and was the last disturbance for
ten years serious enough to give any justification to the governmental policy.
But the repressive policy had succeeded, and Radicals were temporarily
silenced. The reasons were not far to seek; Hobhouse, Carlisle, and “Orator”
Hunt were in prison. Lord Fitzwilliam had been dismissed from his
lord-lieutenancy for allowing a meeting to be held to protest against the
conduct of the magistrates at Peterloo. Cobbett had fled to America, influenced
in about equal proportions by fear of arrest for debt and fear of persecution
by the authorities. At the election of 1818, despite every effort of Government
and borough- mongers, popular influences had reduced the ministerial majority
by thirty or forty; at the dissolution of 1820 but very little impression was
made. The popular movement was crushed, only to reappear in ten years, when it
supported and made resistless the great movement for Parliamentary Reform.
It might have
been thought that the only political result from the death of a King, who had
ruled in nothing but name for ten years, would have been to compel a
dissolution. In fact, the mere change of title, occurring 011 January 29,1820,
produced a crisis which shook the throne, all but
1820-2] The King's Divorce Bill.—Death of
Castlereagh. 583
overturned
the Ministry, and profoundly agitated the people. The announcement that the new
King, George IV, contemplated a divorce from Queen Caroline* on the ground of
her misconduct and adultery, produced universal indignation. Since his
profligacy was open and notorious, his action was viewed, with some justice, as
hypocritical and violent. In point of fact, the charges against the Queen,
though not proved, rested on very strong circumstantial evidence. But to the
public she was an injured woman, whose cause they chivalrously espoused. To the
politicians her trial was largely a move in the political game, enabling the
Whigs to harass the King for his cavalier treatment of them during the
negotiations of 1811-2. A Divorce Bill was introduced into the Lords, which
Lord Brougham, the Queen’s official defender, opposed with splendid eloquence.
During these proceedings he reached the culminating point of his fame. It was
largely owing to his efforts that the majority in its favour sank to nine upon
the third reading. Ministers thereupon decided that they would not proceed with
the Bill. This triumph enabled the Whigs to regain the confidence of the
people, who hailed this decision with transports of delight.
Other results
of the trial were no less important. For the last time a measure was brought
forward as the direct result of the personal influence of the sovereign; almost
for the first time a measure, advocated by both King and Ministry, was
abandoned owing to the violence of popular agitation. At the very moment when
the Government appeared to have suppressed all popular demonstrations, the
popular influence upon Parliament was manifested in unmistakable fashion. Nor
did this influence cease. During the sessions of 1821-2 the Government was
driven, by equally pronounced expressions of popular opinion, to make immense
reductions of expenditure. The unpopularity of the Government continually
increased and its fall seemed inevitable, when Castlereagh died by his own hand
on August 9, 1822. In point of fact, the period of five years, for which the
Ministry was yet to survive, proved the most important and the most popular of
its existence.
In spite of
royal opposition, the Foreign Office and the lead in the Commons were offered
to Canning. He had resigned office in 1820, in order to dissociate himself from
any measures against the Queen. He now accepted the whole heritage of
Castlereagh. With the death of George III and Castlereagh all men felt that an
epoch had closed, and that the triumph of extreme or Eldonian Toryism was ended.
Castlereagh had appeared to be the disciple of Pitt after 1793, the Pitt who
suspended Habeas Corpus and gagged the Press. Canning seemed a truer disciple,
and recalled the memory of the Pitt who reformed our finance and promoted our
commerce. Though he had supported the Six Acts, Canning was penetrated with the
consciousness that speedy and drastic remedies must be applied to the evils of
the time. He was convinced of the danger of delaying and the need of
anticipating reforms, and he at
last found
others to share his opinions. In 1815 more than three-fourths of the Cabinet
were peers; in 1823 nearly half sat in the Lower House, of which Canning was
the leader. New changes had placed two devoted followers of his in the Cabinet:
Huskisson, the greatest practical financier of the age, at the Board of Trade;
Robinson at the Exchequer. Sidmouth, Canning’s old opponent, left the Ministry;
Liverpool promised Canning his hearty support in his new projects. Thus Canning
was able to give immediate and practical effect to a more Liberal domestic
policy.
Castlereagh,
without any real grasp of finance, had been suspicious of, or indifferent to,
financial reforms; Canning had a firm general grasp of financial problems and a
resolve to expedite their settlement. Castlereagh had allowed no one except
himself to introduce important domestic measures. Thus legislation had been
retarded by his inability to combine, with the Foreign Office and the
leadership of the Commons, a comprehension of every suggested domestic reform. The
less exacting though not less industrious Canning wisely contented himself with
a general supervision and encouragement. But the efforts of Canning and his
friends were not the only motive force. A new spirit of mildness and
benevolence had grown up; an eagerness to reform abuses and remove evils was
everywhere prevalent. From the emancipation of Catholics to the emancipation of
slaves, from the abolition of obsolete duties to the abolition of the death
penalty for the pettiest crimes, from the first legislative attempts at
preventing cruelty to dumb animals to the first assaults on the sacred code of
game-laws, the influence of a larger tolerance and sympathy is everywhere
apparent. Wealthy men of the upper middle-class, such as Zachary Macaulay, the
first Sir Robert Peel, and Sir James Mackintosh, had the chief hand in
promoting this legislation. The ideas of the middle classes were not always
practical and not seldom interested; but the clash of their opinions with those
of the landed class generally worked, during these years, for the interests of
the people as a whole. Canning and Huskisson thoroughly understood the middle
classes, and together created a popular interest in finance and legislation,
similar to that which Canning had aroused in foreign policy. Between 1815 and
1822, such reforms as were accomplished resulted almost wholly from private
member legislation; and the Opposition exhausted their vocabularies in
denunciation and abuse of the Government. Between 1822 and 1827, Ministers were
found adopting the suggestions and encouraging the motions of individual
members; and the Opposition not infrequently praised and supported Government
proposals. The result was an outburst of reforming activity, proceeding on the
model of Pitt’s legislation between 1784 and 1793, but far surpassing it in
effect and importance.
The
legislation of this period may be considered under the aspect of legal and
judicial reforms, social legislation, and the changes in colonial, commercial,
and industrial policy. After frequent correspondence atid
consultation
with Brougham, Mackintosh, and Bentham, the father of all law reform, Peel
introduced his measures. Aided by a magnanimous support from the Opposition, he
thoroughly revised and humanised the criminal code, abolishing the penalty of
death for many petty crimes. He attacked the old and wasteful system of
needlessly multiplying courts and offices, and prepared the way for a reform of
Chancery, and for an introduction of uniform procedure in the Courts of Common
Law. Peel crowned his work by substituting for the old and incompetent watchmen
a thoroughly new and efficient police force.
In social as
distinguished from legal reforms less progress was made. The terrible
extravagances and abuses of the old poor-law remained; but the laws defining
the relations between labour and capital were revised. Laws forbidding the
export of machineiy and the emigration of labourers could only be framed in one
interest. They were constantly evaded in practice, and served only as
degrading reminders to the workmen of the inequality existing between them and
their employers. They were accordingly abolished amid universal satisfaction.
Other difficulties still remained. Owing to the laws against combination, a man
attending a peaceful meeting of fellow-workers was at any time liable to a
prosecution for conspiracy. The extreme of tyranny was succeeded by the extreme
of liberty, and all combinations whatsoever were legalised by an Act for the
repeal of the Combination Laws, passed hastily through Parliament in 1824.
Various disturbances and riots compelled Huskisson to revise this Act in 1825.
A new Act prohibited certain kinds of meetings, and gave the magistrates
summary jurisdiction in the case of threats being used on the part of either workman
or employer. This compromise continued to regulate all the relations of capital
and labour for more than a generation.
The spirit of
these reforms might be described as the adjustment of old institutions and
policies to new and unforeseen demands and necessities. The abuses which had
crept in during almost a quarter of a century of reaction and repression were
insensibly removed; and so much of the old principles was retained as suited
the needs of an age and a country more scientific and commercial. This spirit
is to be discerned in the new colonial and financial policy with even more
clearness than in legal reforms or in social legislation. Despite the lesson of
America, England had done little to modify the old colonial system. In 1819
Goulbum officially declared our colonial system to be that England retained a
complete monopoly of the trade of her Colonies in return for affording them
protection and defence. In the complete reversal of this policy, undertaken by
Huskisson and Canning during 1822-3, the first object of attack was the
Navigation Laws. The first of these laws allowed the produce of Europe to come
to England only in British ships, or in the ships of the country producing the
goods. The second permitted the goods of Asia, Africa, and America to be
imported into England only
586
Restrictions on Colonial trade
removed. [1814-27
in British
bottoms. An immense colonial shipping sprang up under cover of this word, which
was interpreted as covering both English and colonial vessels. Franklin himself
had testified to the immense benefit which the American Colonies had thus
derived under the Navigation Laws. But with this important and some other less
significant exceptions, the British Colonies had been subject to an entire and
rigid exclusion from commercial intercourse with foreign countries.
When the
United States ceased to be British, they found that their shipping was as much
damaged as it had once been encouraged by the Navigation Acts. They therefore
proceeded to elaborate a Navigation Law of their own against England. The ships
of each nation were thereby forced to accomplish half of each voyage empty, and
the consumer had to pay the cost of freight twice over. In view of this
absurdity, both nations agreed to a relaxation of restrictions in 1814. Other
events and other nations were working to make that relaxation complete, final,
and universal. The trade of Spanish America, so long reserved to the
mother-country, was flung open to the world, and Brazil and San Domingo also
opened their ports. These opportunities created or increased the mercantile
marine of Portugal, Prussia, and the Netherlands. All these countries promptly
imitated the successful example of the States, and raised their dues against
British vessels. England therefore found herself maintaining a commercial
monopoly, likely to damage the interests and to sap the loyalty of her
Colonies. During 1820-1 Wallace, as Vice-President of the Board of Trade, had
done something to relax the Navigation Laws. Further measures were taken in
1823; and Huskisson fully developed and explained his policy in his great
speech of March 21, 1825. Foreign countries were to be allowed direct trade
with our Colonies, subject only to the old principle of the Navigation Laws,
that the cargo must be the product of the country to which the ship belonged.
On these terms European as well as American States were admitted to as free a
trade with English Colonies, as they enjoyed with Ireland or Jersey. But, as in
those cases, there was an entire and absolute reservation of all intercourse
between the mother- country and her Colonies. Foreign countries were informed
that the intercolonial trade and the trade between England and (for example)
the West Indies were to be treated as if they were a coasting-trade between
Gravesend and Brightlingsea. Moderate duties were placed on the importation of
foreign goods into colonial markets, where it seemed needful to give some
protection to similar English products.
These actual
changes were in themselves moderate ; but the reversal of a polity nearly two
hundred years old rendered further alterations inevitable in the future. The
new policy stood midway between two extremes, between the ideas of Goulbum and
the ultra-Tories and those of Bentham and the ultra-Radicals. The former valued
the Colonies only in so far as they served the interests of the mother-country;
the
others
denounced them as the cause of a good deal of corruption and of all wars. A
balance was now struck. Huskisson and Canning hastened to disavow Goulbum’s
lately proclaimed maxim, that the interests of the dependency should be made
subservient to those of the mother- country. England admitted that the
development of the Colonies had been cramped, and prepared herself to relax
vexatious restrictions by measures which benefited them more obviously than the
mother-country. Some intention was indeed shown to favour the home trader in
colonial tariffs, but a very great differentiation of duties was made in favour
of colonial as against foreign imports. This was especially the case with the
Com Laws, which were greatly relaxed in favour of colonial corn. The supreme
control of trade policy within the Empire was retained by the mother-country;
but the interests of the Colonies were fully and explicitly recognised, and the
new arrangements were made, in the main, for their benefit. Emigration to the
Colonies was actively and systematically encouraged and subsidised. Huskisson
declared that the interests of England and her Colonies were one, and that
whatever tended to increase the prosperity of the one must tend likewise
eventually to increase that of the other.
The breakdown
of the old exclusive restrictions brought considerable financial gains but
still greater moral effects. Hitherto the trade of the Colonies had been
regarded as existing largely for the benefit of the English merchant, the
patronage as an exclusive field for the aristocracy. A deaf and dumb peer drew
a salary for governing Barbados; a countess extracted a thousand pounds for a
sinecure in Trinidad; Charles Greville drew three thousand a year for being
secretary to the Governor of Jamaica, on which island he never set foot. Such
was the old colonial system, commercially exclusive and politically corrupt.
Little or nothing was done to remedy one type of grievance; but the new
economic policy, for the first time, convinced the Colonies that the
mother-country cared for their interests. The result was a development and
strengthening of the sentiments of unity and loyalty, a consequence foreseen
and intended by Canning and Huskisson, and the chief motive which had moved
them to action.
Before
Huskisson had accepted the Presidency of the Board of Trade, the old and vexed
currency question had been settled. Though statistics show that in 1817-8 cash
payments could have been resumed with safety, Vansittart had remained
immovable. At length public opinion forced him to yield; and a Bank Committee,
of which Peel was chairman and Huskisson the guiding spirit, was appointed to
consider the question in 1819. Their report, favourable to the resumption of
cash payments, was adopted by Parliament. Gold became the sole standard of
value, and the currency was settled on a firm and lasting basis. Thus, before
Huskisson began his reforms, one great cause of fluctuation and distress had
been removed.
The first
object of attack was the Sinking Fund. Vansittart had contrived to convert a
real surplus into an annual deficit, by setting aside five millions yearly to
accumulate at compound interest for the redemption of the debt. As the surplus
never reached five millions, Vansittart had been reduced to the absurdity of
making up the balance by borrowing money, on which of course he had to pay
interest. In 1823 Robinson, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, abandoned this extravagant
and wasteful practice, by announcing that, in future, payments to the Sinking
Fund would only be made from the annual surplus. Though in some financial
measures, as in the reform of the Sinking Fund, the voice was sometimes that of
Robinson, the hand is always that of Huskisson. This is proved by a famous
memorandum, which he addressed to Lord Liverpool in 1819, in which all his most
celebrated financial measures are clearly foreshadowed.
The
conditions of taxation and of the tariff next engaged the attention of
Huskisson. Taxes had been imposed at haphazard on almost eveiy article of
luxury or necessity, with the object of producing a revenue for war purposes.
Many unproductive taxes were now abolished; others were revised or more equally
assessed. The tariff had been slowly built up during the preceding century, and
contained many obsolete or illogical prohibitions. Thus rape-cake was imported
duty free, but a prohibitive duty excluded rape-seed, so that the existing
tariff forbade the importation of the raw material and encouraged that of the
finished article. The import of raw silk and the export of wool were each of
them prohibited, so that Englishmen could not send their woollens to foreign
markets, or manufacture silk goods at a profit for the home market. Bounties
were so arranged as to encourage the old and perishing, to the disadvantage of
the new and flourishing trades. Again, the excise was very heavy, and often
levied on those very articles upon which bounties were given. Prohibitive
duties fell with impartial severity, alike upon buttons and pig-iron, upon
catgut and unworked copper, upon raw leather and mummies.
Huskisson was
for his time an advanced free-trader, holding that prohibitions and bounties
stimulated mediocrity and destroyed inventive power, and that initiative and
energy were best developed by the destruction of monopolies and by freedom of
competition. He therefore abolished many bounties and provided for the gradual
extinction of the rest. With regard to the tariff, his principle was to give a
slight protection to English as against foreign manufactures, but to admit raw
materials as freely as possible. Duties on foreign manufactures, which had
varied from 180 per cent, to 40 per cent., were cut down to between 30 and 15
per cent. The import duties on raw materials were immensely reduced or entirely
swept away. As already stated, the Navigation Laws were amended and relaxed,
and placed on a basis of reciprocity. Contemporaries saw the effect of all
these measures in the unexampled
prosperity of
1824. In 1814 the official valuation of our exports (a dubious but still an
instructive estimate) stood at some forty-five million pounds; in 1820 it had
fallen to thirty-eight; in 1824 it rose to forty-eight and three-quarter
millions. Huskisson’s reforms had had immense influence, most of all in
extinguishing the enormous amount of smuggling, which the inordinately high
tariffs had encouraged and even necessitated. In many other ways Huskisson’s
wise measures had tended to increase the country’s prosperity, by the removal
of obsolete and absurd abuses or restrictions, by the codification of Customs
Law, and by the relaxation of the Navigation Laws. But the unexampled
prosperity of 1824 was not wholly, or even perhaps largely, due to governmental
measures. The whole continent of America was now open to commercial intercourse
; and the trade of Europe, checked or strangled by lack of capital and by war,
had again revived. England, situated between the two continents whose trade had
been restored and whose intercourse was being now first developed, acted as the
clearing-house and port of call for both. Thus the great industrial revolution,
which had enabled England to endure the strain of the Napoleonic struggle, was
succeeded and consummated by an equally great commercial revolution, which
enabled her to pay the cost of it.
A reaction
followed close upon prosperity, as if to reveal the hidden influences and
unseen laws, against which no Government could provide or contend. The
resumption of cash payments had caused the rates of discount to fell and prices
to rise, and hence had encouraged enterprise. An inordinate passion for
speculation set in; numberless joint-stock banks and other companies were
formed; even level-headed business men invested in the wildest schemes. The
public began by patronising relatively sober companies formed for developing
pearl fisheries off the coast of Columbia or cutting Panama canals. They
proceeded to more imaginative projects, for extracting oil from flower-seeds,
and inventing perpetual motion. Never had there been such reckless speculation
since the days of the South Sea Bubble. Huskisson, Canning, and Liverpool all
openly deprecated these mad enterprises, and pointed out the consequences of
such unreasoning speculations. By the spring of 1825 the price of shares had
become so high that a great commercial crisis was, in any case, inevitable.
Other reasons intensified the disaster, such as the fact that some of the
American Republics were suffering political convulsions and threatening to
repudiate their debts. Whatever the causes, psychological and economic, stocks
and securities suddenly fell with a rush; and on December 25 a great crisis
began. The Directors of the Bank of England were reduced to the smallest possible
amount of bullion, and vainly solicited the Government for permission to
suspend cash payments. They managed to afford some relief by issuing one- pound
notes and making advances on stock. But no measures, taken at that hour, could
have availed to avert the gigantic disaster. Almost
every bank in
the country had to stand a run; and seventy-seven of them failed in the
process. The crash was unexampled; some of the oldest banks in the country had
suspended payment; thousands of speculators had been ruined. It was only very
slowly that financial credit recovered. To guard against such evils in the
future, the Government proceeded to the abolition of one-pound notes in
England, and thus forced the country banks to watch the supply of gold, and
imposed upon them caution in their issues of paper. The direct share of the
Government in alleviating the distress was small. Yet the sound basis on which
Huskisson had placed the finances undoubtedly had an influence in limiting the
extent and duration of the crisis. All his measures had been aided by the
advice and support of Canning, whose influence in the Cabinet alone enabled
them to be formed into law, and whose brilliant oratory in the Commons defended
Huskisson against the embittered attacks of his enemies.
The
starting-point of the struggle, which raged between the squire and the
capitalist, between land and commerce, during the years 1825-46, is the Com Law
of 1815. To understand it is therefore to have the key to the whole
controversy. That Act forbade foreign com to be imported, until the price in
England should rise to 80«. per quarter. It attempted in the first place to
give immediate temporary relief to those landlords who had unduly extended
their areas of cultivation, because of the unnatural stimulation of prices
during the war, and who had suffered terribly from the collapse in prices
immediately after it. The Act was also framed, partly to give some permanent
protection to the landed interest, partly with the wider and more national
object of making the country self-sufficient in war-time. It had therefore a
direct economic and an indirect political end. In 1822 there was terrible
agricultural distress, and some inconsiderable amendments were made in the Corn
Laws. By 1826 circumstances had greatly changed since 1815. Only one-third of
the population now worked on the land; commercial and capitalistic interests
were stronger and more articulate. These considerations counted for much with
Canning and Huskisson, who believed the future prosperity of England to depend
not on agriculture but on commerce. They were also influenced by the fact that,
as the Com Laws were the most noticeable part of the English tariff, foreign
countries always refused to make concessions in commercial treaties on the
ground that our com duties showed no sign of reduction. In 1826 the scantiness
of the harvest caused terrible distress; and the Government, acting on their
own responsibility, at once placed the foreign corn (kept in bond until the
price should rise to the required rate) on the open market. One motion was
carried to this effect in Parliament, and another for importing 500,000
additional quarters to relieve the existing misery.
The landed
interest had a majority in Parliament, but a dissolution was at hand; and even
Squire Western and his friends shrank from defying public opinion. In thus
yielding they imagined that they had made only a temporary concession to
immediate necessities. In reality the reverse was true. As there was no country
in Europe where the labourer held less land, the English labourer was more
interested in the price of com as consumer than as producer. The restrictions
on import were such that the accident of a bad harvest in England must cause
great suffering, and the profit from the enhanced prices would go eventually
into the landlords’ pockets. By temporarily relaxing the Corn Laws the landed
interest had admitted the hardship imposed by the existing laws upon the mass
of the population. Hence it became easy to argue that a desire to retain the existing
Com Laws could only be indulged at the expense of the community as a whole.
Huskisson and
Canning were about to introduce an amendment to the Com Laws when, on February
17, 1827, Lord Liverpool was smitten with a paralytic stroke, which irreparably
destroyed his mental faculties. When this became known there ensued a scene of
intrigue and dissension in the Ministry to which there is no parallel in
nineteenth-centuiy history. The truth is that the ultra-Tory and the Canningite
sections of the Cabinet were and had long been utterly at variance with one
another. The masterful and imperious Canning had recently forced the Ministry
into measures, both in domestic and foreign policy, with which many of his
colleagues did not agree. As Palmerston wittily declared, the real Opposition
sat on the Treasury Bench.
When Canning
was at length chosen as Premier by the King, six of his colleagues resigned, as
they all declared, from personal not party differences. This defence may fairly
be made for Wellington, Eldon, and Peel, but not for the rest. If Canning was
to retain office, a coalition with the Whigs was essential. The Opposition had,
during the later years, given an example of disinterestedness and moderation
almost unique in the annals of party warfare. Some few Whigs now held aloof and
looked suspicious; and Lord Grey savagely attacked Canning in the Lords. But
the main body threw in their lot with the new Premier; and the Commons saw
Brougham and Canning sitting side by side on the Treasury Bench, and defending
each other from attack. Tiemey accepted office as Master of the Mint; and the
Duke of Clarence, who had Whig sympathies, became Lord High Admiral. Bobinson,
Chancellor of the Exchequer under Liverpool, was sent to lead the House of
Lords with the title of Viscount Goderich; and the new Ministry was thus
complete.
The new Corn
Law was carried in the Commons by Canning on March 6. By the time it reached
the Lords, the new Ministry was completed, and party passions were aroused. The
Bill introduced a slidiiig-scale of duty, varying with the price of com in
England, that is with the abundance or otherwise of the home harvest.
Wellington,
misunderstanding
a loosely-worded alternative suggestion sent him by Huskisson, carried an
amendment to the effect that foreign corn should not be taken out of bond till
the price reached 66». per quarter. This was to wreck the whole principle of
the sliding-scale and, though no one seems to have noticed this, it was
unconstitutional because the Peers cannot amend money-bills. Canning made a
true comment when he said that Wellington had defeated the whole purpose of the
Bill, and a bitter one, when he described the Duke as an instrument in the
hands of the landed interest. All he could do was to promise to hring in a new
Bill next session, in which, as is now known, he designed to fix the price at
which foreign corn could be imported at 50s. per quarter. He indicated in
public, and boldly announced in private, that only a thorough revision of the
Corn Laws could avert the coming struggle: between industrial and agricultural
interests. The session ended in July, and on August 8 Canning died.
The period
when Canning led the Commons, as compared with that immediately preceding it,
seemed to contemporaries an age of gold succeeding to one of iron. Such a
comparison, though by no means just to Castlereagh, had in it considerable
truth. But Canning’s ideas were beginning to conflict with the spirit of the
times; and they would in the time to come have tended towards reaction. Progressive
in everything else, he was utterly hostile to Reform, foreseeing, as no one
else did, that it would lead inevitably to democracy. When forming his
Coalition Ministry, Canning had boldly announced that he would oppose any
project of Parliamentary Reform to the end of his life. Yet that question was
now becoming superior, in importance even to the revision of the Com Laws,
Catholic Emancipation, or those general projects of administrative reform which
Canning advocated. Circumstances were rendering Parliamentary Reform inevitable
and all-important; and Canning’s alliance with the Whigs could only have served
to retard it. The tragedy of his death and the dazzling qualities of his genius
have blinded historians to the fact that on the vital question of the next few
years he was unprogressive. And therefore, while his world-wide influence in
foreign policy, and his great achievements in progressive legislation are
acknowledged, it can hardly be pronounced that, on the side of domestic policy,
the death of this extraordinary man was inopportune either for his country or
his fame.
To hold
together and reconcile his strangely-assorted coalition had taxed the genius of
Canning; it proved a task to which his mediocre successor was unequal.
Lamentably weak, whether as orator, administrator, or chief of a Cabinet,
Goderich resigned office in January, 1828, securing the distinction of being
the only modem Premier who has never faced Parliament. So sudden was the close
of a Ministry which had cost such pains to construct. The result of the
coalition had, however, had at legist one effect, that of making the old Tory
party thoroughly unpopular. This was now seen when Wellington, at the
King’s
command, formed a new Government. It was supported by the whole force of the landed
interest, and by the whole prejudice of the militapt Protestants. It lasted but
three years and fell unregretted. The Liberal tone, which Wellington eventually
adopted, was forced on him against his will by popular pressure. This is proved
by the fact that, though he included Huskisson, Palmerston, and other
Canningites in his Ministry, he took a very early opportunity of getting rid of
them. The reasons inducing him to take this course could hardly have weighed
with him, had he thought their views to be in real harmony with his own. As a
consequence the Canningites permanently joined the Whigs; and the Tory
Government was soon driven by events into legislative activity^ Early in 1828
Lord John Russell carried a motion for the Repeal of the Test and Corporation
Acts; and a Bill founded on it became law. The Government had at first shown
signs of opposing the Bill, but at length accepted it. Owing to the Act of
Indemnity which was annually passed these Acts caused no practical harm; but
the removal of theoretical grievances now placed Dissenters of all kinds on a
legal equality with members of the Established Church. The significance of this
measure, as marking the influence of the middle classes and the tendency
towards Reform, is not easy to exaggerate.
It was the
prelude to a far more important and far-reaching measure. The history of the
Catholic Relief Bill, which became law in April, 1829, is given elsewhere in
full. It is only needful here to note its indirect effects upon English
politics. Wellington stands in history as the last representative of the older
Toryism, as the supreme champion of that old order which perished with 1832.
Such was certainly not the opinion of his own party in 1829. To many of these
he seemed a traitor, who had abandoned and betrayed their party and principles.
He and Peel had always been the most formidable opponents of Catholic
Emancipation; yet, when in power, they used their authority to carry that very
measure, which they had so often declared would effect the ruin of their
country. The ultra-Tories now feared that wealthy Catholics might buy up rotten
boroughs, and secure representation in the Commons. Hence the ultra-Protestant
Marquis of Blandford actually brought in a motion for Parliamentary Reform in
February, 1830, and, by a masterpiece of irony, found himself seconded by
O’Connell himself, the great champion of Catholic Emancipation. Wellington
might have disregarded the intense unpopularity of the Ministry throughout the
country, blit he could not withstand this distrust and division within his own
party. Moreover, for the first time since the death of Fox, the Whigs were
thoroughly united in the Commons under the leadership of Althorp-^-“ honest
Jack.” To complete Wellington’s misfortunes, George IV died on June 26. He was
succeeded by his brother William IV, who was an advocate of Reform and a friend
of the Whigs. The dissolution, required by the demise of the Crown, increased
the numbers of the Whigs, and on
November 18 a
motion was carried against the Government. On November 16 Wellington resigned
the seals; and the King commissioned Lord Grey to form a Ministry. Grey agreed,
on the express understanding that a measure for Parliamentary Reform should be
adopted by the new Ministry, and submitted to the Commons. Reform, so long the
plaything of irresponsible politicians, had at length been formally adopted by
one of the orthodox and historic parties in the State.
The greatest
movement of this period in our domestic history, the movement towards
Parliamentary Reform, was vitally and profoundly affected by the parallel
movements of political thought. The greatest, or at any rate the most
celebrated, of contemporaiy political thinkers was undoubtedly Benthcm. When
every deduction is made, there is still room for astonishment at the extent and
variety of his achievements. The philosopher, who elaborated a new political
system, devised a new plan for icehouses, revised the whole criminal law, and
constructed a new scheme for building and managing prisons, insisted upon the
abstract importance of England adopting universal suffrage, and upon the
practical necessity of her polling-booths being furnished with a ballot-box of
his own special design. This mingling of the general and the particular, this
grasp at once of principle and of detail, together with an unsurpassed power of
destructive criticism, gave him his wonderful influence in his own time.
Posterity has been impressed less by his doctrines or thought than by his
method. This method, which he called the scientific, would be more correctly
termed the practical; for to Bentham science meant only accurate empiricism. To
judge all things by their practical utility was certainly a means of
demonstrating many profound errors; and it is because of the establishment of
this method and standard that posterity has recognised his real claim to
greatness.
A description
of the intellectual evolution of Bentham also explains a gradual mental
development in many contemporary Englishmen. Bentham started by a profound
dissatisfaction with Blackstone, who had held up the British Constitution as
the perfection of human wisdom. In his Fragment on Government (1776) Bentham
mercilessly attacked Blackstone, pointing out the defects and corruptions of
our constitutional machinery. But, if contemptuous of English institutions, he
was equally averse from the ideas of the French revolutionists, and he
criticised the “Rights of Man” with a severity which made his strictures on
Blackstone seem mild. Till about 1800 Bentham was, on his own confession,
something of a Tory, and desirous only of improving the old Constitution by
gradual and modernte reforms. But his relations with Shelburne and Pitt, Camden
and Loughborough, and with George III himself, gradually (>egan to alter his
views. These governors of the country showed unaccountable reluctance to adopt
schemes which Bentham thought he
Origin of Bentham's political views.
595
had proved to
be necessary and right. As eveiy philosopher is largely influenced by
circumstance and environment when forming the principles of bis system, it is
possible that Bentham might have continued to defend the old order, had Pitt
been a little more polite, or King George one degree more compliant. As it was,
seeking to account for their coldness and indifference, he was driven to the
hypothesis that the governors sought, not the good of the governed, but their
own advantage. From this view the transition to a completely Radical system was
natural, sasy, and indeed inevitable. It is first seen in his famous Catechism
of Parliamentary Rform, which was written in 1809 and published in 1817. He
there demonstrated, in characteristic fashion, that our existing system was
thoroughly bad, that misgovernment caused most evils, and that the institution
of democracy would remedy •nost abuses. He preferred induction to deduction,
facts to theories, reason to sentiment, the teachings of science to the
impulses of nature. But he had at length come to accept the very principles
which he had once criticised with such merciless skill. Though the road by
which he had travelled had been different and more circuitous, the goal which
he had readied was the same as that of the French revolutionists.
The formula
adopted by Bentham was brought to him indirectly through Helvetius and directly
through P estley, a fact which in itself illustrates how Bentham fitted French
theories into a scientific setting. Helvetius impressed him with a contempt for
precedent and tradition, and with a belief that the vices of a people were
revealed in its legislation. He also taught him that the average man acted
entirely from motives of self-interest or selfish impulses. Helvetius had thus
supplied Bentham with a conception of man; it remained for Priestley to give
him a conception of government. In Priestley’s Essay on Government (1768)
Bentham found “ the saci ed truth,” that “ the greatest happiness of the
greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” These various
ideas comprise the whole Benthamite formula, except the assumption, common to other
thinkers of that age, that individual selfishness produces collective
happiness. Bentham borrowed much of his logical method from Hume, many of his
ideas on crime and punishment from Beccaria; but the rapturous terms in which
he speaks of Helvetius and Priestley leave no doubt as to the real origin of
his views.
Bentham
declared the end of all government to be utility, or the good of the governed.
This formula was by no means new; but it had been obscured by the mystic
atmosphere of reverence and tradition which hung round medieval institutions
and was not absent from Holy Alliance manifestos. In this formula everything
was included, and by it everything was to be tried. Every existing English
institution— Crown, Church,.Courts of Justice, Parliament, Executive-’—were
tested by it and found wanting. The Constitution was “lawyer-ridden” and
“aristocracy-ridden”; and government was in the hands of a minority.
596 The greatest happiness of the greatest
number.
This
minority, influenced as all minorities must be by self-interest, naturally
sought to keep to itself the profits and power of government. As every one of
the governors had an interest in maintaining corruption, the State must be
entirely controlled by “ sinister interests.” The King was Corruptor-General;
the aristocracy and members of Parliament sought the profits of their own
positions from exclusive motives of selfinterest. Any extension of the British
territory, empire, or government, naturally increased such opportunities. The
first step to reform was, not to put the people in complete power, but to
restrict the sphere of government. The first requisites of reform were
therefore the destruction of patronage, the abolition of duties and customs,
and the abandonment of all our over-sea dependencies. Bentham differs from
almost all other democratic philosophers in having absolutely no trust in the
people. A reform of Parliamentary representation was necessary only because the
sinister interests, which controlled everything, would naturally object to
reforming themselves by cutting down their own profits. Where every man sought
power for his own self-interest, no section of the nation could have an
interest in pure government except one—the majority. If the majority were in
power, it must pursue the satisfaction and happiness of itself; and the
identity of interest thus established between governors and governed must
secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
This
reasoning held in it some obvious flaws. It assumed an average man, whose intellect
and passions everywhere induced him to seek the same ends, irrespective of
circumstances or environment. The majority of the people, whether in England,
China, or Peru, consisted of a uniform mass pursuing the same ends, and
influenced by the same desires. But the majority might split up into groups;
and each group, thus split off, might seek its own interests or have its own
views of happiness; or, again, some of the majority might mistake their real
interests, or disregard them through prejudice, passion, or self-sacrifice. In
any of these cases, of which all were quite possible and even probable,
Bentham’s system was reduced to an absurdity. He declared, it is true, that in
practice he would accept triennial instead of annual Parliaments, and household
for universal suffrage. He also, when over eighty years of age, retracted his
opinions about emancipating the Colonies, and desired to retain the unity of
the empire unimpaired. But the wisdom of these practical admissions
demonstrated the incompleteness of his theoretical system. His principles, if
true, were immediately practical and universally applicable; to admit such
important exceptions was to destroy the real basis of his system and
philosophy.
Here indeed
is to be discerned the fundamental error of all bis thought, an inability to
perceive that his first principles were too narrow and slight for the
superstructure imposed upon them. His system could not explain everything,
because it omitted to allow for so much. He
Bentham's defects.—James Mill.
59 7
professed to
base his philosophy on experience, but said that history was only of use to
teach us the folly of our ancestors. He scoffed at theorists who neglected
facts, but himself omitted to consider sentiments and prejudices, which are in
themselves some of the most important of political facts. Declaring that
self-interest governed all men, he sought to grind rogues honest by reason, and
to destroy crime by legislation. He worked out schemes for codifying the law to
the minutest detail; yet his system could not have debarred the interpretation
of the judges from modifying even its essentials. He perfected his
constitutional reforms to the smallest item; but his machinery would not have
prevented the influence of caucus or wirepullers from nullifying the principles
themselves. With limitless scorn for other constitutional theorists, his own
theory was in some respects as unreal, and fully as mechanical, as that of
Blackstone himself. His political reasoning rested on a faulty psychology, an
erroneous conception of sociology, and a very inadequate system of ethics. Yet,
despite all these defects, progressive and practical reformers throughout the
world owe almost more to him than to any other man. And his new statement of
the old definition, that the end of government was the good of the governed,
has in theory at least found universal acceptance.
As Bentham
himself never wrote a single or succinct treatise on politics, James Mill
undertook to explain the Benthamite political theories to the world. This
attempt was made in his famous Essay on Government (1820) and his articles in
the Westminster Review (a magazine started in 1824 as the organ of philosophic
Radicalism). He resembled his master in acuteness and industry, but had a
juster view of ethics, psychology, and history. Otherwise, he was at once more
systematic and more dull, more violent but less truly critical, more dogmatic
and uncompromising in statement, less practical and more precise in his
applications. Where Bentham had made only vague suggestions or specific
applications, Mill laid down universal propositions and deduced exact results.
After contending that democracy was the only security for continued good
government, he proceeded to apply his ideas to the existing British Constitution.
After denouncing the aristocracy, in terms compared with which even Bentham’s
criticisms were gentle, he ended by the most rigid insistence upon complete
freedom of Parliament and the Press, the ballot, and universal suffrage; though
it is said that Mill, like Bentham, would have accepted household suffrage as
an instalment.
There was
nothing strange or new in the various suggestions of Reform made by Mill or
Bentham. In 1780 the Duke of Richmond had brought forward in the Lords a motion
for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage. So early as 1777 Major
Cartwright began advocating the same cause in pamphlets and public addresses.
But these and other reformers, such as “Citizen” Stanhope and Jebb, had
attracted attention only by their eccentricities, and had made little
impression on
the educated
public. The presentation of Radicalism by Bentham and Mill attracted the
philosophic by its logical completeness, the eager by its uncompromising
boldness, the practical by its appeal to facts and reason. Mill was the
populariser and preacher of the Benthamite philosophy, which inspired that
remarkable body of politicians, the “Philosophic Radicals.” Bentham was timid
and shy in society; Mill was aggressive and bold, and speedily created the
school of Philosophic Radicalism, The chief thinkers who came under his
influence were Malthus, Grote, Ricardo, McCulloch, and Austin; and of these
Malthus alone rivalled Bentham in immediate fame. Though attacked with the
utmost \ jolence, his theories sank deep into the heart of the people and
profoundly effected contemporary thought. Malthus called attention to the everpresent
burden of want, while Bentham appeared to provide practical r'-smedies by which
improved conditions could be assured. The combined force of this appeal was
almost resistless; and during the great agitations of 1817—9, and the
disturbances of 1826-32, the principles of Bentham were loudly asserted. The
wild demands for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage were strengthened
and rationalised by the arguments of Bentham. His rigid formulae and
passionless appeals to reason were placed in the forefront of the agitation and
inscribed upon the banners of Radicalism. The writer who advocated democracy
because of his profound distrust in the people became the man in whom the
people placed most confidence^ The philosopher whose face not one man in ten
thousand had seen became at length a prophet, with an audience which Cobbett
soon began to envy, and a following which Hunt could not surpass.
All the great
popular agitators of the time ended by passing their tributes to the greatness
of Bentham, In 1817 Bentham wrote to Cobbett, asking him to print the Catechism
of Parliamentary Reform, “as the celebrity of your name, compared with the
obscurity of my own,” would ensure its wide circulation. Cobbett had no sooner
complied with this request than he found his own celebrity surpassed. Hunt,
O’Connell, and Hobhouse avowed themselves the enthusiast ic disciples of
Bentham. The revision of the Criminal Code by the democratic Romilly and the
Tory Peel, the legal reforms of the Whig Brougham—all owed much to Bentham. The
action taken by Lord Durham (Lambton) in irtroduc;ng new principles
into our colonial policy can only be mentioned; his influence on the Reform
Bill will subsequently be traced; but in each case he was deeply influenced by
Benthamite ideas.
A more rigid
practical disciple of Bentham was Francis Place, a man of the humblest origin,
who owed his success in life to his own vigour and resource. His own experience
impelled him to adopt the Benthamite formula, that man owed everything to his
own individual energy or self-interest. Place set to work to popularise
Benthamite conceptions
1743^1832] Francis Place.—Early Reform
motions.
599
and
to organise a political machinery for this purpose. It has sometimes been
contended that Place is one of the suppressed characters of our internal
history, a mole of politics, whose subterranean efforts were the real cause of
all popular legislation between 1824-32. That he was the chief cause of the
repeal of the Combination Laws (1824) seems probable. That his sole influence
did much to determine, the elections at Westminster, which constituency became
the cradle of Parliamentary Reform, is certain. Btyond that his influence was
perhaps hardly so great as is sometimes imagined. Burdett, Cobbett, and Hunt
did more to enflame popular agitation throughout the country. But in London
itself Place had immense influence; and his tailor's shop at Charing Cross was
the headquarters of Radicalism. So early as 1807 he began an assault upon the
democratic constituency of Westminster, which had always been a stronghold of
the Whigs; Place furnished the first great example of an electoral caucus,
organising committees and diffusing information with such effect, that the
Radical candidate, Sir Francis Burdett, headed the poll. *
Long before
the dawn of Radicalism proposals of Parliamentary Reform had on several
occasions been made to the two Houses. In 1745 Sir Francis Dashwood proposed
such a motion; in 1766 Lord Chatham denounced the corruption and venality of
the boroughs. In 1770 Chatham deelared for triennial Parliaments and proposed
adding a th;.rd member to the counties, to counteract the influence
of corrupt boroughs. In 1776 Wilkes proposed a motion, which contained all the
leading principles of Parliamentary Reform auopte i during the next fifty
years. During the years 1782-5 the younger Pitt brought forward motions for
Reform without success. The example of the French Revolution frightened
everyone, and induced the majority of Englishmen to cling to the old system.
Consequently the Reform motions, proposed by Charles Grey du-ing the years
1793-7, were rejected by enormous majesties. All these proposals, with the
possible exception of that of Wilkes, were made by politicians who were
supported by some section of the Tory or Whig parties. Burdett was the first to
dissociate himself absolutely from the two historic parties, and to propose
Reform from a Radical standpo .. it. The Bentham:' :es never wearied of
denouncing the half-measures and timid compromises of the Whigs. James Mill
called them shufflers and cowards; Place defeated their candidates at
Westminster. The Radicals instinctively foresaw that the Whigs, rather than
themselves, would secure political benefits from the discredit into which Bei
tham a merciless criticisms,, and the popular agitations, had thrown the Tory
Government. Burdett’s first motion was in 1809; and in 1810 he spoke on a
motion for Reform. Grey was now in the Lords; his enthusiasm, for Reform had
cooled, and his support of these proposals was wavering and qualified. The
Gienvillite section of the Whig party was utterly opposed to Reform; and Lord
Holland
declared in 1817 that Reform formed no part of the Whig party programme. In
1819 Burdett brought forward a motion for Reform in a series of famous
resolutions, which were clearly inspired by Bentham. He was opposed by the
youthful Lord John Russell and a minority of Whigs, on the ground that the
changes proposed were wild and visionary. But in this same year Russell brought
forward motions for the disfranchisement of corrupt boroughs, and for the
transference to large unrepresented towns of the franchises so forfeited. Thus,
at the moment when Reform seemed to have become an exclusively Radical
question, it was revived by a section of the Whig parly in a moderate and
reasonable form.
The attitude
of the Toiy party towards the great question of Parliamentary Reform was the
same during the Radical agitation of 1817-21, as in the years 1821-32 which
marked the gradual acceptance of Reform by the Whig party. It has often been
thought that the political views of the Tories were based wholly on reactionaiy
prejudice and upon blind hatred of innovation; and that their creed was that of
laisserfaire, with the principles and justifications of such a policy
withdrawn. Yet, just at this time, Coleridge in the Friend, first published in
1809, republished with additions in 1818, was laying a philosophic basis for
Tory views, which proved a surer foundation for the conservation of society
than any which even Burke had supplied. Coleridge indeed was mystical and
unintelligible to most contemporaries, and his influence was not apparent until
many years later, when it induced John Stuart Mill to modify and restate the
Utilitarian philosophy. But Canning, who adr~jted Burke to suit the needs of a
new age, gave in his speeches something of a philosophic exposition of Tory
principles, and something of an intellectual argument against Reform. The
essence of true liberty was that it should be limited, balanced, and graduated.
Thus the rights of minorities, of corporations, and of vested interests should
be respected, as they were extremely useful in securing liberty. Every class
depended upon the one above it; and the existing ties and relations between
class and class not only ensured liberty to the individual, but stability to
the government. The great danger to England was the growth of the industrial
masses, for large city populations were liable to become mobs and rabbles,
selfish in prejudices, ungovernable in passions, and entirely at the mercy of
unscrupulous demagogues. The old securities had been the dependence of servants
upon their masters, the allegiance of the tenant to the squire, the respect and
tradition which made the lower classes admit the gently to be their natural
leaders. But these old ties were every day loosened; the old privileges were
rapidly disappearing; the old traditions were fast fading. Only one security
still existed—the system of parliamentary representation. The peculiar
diversity of the franchise in different constituencies guarded the State from
the excesses of a blind or headstrong majority.
1820-30] Minor proposals for Reform.—Macaulay.
601
Liberty would
only be endangered when uniformity of rights and privileges (that is a
democratic or universal suffrage), prevailed. Thus the rotten boroughs, with
their limited and restricted numbers of voters, were actually the safeguards of
order. To yield to Reform was to destroy the last bulwark, to remove the last
plank between the Constitution and the boundless flood of democracy. On this
point all Tories were agreed, Canning with Eldon, and Peel with Wellington;
and, as is now to be seen, their unyielding obstinacy had the most momentous
consequences, not only for the Toiy party but for the country as a whole.
During the
years 1820-30 Lord John Russell brought forward a series of exceedingly
moderate motions on Reform. In 1821 he carried a proposal to disfranchise the
notoriously corrupt borough of Grampound, and to transfer its members to Leeds.
The Lords granted the disfranchisement, but assigned the two members not to
Leeds, but to Yorkshire county; and the Commons agreed. In 1826-7 Russell
brought forward similar motions, with reference to the boroughs of East Retford
and Penryn, which had been convicted of corruption. He proposed to transfer the
franchise of the one to Birmingham, of the other to Manchester. Eventually the
Lords refused to disfranchise either borough. All these proposals were
reasonable and moderate; and, in the opinion of competent contemporary
observers, timely concession to them would have averted the very much larger
and more sweeping measures of 1832. The reason why the Tories resisted even
these modest demands has already been given. Concession with them was not a
question of expediency but of principle; and to yield in one point was
therefore to surrender that principle. The rigid and unbending hostility
displayed by the Tory party towards Reform was the main cause of their complete
discomfiture in 1832.
Though Lord
John Russell possessed the undivided support of an influential section of the
Whig party, and the good-will of the whole of it, the official adoption of
Reform by the Whig party was still to come. During the years 1820-30 the Whig
political creed was gradually elaborated, and shown to differ profoundly from
that of the “Philosophical” Radicals. Mackintosh was the first distinguished
Whig to attack them; and Brougham kept up a constant fire upon them in the
Edinburgh Review. But the great assault was delivered by Macaulay in that
journal during the years 1829-30. His articles, if somewhat ill-considered and
undignified in their violence, certainly did not equal James Mill’s abuse of
the Whigs in general, or of Mackintosh in particular. Though inferior both to
Bentham and to Mill in the higher ranges of thought, he undoubtedly exposed the
inadequacy of their principles. He demonstrated, with characteristic vigour of
style and wealth of illustration, that the principle of self-interest did not
govern all human affairs. He proved also, at least to his own satisfaction,
that Mill’s political views were historically false and would be practically
dangerous.
After this destructive criticism Macaulay advanced the definite and positive
view, that universal suffrage would be a revolution hazardous for England, but
that an extension of political power to the middle classes would be a reform
alike safe, moderate, and final. It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of
this conclusion, which indeed was one speedily to be forced both on the Whigs
and on the nation. Pushed to its logical outcome, it meant a complete change in
the balance of political and social forces and implied nothing less than a
revolution. But it was a view admirably suited to the new forces and conditions
of the time, to the decaying power of land and rank, and to the increasing
influence of wealth and commerce.
The
announcement and adoption of Macaulay's conclusion marks the ultimate success
of the Benthamites as destructive critics, and their immediate failure as
constructive politicians. Few even of the Tories now dared to speak of the
existing system as that “ matchless Constitution,” which they had once so slavishly
adored. The fetish-worship of the Constitution, inaugurated by Blackstone, had
been destroyed for ever by Bentham. Whigs admitted the justice and force of his
criticisms as readily as the Radicals themselves, though they denied the
practical value of his suggested reforms. Whereas Bentham would have
distributed votes to the whole of the unrepresented classes, Macaulay would
restrict them to the middle class. Where Bentham would have given a vote to
every man, Macaulay would give it to every shopkeeper. Popular agitations still
brought the names of Bentham and of Radical Reform before the world; but
Parliamentary Reform was now in the hands of the Whig party. The Whig landlords
dropped their aristocratic prejudices, the Whig capitalists their democratic or
Benthamite leanings. The leaders of the party were men of position or wealth,
ill-disposed to listen to sweeping or revolutionary proposals. Their most
influential supporters were men who had property to lose and vested interests
to consider, and were therefore disinclined for extravagance or violence. The
middle classes were resolved to have some representation at any cost; but their
most ambitious hopes did not reach beyond a household suffrage. For a time
their allegiance had wavered between Whig and Tory. Canning and Huskisson had
appealed to them by a policy of financial reform and economy. The Whigs had
gone one step further, by their eager advocacy of Catholic Emancipation and
repeal of the Test Acts. On Reform they had indeed often wavered, but the
hopelessly adverse attitude of the Tories towards that question at length
convinced the middle classes that their only hope lay with the Whigs.
The alliance
of Whig peers and landowners with Leeds wool- merchants and Manchester
cotton-princes was at length consummated by the events of the year 1830.
General exasperation was felt when Lord John Russell's proposals for the
enfranchisement of Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester, were summarily rejected
in the Commons.
i830-i] The Whigs m power.—Committee on Reform.
60S
A more
intense indignation was awakened by Wellington’s reply to Earl Grey in the
Lords. Questioned as to whether he intended to bring in a Reform Bill, the Duke
responded by a direct denial. But he foolishly went on to allege that the
legislature and system of representation deservedly possessed the confidence of
the country. At the very moment when even bigoted defenders of the old system
excused it only on the ground that it worked better in practice than
appearance, Wellington suddenly lavished upon it eulogies which Blackstone
himself could hardly have excelled. Few speeches have ever had a greater effect
than this one, though the effect was exactly the reverse of the speaker’s
intention. A storm of popular indignation, apparently as unexpected as it was
effective, arose, swept the Tory Ministry from office, and placed the Whigs in
power. Earl Grey, who headed the new Ministry, had often wavered and hesitated
on the question of Parliamentary Reform. But at this great crisis of its fate
his attitude was admirably firm. He accepted office only on the direct
understanding that Reform should be made a Cabinet measure, and that a Bill on
the subjcct should be introduced, as soon as possible, into the Commons.
All the new
Ministers were agreed as to the necessity of Reform, but all differed as to the
extent of the concessions desirable. Palmerston, Melbourne, and Goderich, like
true Canningites, desired only the minimum of change. Brougham and Grey
advocated a partial, Althorp and Lambton a sweeping, disfranchisement of the
rotten boroughs. Grey believed in quinquennial, Lambton in triennial,
Parliaments; Lambton and Althorp were for the ballot, Grey and Brougham were
against it. Brougham and Althorp were for granting a household suffrage in all
borough constituencies; the Cabinet, as a whole, insisted that the suffrage
should only be given to householders paying £20 rent. Finally a committee of
four was appointed to prepare a scheme of Reform. It consisted of Lambton (now
Lord Durham) and Sir James Graham, both Cabinet Ministers, and of Lord John
Russell and Lord Duncannon, both members of the Administration.
The condition
of the boroughs, which the Committee began to examine, was in itself the most
eloquent argument for Reform. Roughly speaking, there were four classes of
boroughs: nomination boroughs, rotten boroughs, boroughs where the franchise
was considerable but not excessive, and boroughs where the franchise was,
comparatively speaking; democratic. Nomination boroughs were those in which the
patron had an absolute right to choose his own candidate. One such constituency
was an uninhabited green mound, another a ruined wall, a third was submarine.
Having purchased the freehold of the constituency, the patron could still
return his candidate, even if his constituency had ceased to be inhabited, or
as in the last case had actually disappeared from the earth. Such anomalies
gave rise to the irresistible popular
arguments so
wittily characterised by Bagehot: “ Mr Canning was an eloquent man, but even he
could not say that a decaying tree-stump was the people.” In theory this system
was utterly indefensible; in practice it had some slight advantages. Canning
and Burke, Sheridan and Brougham, had all sat for nomination boroughs, whose
patrons imposed- no restrictions and exacted no guarantees. But even in these
cases a moral obligation existed; and the nominee was usually subservient to
his patron. A common defence for nomination boroughs was that poor but talented
men were introduced into Parliament without the expense or tedium of election,
and thus enabled to devote their undivided energies to the national service.
But there were evils enough to counterbalance these dubious advantages. So long
indeed as a nomination borough remained in the hands of a patron, corruption
was impossible; but whenever such a borough passed from the control of its
patron evil practices began. It was advertised in the papers, shamelessly
offered for sale in public, and knocked down to the highest bidder; the evils
of corrupt influence again ceased with the conclusion of the bargain. So
high-minded and democratic a politician as Romilly calmly advocated the
purchase of a nomination borough, as the best means of securing a seat and
avoiding direct and continuous bribery.
If defenders
of the nomination system appealed to its practice to defend its theory,
defenders of the rotten boroughs found it more convenient to reverse the
process. It is sometimes difficult to draw an absolute line between rotten and
nomination boroughs. But in general the patron had an absolute proprietary
right in the nomination borough; in the rotten borough he could only establish
his control by direct influence or by direct bribery. At every election the
Treasury agents did a regular business in rotten boroughs, buying some for the
Government, selling others, attempting to influence yet more. When such
practices were, so to speak, officially recognised, it is easy to see to what
extent similar practices would be pushed by private individuals. The system was
illustrated at its worst in 1829. On the defeat of his nominee for Newark, the
Duke of Newcastle ascertained the names of all the hostile voters who held land
or property from him, and promptly expelled every one of them from his tenancy.
When remonstrance was made at this political persecution, the Duke replied, “
Have I not the right to do what I like with my own ? ” The Duke, who had forced
his previous nominee to resign for a difference of opinion, now thought it
right to punish the electors for differing from him as to the choice of their
representative. This case may have been extreme and unusual, but it proves how
little check there was on the powers exercised by individuals in such boroughs
over voters and representatives alike.
Public
opinion and some slight legislative reforms had done something to check the
worst evils. Accounts of borough elections under Castlereagh and Liveipool
certainly appear to indicate an improvement
605
since
the days of Pitt. But the evils were still enormous. It is certain that direct
bribes were received by the majority of electors in most rotten boroughs. In
some cases the practice was so systematised, that electors, immediately after
recording their votes, proceeded to the agent’s office, and drew the sum
promised beforehand as the price. The men of Grampound used brazenly to
proclaim that their votes were worth <£*300 each at elections. Of the amount
of influence, as distinct from direct money-payments, exerted upon electors, it
is impossible to give any real conception. The case of Newark illustrates
possibilities; it is known that landlords frequently offered to raise the rents
of recalcitrant voters, and that corporations sometimes threatened to issue
orders of impressment on their bodies. Every kind of pressure, direct and
indirect, seems to have been put upon the elector. The prolonged excitement of
the polls, often extending to a fortnight, encouraged disturbance and increased
bribery, and promoted tippling at the rival beerhouses hired by the candidates,
where the free and independent electors ate and drank to their hearts’ content.
A borough election was an orgy of bribery, rioting, and drunkenness. But the
profoundest evils of rotten boroughs did not lie in their corruption, great though
it was, but, as in the case of nomination boroughs, in the more subtle attack
on political morality, and in the low standard of public conduct which the
system promoted. ‘
In the third
class of boroughs, such as Liverpool, where the electorate, though restricted,
was numerous, it is known that a certain amount of direct bribery and of undue
influence was exercised; but, compared with rotten boroughs, their electoral
purity was great. On the other hand, the class of practically democratic
boroughs was comparatively small. Here the franchise sometimes depended on
payment of poor or church rate, sometimes it extended to every householder; the
“ potwalloper ” qualified by cooking his meals in a pot within the borough
limits. In each case virtual democracy existed. Bentham and his friends were
fond of adducing Westminster, the most famous of these popular constituencies,
as an instance to prove that democracy could not only choose distinguished men,
but could elect them amid scenes of comparative purity and tranquillity. This
seeems to have been true enough in this one case; but it is very doubtful
whether other democratic constituencies were equally well-behaved.
In 1770 Lord
Chatham had proposed to add a third member to each county to counterbalance the
corruption of boroughs, on the express ground that the county freeholders were
more independent than borough voters. If, as seems clear from contemporary
accounts, the borough elections had improved since the days of Pitt, it would
seem that the county elections had declined since the days of Chatham. It was
certainly harder to influence or to bribe county voters; but influence was
often exerted by the great landed proprietors with effect and success.
Fox, who had
eveiy opportunity for knowing, declared that up till 1780 one of the members
for Yorkshire had always been elected in Lord Rock 'ngham’s dining-room. After
that date direct bribery was often used at the Yorkshire county elections, when
the Rockioghams, Fitzwilliams, and Harewoods, squandered vast sums on behalf of
their respective nominees. If this was the case in Yorkshire, where the number
of electors was large, the standard of electoral purity in other counties,
where the number of electors was small, must have been comparatively low. The
persistent decay of small freeholders, which was especially rapid after 1815,
still further tended to depress that standard; for it is obvious that a
diminution in the numbers of electors would mean an increase in the
opportunities of corruption. Still there was always a possibility that these
freeholders would cast off their quasi-feudal allegiance to the old county
families, and would elect independent members. This was notably seen in the
election of 1830, when popular feeling was so excited that of eighty-two county
members only twenty were Tories. As the Whig and Tory parties were fairly
balanced after that election in the Commons as a whole, the significance of the
popular influence in the county elections is clear.
The general
abuses of representation existing in England were exaggerated and intensified
in Scotland and Ireland. Though a measure of 1819 had reformed some abuses in a
few boroughs of Scotland, it would have been difficult to say whether its
boroughs or its counties were the more corrupt or had the smaller electorates
in 1832. In general the borough elections were still controlled by the town
councils, which were cooptative, and thus, as it were, self-elected and
hereditary bodies. The county franchise was so exceedingly restricted that, in
one famous election for Bute county, the single elector returned himself to
Parliament with due solemnity. In general the Scotch county elections were
entirely in the hands of a few patrons. It was a well-known saying in the time
of Pitt that Scotland was prostrate at the feet of Dundas. The statement,
absurd as it sounded, was probably correct. But if it had been said that
Scotland was prostrate before less than four thousand electors, and less than
one hundred and fifty patrons, the prosaic and unadorned truth would have been
stated. By her Reform Bill of 1832 Scotland received fifty-three instead of
forty-five members, thirty for the counties, the rest for the cities. In each
case a uniform franchise was fixed; for the counties, freeholders with property
bringing in £10 a year and certain classes of leaseholders were qualified; for
the boroughs, £10 householders. Whatever the effects of this settlement, and
they were by no means all good, they were a vast improvement on the previously
existing system, which had been little better than a mockery of representation.
Though the
state of the Irish representation was in general even worse than the Scotch,
there were some notable exceptions to the rule.
Ireland. The Irish franchise
restricted. 607
Ireland had
one hundred members, who were returned by a few thousand electors, a number
considerably less in proportion than even the scanty electorate of Scotland.
The control at these Irish elections was also concentrated in fewer hands, for
it was almost entirely wielded by fifty or sixty landowners. In the boroughs
their influence was supreme; but in counties it was not quite always
triumphant. Castlereagh, when standing for county Down in the popular interest,
was successful against every influence, official, hereditary, and economic. On
another and far more famous occasion, in 1828, O’Connell was returned for
county Clare, in spite of every exertion of neighbouring landlords and a
distant Government, and despite the fact that, as a Catholic, he was unable to
sit. This particular election had a most important political effect, for it
opened the eyes of the Protestant landlords to the dangers of independence in
native Irish freeholders. Accordingly the Irish landlords forced the Government
to add to the Catholic Relief Bill of 1829 a supplementary Act disfranchising
40i. freeholders in Ireland and raising the qualification for county electors
to ,£10. This is the only case, since the days of Henry VI, in which an Act
restricting and not extending the franchise of a whole country has passed the
House of Commons. The Irish Reform Act gave the franchise to the £10
householder in the Irish boroughs, and increased the total number of Irish
members to 105. Though it removed many abuses, it was not so successful as the
Scotch, because it retained the provision disfranchising all freeholders
holding property of less than <£*10 annual value. The defence can be made,
that this arrangement was part of a general scheme, applied universally and
impartially, to render the electoral qualifications of the three countries of
an equal and uniform type. But it is improbable that this passion for
uniformity would have been indulged to the detriment of the Frotestant
interest.
The evils of
Irish and Scotch representation were so direct and enormous that drastic and
extensive reforms were obviously required. But an examination of the facts of
English representation by no means revealed the same extent or universality of
abuse. In Ireland and Scotland a monotonous record of bribery and undue
influence was revealed in both boroughs and counties. In England the record
was not so plain. The general impression was one of diversity; and legislation
was the more difficult because the existence of corruptions and abuses was less
easy to ascertain. It is improbable that the Reform Committee had any better
evidence upon which to base their conclusions, than the vast mass of
information accessible to the modem historian. That evidence gives no general
picture of the actual amount of influence and bribery employed at any general
election at any particular time. It is naturally imperfect, as no patrons were
ever likely to reveal or admit the full extent of their influence. But there is
not only an imperfection, there is a conflict, of evidence. In 1793 Charles
Grey stated in the Commons
that 354
English and Scotch members of Parliament were returned by the Treasury and 197
patrons; in the same year the Society of Friends of the People declared that it
could prove that 857 members were returned by 154 patrons. When such discrepancies
could exist in estimates made during the same year, it is better to pass from
these conjectures to admitted facts as to the numbers of electors at given
places, and the relation of representation to population. The number of members
returned by towns with less than 100 electors was about 200; and of these some
50 were returned by nomination boroughs with no electors at all. Lancashire had
a million inhabitants, Dorset one-sixth of that number; but Dorset had 9
members, and Lancashire 19. A more monstrous discrepancy was seen in the case
of Cornwall, which returned one member less than the whole of Scotland, though
the Scotch population was eight times as great as the Cornish. It seems
probable—and the estimate is, if anything, too large—that about 200 members, or
less than one-third of the House, were returned by genuinely independent
constituencies.
With these
facts before them, Durham and his colleagues laboured at their project of
Reform. The great evil that seems to have impressed them was the restricted,
unequal, and utterly miscellaneous character of the franchise. With this
question all the three principles, which they outlined as the basis of reform,
were connected. These principles were, the disfranchisement of decayed
boroughs, the enfranchisement of large and wealthy unrepresented towns, and the
substitution of some uniform type of borough franchise for the haphazard and
heterogeneous arrangements existing. On the first subject, the disfranchisement
of decayed boroughs, their attitude was somewhat lacking in depth and insight.
They seem to have considered the nomination boroughs as obsolete and absurd,
and therefore decided to sweep them away. They directed the fury of their
attack against the nomination system rather than upon the far more
objectionable rotten boroughs. Their second principle, that of enfranchising
new, wealthy, and rising towns, exhibits the true objects and purpose of the
Whigs. They desired not to abolish the old representative system, but to
improve and strengthen it with fresh elements. They desired the landed class to
retain considerable power, but wished also to extend power to property and
wealth, and to “include all the intelligence and respectability of the
independent class.” Their third principle, that of establishing a uniform
franchise, was expressed in their proposal, that a £20 household franchise
should be fixed for all boroughs. A fourth important principle, intended to
give a more popular character to the Constitution, was outlined in the proposal
that the duration of Parliament should be fixed at five, not seven, years. The
Committee closed their Report to the Cabinet by declaring their opinion that
the projected reforms “ would inspire all classes with a conviction that their
rights and privileges were at length secured and
duly
consolidated.” This assertion shows that the real reason why the Reform
Committee advocated such extensive reforms was their belief that they would
permanently satisfy everyone.
All the
limitations and the excellences of the Whig Reformers are apparent in these few
phrases; their strong common sense in proposing a large measure of reform,
their sincere desire to extend the franchise to the middle class, their
inability to perceive that there were other classes beneath that class which
deserved consideration. The Reform Committee declared that the unrepresented
classes would view, with complacency, “the security and consolidation of their
rights and privileges.” But this security meant to the poorer classes total
exclusion from the suffrage. The Whig action was, however, in harmony with
their philosophy. Macaulay had opposed his logic of the necessity of
enfranchising the middle class to Bentham’s logic of the necessity of
enfranchising all adult males. The Reform Committee preferred to put the less
revolutionary theory into practice. And when their scheme is fairly considered
there is every room for astonishment, not at the limitations, but at the
extensiveness, of the reforms proposed. As Durham was chairman of the
Committee, as he had been much influenced by Bentham, and is known to have held
more popular views than any of the others, it is probable that he was mainly
responsible for the bold and far-reaching character of the scheme. It is at
least certain that he was always jealous of the fame acquired by Lord John
Russell in connexion with the Reform Bill, and thought his own share in the
movement most unjustly disregarded. When Russell made his famous speech
introducing the first Reform Bill, he embodied in it the substance of the
Reform Committee’s Report. If Durham was mainly responsible for this Report,
his jealousy requires no further explanation. If this view be correct, and it
is confirmed by his unpublished papers, Lord Durham revolutionised, not only
the colonial, but the internal, policy of Great Britain; for few will deny that
the Report of 1831 had as great an effect upon the future of England as the
other Report of 1838 had on the future of Canada and our colonial empire.
The Report of
the Reform Committee was laid before the Cabinet and the King during the month
of January, 1831. It is believed that the lists of boroughs to be disfranchised
and enfranchised were passed with but little alteration or comment. The
suggestion for limiting the duration of Parliament to five years was rejected;
but, perhaps as some consolation, the borough-franchise was extended from the
£2,0 to the <£10 householder. In the main, the provisions and
recommendations of the Committee were adopted. Lord Althorp, the leader of the
Lower House, was equally conspicuous for a transparent honesty of purpose and
character, and for a simple consciousness of his own defects. He now
chivalrously insisted that the
young Lord
John Russell, who had already done so much to identify the Whig party with
Reform, should, though not in the Cabinet, have the credit of introducing the
great measure. On March 1, 1831, he accord^ ingly rose to expound the scheme.
The secret had been carefully kept; and few speeches in the Commons ever so
excited the attention, none certainly ever so aroused the astonishment, of the
audience. Supporters and opponents alike were astounded at the vastness and
extent of the contemplated reforms. Even Hobhouse, listening with surprise and
delight as the scheme slowly unfolded itself, did not think that it could, by
any possibility, ever become the law of the land. Russell fiuished his speech
by reading out schedules of the towns to be disfranchised and enfranchised ;
and the mention of each name was interrupted by loud jeers, rude comments, and
wild bursts of ironical laughter. Had Burdett or Hobhouse solemnly proposed the
immediate establishment of some Benthamite Utopia, the House could hardly have
received the scheme with more ridicule and contempt. Observers noted with
suiprise that Peel, almost alone of the Opposition, looked serious and angry.
Perhaps this great master of parliamentary tactics already foresaw that the
sheer, downright boldness of the scheme might win for it the support of the
country.
For seven
nights the debates went on; but the Ministry triumphed, and leave was given to
bring in the Bill. By the time the Bill came up for the second reading, its
outlines and purpose had become clearer; forces were marshalled; the moderates
and indifferents were beginning to take sides. It was thought that the Ministry
would be defeated; but on March 21, amid almost indescribable excitement, the
second reading was carried by a majority of one. Hats flew in the air. arms
were raised in defiance, cheers and shouts resounded, and members pressed to
shake the triumphant Althorp and Russell by the hand. Macaulay has given a
wonderful description of this famous scene: the baffled Tories standing
sullenly apart, Peel with his jaw fallen, Twiss with a face like that of a
damned soul, and Herries like Judas taking his necktie off for the last
operation. A scene at once more memorable and more violent was soon to be
enacted. In April an amendment was carried against the Bill in committee; and
Ministers thereupon offered the King the alternatives of a dissolution or of
their own resignation.
For a time
the King firmly refused to listen to the appeals of the Cabinet for a
dissolution. Lord Brougham has given a romantic account of the interviews of
the King with Earl Grey and himself, in which it of course appears that his own
arguments decided the King to yield. The real motives of the King’s decision to
grant a dissolution appear to have been partly his own reforming zeal, partly
his strong personal attachment to Grey, Holland, and Duncannon. No time was to
be lost, for Lord Wharnclift'e was moving an address against a
dissolution
in the Lords, which would have been disastrous if carried. On April 22 the
royal coach was hastily summoned, and the King came down to dissolve Parliament
in person. On the morning of the 22nd reports of a dissolution were already
rumoured; and, when they became certain, an indescribable uproar arose on both
sides of the House, only to be paralleled in the stormy sessions of the Long
Parliament. The extent of excitement may be judged from the fact that Peel,
usually so calm and dignified, lost all self-control and stormed unceasingly.
Burdett gesticulated and shouted wildly; almost every member of the House was
on his feet and shouting; the Speaker was helpless; Althorp alone stood unmoved.
While the uproar was at its height, Black Rod entered and summoned the Commons
to the throne-room. But the stormy scene was not yet over. The roaring of the
guns, which announced that the King was coming down to dissolve Parliament, had
interrupted the last moments of debate. Sir Henry Hardinge now shouted to the
Ministers, that the next time they heard the guns “ they will be shotted, and
take off some of your heads.” In the Lords almost wilder scenes, if possible,
had taken place. Lord Brougham, amid clamorous uproar, had declared that the
Opposition in the Commons had infringed the Constitution by stopping supplies.
When the Lords heard the guns they realised that their violence, artfully
stimulated by Brougham, had made it too late to carry the Address. The Marquis
of Londonderry, his voice failing from passion, shook his fist at the Duke of
Richmond. Lord Tankerville told Hobhouse that “the Lords would, without
scruple, have voted off the Ministers’ heads that day.” The Tory lords had more
reason than had their party in the Commons for exhibiting their fury and
despair. Almost every peer controlled or had interests in boroughs; and they
realised that the end of the system was at hand. In the moment of excitement
they probably cared little for the wealth of which they. would thus be
deprived. But to lose at a stroke such influence, such power, such control, was
agony and torture to men of old and proud ancestral lines.
The
dissolution was accomplished, and the Ministry were now face to face with the
people. Paradoxical as the statement may appear, the Whigs had until then had
no real conception of the strength of the national feeling upon Reform. They
were aware of the sentiments of the middle class, but they were amazed, almost
frightened, by the exhibition of popular feeling in their favour at the
election of 1831. Elemental forces seemed to have been unloosed which they felt
themselves unable to control. Causes, both external and domestic, remote and
immediate, had gradually been working to produce this overwhelming impression.
In 1830 an almost bloodless revolution had taken place in France, which had
expelled the arbitrary King Charles X and established the bourgeois and popular
monarch Louis-Philippe. Englishmen, hitherto terrified by any kind of violent
innovation, now perceived that even
French
revolutions might be, not horrors of anarchy and blood, but models of
reasonableness and tranquillity. The effect upon English public opinion, and
especially on the middle class, is not easy to exaggerate.
But, though
continental sympathies and movements had much fortified the demand for Reform,
internal causes operated even more powerfully towards that end. The years
1830-1 witnessed bad harvests and universal depression of trade. Unemployed
artisans and starving rustics were induced, by the general distress, to believe
in the Reform Bill as a panacea for every ill There was a steady growth of
political jrganisations outside Parliament, of which all were formed with the
object of putting pressure upon the Government to obtain Parliamentary Reform
in one shape or another. The most famous of all these was the Birmingham
Political Union, which included both middle and lower classes, and which was
founded and directed by Thomas Attwood. Journeymen tradesmen, and even ordinary
workmen, formed dubs for the same purpose in eveiy considerable town. While the
Reform Bill was being prepared, it was a matter of considerable doubt what the
attitude of these various clubs towards the Government would be. An associated
meeting of all the important London unions and clubs took place at the Crown
and Anchor on March 4, 1831. The discussion turned on the necessity and
desirability of Reform; and the Government was severely criticised by Place and
others. Hobhouse successfully opposed this attack upon the Government, pointing
out that to obstruct them was to ruin the whole cause. He carried, with general
acclamations, a resolution not to embarrass the Ministers. Thus Place and the
ultra-Radicals were defeated; and one great popular meeting had passed a
resolution to support the Government. The Reform Committee had showed great
acuteness in perceiving that an extensive scheme might be satisfactory or
acceptable even to extremists. The practical Place, and even it is said the rigid
Mill, at length accepted household suffrage, as a preliminary instalment.
The Cabinet
and the nation had succeeded in surprising each other; the people were amazed
at the liberality of the Ministers; the Ministers were astonished at their own
popularity. The people had hardly ceased expressing their delight at the
concessions, when they learned the defeat of the men who had made them. The
dramatic circumstances of the dissolution increased the popular excitement, and
added to the reputation of the Ministry. There can be no question whatever
that popular influences had much to do with the return of the Whigs with a
hugely increased majority. The year 1784, when Pitt and the King triumphed over
the Whigs, had been one proof—the year 1832, when Grey and the King triumphed
over the Tories, was a second and more striking one— that even corruption and
rotten boroughs could not resist overwhelming pressure. It must be admitted
that the means taken to secure victory
i83i] The Lords reject the Second Reform Bill.
613
were often
most unscrupulous. The name and influence of the King were freely used on the
Whig side. Vast mobs, wearing Reform colours and waving banners, accompanied
electors to the polls, threatening them with violence if they did not vote for
Reform. In the face of these new and unexpected demonstrations the Tory
borough-mongers and wirepullers lost their heads. Timid men voted for Reform;
moderates absented themselves from the polls; and seats, which had been under
Tory influence for decades, triumphantly returned Whig candidates. Disappointed
Tory candidates might very well enquire what was the use of reforming a system,
in which manifestations of popular feeling could be so effective and
overwhelming. The very completeness of the victory actually furnished an
argument against the necessity of Reform.
In June,
1831, the returning Ministers, finding themselves supported by a majority of
over one hundred, immediately introduced a second Reform Bill. Lord John
Russell warned the Tories against opposing it too bitterly, as “ it was
impossible for the whisper of a faction to prevail against the voice of a
nation.” This somewhat revolutionary utterance shows how deeply the
manifestations of popular enthusiasm had affected even so moderate and
reasonable a statesman as Russell. The new Bill was carried by sweeping
majorities in the Commons; but on October 8 it was thrown out by a majority of
41 in the Lords. Till then the agitation had been peaceful; demonstrations and
riots in all parts of the country now expressed the deep indignation of the
people. Nottingham Castle was burnt down; at Bristol the Toiy candidate was
assaulted; and the gaol and the Mansion House were fired by an incendiary mob.
The clubs everywhere sprang up into new life; and on October 19 Sir Francis
Burdett took the chair at a meeting of confederated Unions, where the plan of a
National Union was sketched. Both Ministers and King were much alarmed by these
exhibitions of popular fury and determination. Proclamations were issued to
repress disorder, and to suppress certain political Unions by name.
In December
Parliament met, and the third Reform Bill was introduced into the Commons. The
final form of the Bill was considerably altered from the original Report of the
Committee. The number of nomination boroughs totally disfranchised was now
fixed at 56, leaving 111 new seats. In this arrangement there was no real
alteration, but the number of rotten boroughs, from which one member was to be
taken, was reduced from the original 46 to 30. Two members were likewise taken
from Weymouth and Melcombe Regis; and thus 143 seats in all were left free for
distribution. Sixty-five members were added to the counties; two members each
were assigned to Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and 19 other large towns; and
one member each to 21 considerable towns, hitherto entirely unrepresented. The
arrangements for the county franchise underwent considerable change, for
copyholders and leaseholders were now admitted to the franchise as well as 40$.
freeholders.
By a clause, which the Marquis of Chandos had carried in amendment to the
second Bill, the county franchise was likewise conferred on tenants-at-will
paying i?50 a year. This was a considerable strengthening to the landed
interest. In the third Reform Bill the Chandos clause was allowed to stand in
deference to the Tory Opposition. The refusal to reduce the numbers of the
House, in accordance with the original scheme, enabled a larger number of towns
to be enfranchised than had at first been contemplated. The third Reform Bill
passed the Commons in March, 1832, but its second reading was carried in the
Lords by a bare majority of nine.
The Cabinet
had long been occupied with the question of overcoming the opposition of the
Lords. So early as September, 1831, the project of creating Peers had been
suggested, certainly by Macaulay, perhaps by Brougham, and had been strongly
supported by Durham and Graham. It was so strongly opposed by the King that
Grey in November vainly approached the moderate Tories. In the first two months
of 1832 the majority of the Cabinet were strongly in favour of creating Peers.
But during the Easter recess, when it was obvious that the Bill could not
survive the committee stage in the Lords, the anxiety of Ministers became
almost insupportable. Althorp removed his pistols from his bedroom, lest he
should shoot himself; Brougham fell ill; Grey seems to have repented of ever
having introduced Reform. Both Brougham and Grey took fright, wavered, and
appeared to be against the creation of Peers. Melbourne, Russell, Palmerston,
and the Duke of Richmond, who had all along been against this step, profited by
the momentary weakness of the Premier and the Lord Chancellor, to urge that
action so bold could not be taken without a decided majority in its favour in
the Cabinet. But the hesitation of Brougham and Grey was overcome by the
firmness of other Ministers more resolutely pledged to the Bill than
themselves. In February, 1832, Hobhouse had joined the Ministry as
Secrctary-at-War, on receiving an assurance from Lord Althorp that the Reform
Bill should be carried substantially intact. Hobhouse now declared that he
would resign if the Ministry shirked their task,; and Althorp stated that, in
this case, his pledge to Hobhouse would enforce his own resignation. Durham,
though Grey’s son-in-law, was more violent and emphatic than either, and
repeatedly declared his intention of resigning. Macaulay had declared the
character of Althorp to be the sole stay of the Ministry; both Durham and
Hobhouse had great popular reputations. Earl Grey saw that the resignations of
these men would inevitably break up the Government. The Prime Minister and the
Lord Chancellor at length recovered their firmness; and on May 8, two days
after the Lords had finally thrown out the Bill in committee, the Cabinet sent
a minute to the King, unanimously recommending the creation of Peers. The King,
whose enthusiasm for Reform had been cooled by popular agitation, declined the
proposals, but accepted the resignations, of the Ministers.
He then sent
for Wellington and Lyndhurst, who agreed to form a Ministry and prepare a
moderate measure of Reform.
But the time
for such a measure had gone by; Peel, Goulbum, and Croker absolutely declined
to have anything to do with the attempt. The Duke had to select Sutton (the
Speaker) for Secretary of State, and Alexander Baring for the Exchequer. On May
9 a resolution in favour of the late Ministry was carried by the Commons; and
the popular support of them was evidenced in a thousand ways. The danger that
working and middle classes would disagree had vanished with the defeat of the
Reform Bill by the Peers. Amid indescribable enthusiasm “ Orator ” Hunt had at
length declared for Reform; Attwood’s Birmingham Union announced that its
members would refuse to pay taxes unless the Bill passed; and this example was
followed by many other associations in large towns. Place and other extremists
even began to organise something like military resistance to the Government. On
May 12 London awoke to find its streets placarded with the following advice : “
To stop the Duke, go for gold ! ” Place had suggested a run upon the Bank of
England and a commercial crisis, in order to make the Ministry impossible. It
may be doubted if this stroke had the importance its author attributed to it,
but it certainly typifies the violence of popular feeling. The danger was real,
the popular agitation extreme; and, if neither rebellion nor revolution were at
hand, they were at least within sight.
Popular
violence penetrated into the Commons itself, where every parliamentary canon of
taste and decorum was outraged. Baring and Sutton were howled down when they
rose to speak, and attacked as furiously by Peel and Goulburn as by the Whigs
themselves. As a statesman, Wellington seldom recognised the popular or the
expedient, but he was capable of perceiving the impossible. On May 15 he gave
up his hopeless task and recommended the King to recall Lord Grey. The
returning Whigs, who now regarded their Reform proposals as a pledge made by them
to the people, declined to modify the Bill in deference to royal suggestion.
Sir Herbert Taylor, the King’s secretary, therefore suggested to Wellington, on
royal authority, that all difficulties would be removed if a sufficient number
of Peers dropped their opposition to the Bill. The Duke agreed to withdraw
enough Peers to secure the passage of the Bill. But the seceding Peers, in
announcing their intended withdrawal, used language of such mingled violence
and obscurity, that it was actually uncertain whether they would not in the
end oppose the Bill. Faced by this difficulty, the Cabinet again recommended
the creation of Peers; and the King reluctantly yielded. But, while Grey and
Brougham were drawing up lists of eldest sons, and of collateral heirs of
childless noblemen, they suddenly found that the extremity, to which they were
so unwillingly forced, was avoided. The King’s instructions had done their
work; and the Duke’s influence
ensured the
passage of the Bill. It was hurried through the committee stage and third
reading, and received the royal assent on June 7. A revolution which had at one
time threatened an appeal to the very last of constitutional resources, and at
another had seemed to presage rebellion, had been accomplished in as peaceful a
manner as could well have been expected from so great and so far-reaching a
change. A measure, vitally affecting the interests of the landed class, and
permanently altering the balance of the Constitution, had passed the Upper
House in open defiance of its resolute opposition. The triumph of the Whigs was
hailed with indescribable enthusiasm throughout the country; even the
school-children marched about in their playgrounds, shouting “ The Reform Bill
has passed! ”
It is easier
to explain the precise effect of the specific provisions than to trace the
broader and wider results of the Reform Bill. According to the extravagance of
Whig assertions and popular hopes, the Reform Bill was to abolish party and
corruption, to pay off the National Debt, to restore the primitive purity of
the Saxon Constitution, and to establish a golden age of peace and order. In
reality the Reform Bill, whilst accomplishing much good by what it made
possible and inevitable in the future, did little to destroy some of the evils which
it attacked. It was reactionary, in so far as it abolished the democratic
franchise in English boroughs and raised the electoral qualification in Irish
counties; it was in some respects ineffective, in so far as it sought to check
bribery and corruption. The comparatively mild treatment meted out to the
rotten boroughs was a grave error. The electorates were larger indeed, but the
old corrupt political organisations remained; the old voters, accustomed to
bribery, transmitted their lesson to the new ones. Accordingly party
wire-pullers employed their old evil methods upon a larger scale in attempting
to handle the mass of new voters. The result therefore was that, in some
electorates, bribeiy actually increased after 1832. On the other hand various
measures—such as the shortening of polls, and other provisions for expediting
elections—destroyed some of the worst abuses of the old system. Though bribery
at elections did not cease, at least the right to return members for boroughs
ceased to be sold by auction. The Whig failure to perceive that the abolition
of nomination boroughs would promote evil practices in certain rotten boroughs
was a defect of detail rather than of principle. It was a paradoxical
consequence of a large and sweeping measure, which dealt a heavy and real blow
to political corruption.
The avowed
object of the Whigs was to balance property and population, and so produce a
mixed system of representation. By extending the franchise, they made
concessions to numbers; by confining it to the £10 householder in the boroughs,
they made concessions to property. They thus hoped to produce a just balance in
the Constitution
between land
and capital, rank and wealth, property and numbers. But, if they intended to
enfranchise the shopkeeper, they had no intention of enfranchising the
working-man. They appear to have desired, above all things, to avoid any
tendency towards democracy or universal suffrage. If these were their views,
their attitude toward the nomination boroughs was short-sighted. To abolish the
nomination boroughs did not greatly lessen corruption; at best it removed a
curiosity rather than a blemish, at the worst it deprived the State of a very
valuable means of checking democracy.
The passage
of the Reform Bill had some curious results in developing and strengthening the
popular element. Both Russell and Durham seemed to declare the Tories wrong in
opposing Reform, less because Reform was demonstrably right than because the
Tories were in a hopeless minority. They had used expressions which seemed to
assert the blind tyranny of the majority and the supremacy of force. It can
hardly be denied that the pressure which they exerted on Parliament from
without was in some respects unconstitutional. In a sense the Reform Bill was a
mandate from the people; and in a sense the Whigs so considered it. Yet, though
thus availing themselves of the popular forces, the Whigs in some cases
abolished the democratic franchise, and refused to consider the representation
of the lower classes as possible. These circumstances do much to account for
the later unpopularity of the Whigs, and for the rise of Chartism. But, though
appearing to neglect the demands of the people as a whole, the Whigs in reality
imparted an irresistible popular trend to the Constitution. The dignity and
superiority of the Upper House had received a severe shock. It seemed to many
contemporaries that, though the House of Lords might continue to exist, its
power would wither to nothing. This was not the fact; but the great lesson,
that in the case of a conflict between the people and the Lords the Upper House
must yield, has never been forgotten. At every stage of the whole proceedings,
popular feeling commented upon, or encouraged the passage of, the Bill. However
much either party might refuse to grant representation to the people in the
future, neither was ever likely to forget the strength and advantage of popular
support.
The
Revolution of 1688 was completed by the Revolution of 1832. By the first change
power was transferred from the King to the landed class; by the second the
landed class was forced to extend its privileges to the commercial and
industrial middle classes. The first change was largely political; the second
could not have been accomplished, unless social and industrial revolutions had
preceded and occasioned the political. After 1688 the representatives of the
parties contending for power had consisted for the most part of the landed
interest; after 1832 the Whig landowners made common cause with the commercial
interest, and admitted a whole new class to a share of political
representation. For
618 The
settlement regarded as permanent.
this reason,
no doubt, Russell, Durham, Grey, and Macaulay, all declared that the settlement
would be lasting. The Reform Committee had closed their report by announcing
their belief that “ the present would be a permanent settlement.” It is
possible that they did not mean permanent in the sense of final or eternal; but
it is difficult to resist the suggestion that the true reason of the Whig
acquiescence in such extensive reforms was the belief that the changes would
satisfy the people for considerably more than one generation. The single class
which obtained power in 1688 retained it for a century and a half; the two
classes now sharing political privileges might perhaps also retain them for a
long period. The Whigs forgot that the overthrow of the old order was so
complete, the changes in themselves so great and sweeping, as to necessitate
further reforms. They forgot also that the class newly admitted to power might
have less affinity with themselves than with the unprivileged classes beneath
them. The change the Whigs had accomplished was indeed greater than they had
imagined. For two centuries and a half Parliamentary representation had been
untouched, and to touch it was to break the charm. At once the Constitution became
a part of the State machinery, as open to criticism and as capable of
improvement as the army or the customs tariff. It was not only that the Whigs
had introduced a change; they had introduced the principle of change, and
applied it to a part of the Constitution hitherto held sacred. Eldon had said
that it was not worth while to sacrifice the certain stability of the State to
the vague possibility of future improvement. Canning and Huskisson had shown
the possibility of scientific legislation; the Whigs showed the possibility of
improvement by scientific reorganisation of constitutional machinery, and
proved that organic change might actually increase the efficiency, popularity,
and stability of the Government. After such an achievement a new era in
politics opened.
The Reform
Bill was the culminating point of a period of steady progress. During the
disturbances of 1815-9 the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended; during the very
serious riots of 1830-2 it was found needless, and would have been thought
disgraceful, to resort to so extreme a measure. From 1815 to 1819 the right of
assemblage for political purposes was practically denied; in 1832, though
specific meetings were dispersed and particular associations suppressed, the
general rights of assembly were freely admitted. In 1815 the Combination Laws
rendered any workman attending a meeting of fellow-workers liable to arrest for
conspiracy; during 1824-5 the rights of combination were specifically
acknowledged. From 1815 to 1819 journalists were frequently prosecuted and
imprisoned for their writings; governmental prosecutions had not ceased in
1832, but comparative freedom of the Press was at length established. At the
beginning of
this period,
criminals were hanged for a hundred petty offences; at its close, the Criminal
Code had become infinitely milder and more humane. Tests had irritated
Nonconformists, disabilities and prohibitions had oppressed Roman Catholics, in
1815; before 1832, all these disabilities were alike abolished and swept away.
Concessions to civil and religious liberty had been accompanied by financial
reforms of the most extensive character. In 1815 the civil service was
extremely inefficient and the pension list scandalously extravagant; by 1832 an
extensive reform and revision of both had taken place. In 1815 taxes and
tariffs were of the most inequitable and antiquated character; by 1832 both had
been so improved and placed on so scientific a basis that there had been a
resultant gain of millions to the Exchequer. In 1815 the Colonies were
exploited for the benefit of the mother-country; by 1825 the new economic
policy had radically modified the old conception of relations between England
and her dependencies. Last, and in some ways most significant of all, the Com
Law of 1815, which had benefited the landed class and the agricultural
interest, was amended during 1826-7 so as to relieve the capitalist class and
the industrial masses. No Parliament, consisting largely of landed
proprietors, would have passed so many measures, indirectly or directly
injurious to their interests, except under overwhelming pressure from without.
The dynamic force, the driving power, of legislation had been the influence of the
middle class, which had steadily increased throughout the period. Popular
influences altered the character, and increased the extent, of the Reform Bill,
but middle- class opinion was the deciding factor in its initiation. That great
measure was therefore not so sudden and sweeping a revolution as many
contemporaries imagined, but the result of a long series of changes, which had
preceded and occasioned this culminating triumph. Too great dissimilarity
between the political institutions and social and economic influences in the
State had produced disturbance and unrest during the whole period. Ten years of
progressive legislation, culminating in a great constitutional change,
contributed to remove political grievances and to allay social discontent.
CATHOLIC
EMANCIPATION.
After full allowance has been made for the historical
circumstances which produced them, the penal laws of England and Ireland, as
they stood before 1778, can only be read with amazement and indignation. “I
must do it justice,” wrote Burke of the Irish code; “ it was a complete system,
full of coherence and consistency, well digested and well composed in all its
parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted
for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the
debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted
ingenuity of man.” In its aims and character the English code was not much less
atrocious. The two systems differed chiefly in the magnitude of their
consequences. That of England proscribed an insignificant minority, numbering
less than 70,000 souls and diminishing in every decade. That of Ireland
degraded nve-sevenths of the population ; and, by giving a monopoly of
political power, landed influence, the professions, the public service, to an
insolent oligarchy, kept alive from one generation to another the fires of
racial and religious hatred. Had this legislation dated entirely from the
sixteenth century, the conservatism which upheld it in the age of Burke and
Fox, of Charlemont and Grattan, would be less remarkable. Antiquity lends
colour to the worst injustices. But those enactments which in practice weighed
most heavily upon the Catholic were in England partly, and in Ireland wholly,
the outcome of so recent an event as the “ glorious ” Revolution.
If all the
penal laws which stood upon the statute-books of both countries had been
rigidly enforced, the English Catholics would have been extirpated and those of
Ireland goaded once more to rebellion. But, as the Jacobite peril grew more
remote, as the political insignificance of the Papacy became more apparent, and
as the spirit of rationalism, with its contempt for theological differences,
obtained a wider influence on society, the lot of the Catholic was ameliorated
by degrees. He was protected by the good-will of Protestant neighbours and the
special pleading of friendly lawyers. But it was still upon sufferance that he
enjoyed some
of the most necessary rights of citizenship. Whether he avoided Protestant
malice by seclusion from society or accepted with servile alacrity the advances
of those who should have been regarded as his equals, he stood continually
exposed to dangers which could not be foreseen or forestalled; he saw the
avenues to political or professional distinction as completely closed against
him as if he had been an alien. To enumerate all the risks and disabilities to
which his faith exposed him would be no easy matter. In this place we can only
indicate the chief rules of English and Irish law which touched him in the
exercise of his religion or in his civic rights.
The law of
England made it high treason for any priest or Jesuit to remain three days in
the kingdom without taking the oath of supremacy. It was also high treason for
any Catholic, priest or layman, to effect a conversion; and for any Protestant
to be so converted. These rules, it is true, existed chiefly in terrorem. But a
more recent Act (of 1700) offered £100 for the discovery of any priest who
presumed to exercise his sacred functions, and subjected him to perpetual
imprisonment. Under George I and George II this Act was not infrequently
applied. Under George III the judges, following the example of Lord Mansfield,
usually contrived to defeat the informers by treating the evidence which they
produced as insufficient. But in 1767 a certain Father Malony was convicted at
Croydon on the charge of saying mass; and some years elapsed before the
Government found the moral courage to release him. To hear mass was also, in
English law, an offence punishable with one year’s imprisonment and a fine of
200 marks (£133. ftf. 8c?.). But these penalties, which only the superior
Courts could enforce, were less formidable to the Catholic than the power which
the justices of the peace possessed of fining him for non-attendance at his
parish church. This power was exercised, in some localities, so late as 1782,
and exposed the poorer class of Catholics to the most serious hardships.
The law of
Ireland, if literally interpreted, was even more severe to priests and their
congregations. Any Catholic Bishop found in Ireland was liable to be imprisoned
for twelve months and subsequently deported. As no priest might enter Ireland
from abroad, the intention obviously was to extinguish the Irish priesthood by
preventing new ordinations in the country or outside it. An Act of 1697 went
still further, by decreeing the expulsion of all Catholic priests whatever. But
this outrageous measure could not be executed; by later Acts, of 1704 and 1709,
parish priests were permitted, after registering their names and places of
abode, to officiate in that parish alone for which they were registered. Even
then the oath of abjuration, which few priests were prepared to take, might be
administered at any moment. In the south and west few magistrates were bold
enough to molest a priest, whether registered or not. But it was a common
practice among Irish priests, so late as 1778, to go about the country in
disguise.
The more
timid, if living in a Protestant neighbourhood or under the eyes of the
Government, preferred not to show themselves abroad in daylight. The Irish
Bench was less indulgent than that of England to the priesthood. Orange judges
too often conspired with Orange juries to enforce laws which had lost all
justification.
As regarded
education there was little difference between the Irish and the English law
Both prohibited the Papist from acting as a tutor or a schoolmaster; both
disabled the children of Papists, if they had received a foreign education,
from inheriting, purchasing, or enjoying any form of property, and from
maintaining any suit at law. Notwithstanding the law the wealthier Catholics of
both countries kept tutors of their own religion, or sent their daughters to
foreign convents, and their sons to the colleges which existed for the benefit
of English-speaking students at Louvain, Douai, Lille, Antwerp, Toumai, Saint
Omer, and Salamanca. In Ireland there were hedge-schools, kept by Catholic
masters, which maintained a precarious existence; and these afforded the only
education which was open to the poorer of the Catholic middle class. In England
the children of this class depended entirely upon occasional instruction from
the priests. The law against Catholic schools seems to have been more strictly
enforced, both in England and in Ireland, than those against priests and places
of worship. Before the period of the Relief Acts no secondary school for
Catholics appears to have been openly maintained; whereas, even in England, a
few chapels for public worship existed in London and provincial towns so early
as the period of the Gordon riots.
The
disabilities of the Catholic laity were such as chiefly affected the upper
classes. No Catholic could hold a commission in the army or navy; or be a magistrate;
or sit in Parliament; or exercise the franchise; or hold a corporate or public
office; or enter the legal or teaching professions; or be admitted to a
university. So far as concerned the professions and the armed forces, the
English practice was more tolerant than the law. An annual Indemnity Act was
regularly passed after 1745 to protect naval and military officers who had
omitted to take the statutory tests. Originally framed for the relief of
Dissenters, this act enabled Catholics to rise in the services as high as their
superiors might think fit. In like manner, though without statutory assistance,
some Catholics maintained a precarious footing as solicitors and conveyancers.
In Ireland the Protestant ascendancy took greater pains to enforce the
exclusion of the Catholic from all lucrative or honourable employments. Many an
Irishman, placed in a dilemma between his religion and his worldly prospects,
apostatised in order to qualify for the legal profession.
In neither
kingdom could the less ambitious Catholic, who merely desired to live in peace
on his estate, feel perfectly secure. The legal penalties of recusancy were
ruinous. By English law the recusant was
liable to a
monthly fine of £20, or to forfeit two-thirds of his estate. A married woman,
in the same case, was liable to forfeit two-thirds of her jointure or dower,
and might be kept in prison during the continuance of her marriage, unless her
husband would ransom her by a monthly fine of £10, or by surrendering one-third
of his estate. The brand of recusancy could be inflicted by any two justices
administering the oath of supremacy at any time they pleased. An obstinate
recusant could be compelled, after conviction by four justices, to quit the
realm. Apart from these dangers, only to be apprehended in times of exceptional
excitement, the English Catholic was variously penalised. He paid a double
land-tax; he was incapacitated from taking lands by purchase, inheritance,
devise, limitation, reversion, or remainder. These latter disabilities could be
evaded with the help of Protestant trustees; but, as all trusts and uses for
the benefit of recusants were void in law, a fraudulent trustee was completely
master of the situation. The Catholic was, moreover, disabled from owning a
horse worth more than £5, from keeping arms, from appearing at Court, from
travelling to a distance of more than five miles from home, from living in
London when he had any other place of residence.
In Ireland
the disabilities were substantially the same, with the addition of some to
which the English law happily afforded no parallel. In Ireland a Protestant who
married a Papist wife incurred exclusion from Parliament, from the franchise,
from civil and military office; and the laws against priests who celebrated a mixed
marriage were zealously enforced. Not content with making the two religions
separate castes, the law attacked the peace of Catholics in their domestic
relations. Under the Gavelling Act of 1704, and a supplementary measure of
1709, the sons of a Papist were entitled to inherit their father’s lands in
equal shares, unless one of them was a Protestant; in which case he might claim
the whole, and, pending his father’s death, might reduce his father to the
position of a life-tenant, and claim a statutory maintenance. Similarly the
wife of a Papist was entitled, upon being converted, to a statutory jointure.
Such measures were bound to produce disloyalty; it is only surprising that the
Jacobitism of the Irish Catholics remained a mere sentiment, which evaporated
at the first sign of approaching Relief. But the fact is, that the holder
spirits had been drawn off to the French, the Austrian, and the Spanish
services. Those who remained at home had never learned to combine for any
purpose, and from long proscription gradually sank into an apathy which was the
worst result of the exclusive system.
The agitation
for Relief has a complicated history. The F.nglkh and Irish movements were
mutually independent in their origin; and, though frequently connected, were
always distinct in character and methods. Furthermore, each movement passes
through two widely different phases. There is a pre-Revolutionary phase, ending
in both
UH. XIX,
countries
with the year 1793; and this is followed by a phase which may be called Revolutionary,
since it was inspired by the dogma of natural equality, and served as a prelude
to that astonishing series of legislative reforms which remodelled the
constitution of the United Kingdom. The year 1793, in which Revolutionary
France commenced the war against all sovereigns on behalf of all peoples, is
also the year of Hobart’s Act in Ireland, and in England of the measure extending
to the Scottish Catholics the benefits of Mitford’s Act (1791). In 1793 was
concluded the struggle for equality of private rights—a struggle in which the
priesthood were interested alike with all classes of the Catholic laity.
Catholic demands had not indeed stopped short at private rights. Hobart’s Act,
which conceded the magistracy and the franchise, already struck the keynote of
a noisier agitation for political power and privilege. But the magistracy and
the franchise were demanded and conceded as guarantees of private rights, and
in the hope that they would strengthen the conservative influences on which the
Protestant ascendancy depended for existence. A generation elapsed, before the
Irish peasant and his leaders realised the value of the franchise as a weapon
of offence; by that time the Revolutionary phase had not only commenced, but
was actually nearing a conclusion.
The sudden
emergence of the peasant in 1826 has done more than anything else to conceal
the essential difference of the two phases. It is hard to realise that the Bill
of 1829, which was won by the lowest classes of the Catholic body, had little
or no connexion with their immediate interests. They had a great stake in the
first phase of the movement; but, partly from sheer ignorance and apathy,
partly for want of the franchise, they had left their social superiors to fight
singlehanded for equality of private rights. After 1793 it was chiefly a
question of satisfying the ambitions of an aristocracy and a professional
class. The strongest appeals of the agitators were those which touched the
sentiments of nationality, of abstract justice, of religious brotherhood.
There was indeed much talk of agrarian legislation, of repeal, of national
independence. But it was vague talk; and the motives which weighed with the
peasant audiences of O’Connell were motives of sentiment. Emancipation became
a burning question immediately after a period of severe distress in Ireland;
but the famine years were not the cause of its being carried; it offered no
solution for the most deep-seated maladies of the country. The great paradox of
the Catholic movement is that, while in the first instance we find a class
working for the interest of the whole body, the situation is gradually
reversed, and the many are set in motion for the advantage of the few.
It follows
from what we have said that the movement in its second phase must be mainly
regarded as an episode of Irish history. When it became necessary to use the
weapons of intimidation, the English Catholics fell at once into the
background. They were, as Burke said,
numerous
enough to be persecuted, not sufficiently numerous to be feared. And after 1793
intimidation gradually became the only weapon that promised good results.
Arguments had been exhausted on both sides; and, in Ireland at least, the party
whom the Catholics had to convert were thinking more of their own vested
interests than of the natural rights of their opponents. But in the first phase
of the movement it was otherwise. The Catholics had faith in reason; and the
Protestants affected, if they did not feel, respect for it. The agitation was
therefore comparatively pacific; and the English Catholics, who had begun it,
succeeded in keeping their lead from first to last. Their initial move was made
in 1719, when, at the suggestion of Secretary Craggs, they appointed a
committee of four peers and four other gentlemen to treat with the Whigs for
some measure of Relief. But these negotiations proved abortive. The Ministry
demanded that the committee should move the Pope to retract the indult by which
he had empowered the Pretender to fill up vacant Irish sees. The committee
shrank from interference with the Pope’s prerogative, and also suspected a trap
to involve them in the penalties of a praemunire. Their caution was attributed
to Stewart sympathies; and so late as 1745 the loyalty of the English Catholics
was grievously suspected. Charles Edward’s appearance in Scotland at once
produced an Order in Council to enforce the penal laws ; and a certain number
of priests were brought to trial.
For nearly
thirty years from that event the English Catholics endured in silence. Their
hopes revived again when the Quebec Act (1774), endowing their Church in
Canada, passed through Parliament almost unopposed. It was a sign that
religious bigotry no longer dominated the legislature; and of George III,
strangely enough, they felt secure, owing to his intimate relations with the
Duke of Norfolk. In 1778, therefore, they formed a second committee for the
purpose of petitioning ; except for a short interval after the Gordon riots
they appear to have been continuously represented by such a body from 1778 till
the passing of Mitford’s Act in 1791. New committees were once or twice
elected, but were uniformly aristocratic in their composition. The hierarchy
was not represented on them till 1787, and then only by three coopted members; a
circumstance to which we may attribute both the good-will of successive
Ministries and the equally remarkable reluctance of the Catholic Bishops to
make any concessions which would help the movement.
The results
of this first English movement were the Acts of 1778 and 1791. The first,
though moved by a private member, Sir George Savile, had the informal support
of the Government. The second, which would have come much earlier but for the
alarm excited by the Gordon riots, was the outcome of a long negotiation with
Pitt. It was drafted bv Charles Butler, the secretary of the committee, and was
revised by the Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, before being placed in the hands of
John Freeman
Mitford, its reputed author. It is evident that few leading politicians felt disposed
to challenge the Catholic demands, which were in fact extremely modest. The
Savile Act only removed some proprietary disabilities, and those clauses in
the Act of 1700 which affected priests, Jesuits, and schoolmasters. These
benefits were made conditional upon the abjuration of the House of Stewart, and
the disclaiming of some tenets popularly attributed to the Catholics, as, for
instance, that excommunicated princes may be lawfully deposed. In 1791 the committee
obtained less than they had asked of Pitt; but their original petition was
merely for the repeal of the recusancy laws, for the right of entering the
army, the navy, and the legal profession, and for the franchise: They actually
obtained the first of these demands and admission to the bar; also toleration
for their schools and public worship. These concessions may be regarded as
extensive, considering that the English Catholics had no arguments to urge,
except those of humanity and reason. It was not worth the while of any
political party to bid for their support. But for this very reason their cause
came to a standstill in 1791.
At this
juncture the English committee succumbed to internal dissensions. These arose
in the first instance from the terms in which the lay members had framed the
disclaiming oath of the Mitford Act. They were accused by the Vicars Apostolic
of tampering with matters of ecclesiastical discipline; and, although the
Vicars had their way in the matter of the oath, the feud survived the passing
of the Act, and was proclaimed to the world by the formation of a Cisalpine
Club (1792), of which the members were pledged “ to resist any ecclesiastical
interference which may militate against the freedom of English Catholics.” In
such circumstances it was impossible to agitate with effect for further
measures of Relief.
Meanwhile a
Catholic movement had begun in Ireland. This also was the creation of laymen;
but it had so far avoided coming into conflict with the hierarchy, and it was
more fortunate in its leaders. The Catholic landowners of Ireland were as
cautious and as deferential to the Government as their English brethren. Until
1782 they could not afford to be otherwise, since the Gavelling Act might at
any moment be employed to destroy their wealth and consequence. After the
repeal of that Act there still remained their inordinate pride of caste, which
exclusion from power had only aggravated, to prevent them from coming forward
as the leaders of any popular agitation. Left to their own resources, they
could have done little for their fellow-Catholics. But in Ireland, and
particularly in Dublin, there existed a wealthy and growing class of Catholic
traders. These men initiated the movement for Relief; and, although they called
in the aristocracy to their assistance, they were the life and soul of the
Irish movement from its beginning to the end of its first phase. They were
powerfully assisted by certain of
the gentry ;
in particular by Charles O’Conor, the author of one of the earliest treatises
on the penal laws, by John Curry, the historian of the Civil Wars, and by
Thomas Wyse, a squire and manufacturer of Waterford. These three came into the
movement about 1756. They found already existing in Dublin a mercantile
committee which had been formed to provide for the defence of poor Catholics
when prosecuted under the penal laws; and they induced this committee to assume
the more comprehensive character of an association for remedying Catholic
grievances. In 1760 Wyse procured the adoption of a scheme by which the
counties and chief towns of Ireland were to send delegates to the Association.
The provinces responded coldly to the invitation, and the representative idea,
which was to be so fruitful in the future, was temporarily abandoned in 1763.
But the
Dublin Association survived, and ten years later induced a number of the
Catholic peers and gentlemen to join their body. Lord Kenmare was the most
prominent of these recruits, and performed the duties of chairman from 1773 to
1791. Under his guidance the movement, proceeding on the same lines as that in
England, achieved two considerable successes in the Acts of 1778 and 1782,
which swept away the most serious of the proprietary disabilities and permitted
the establishment of Catholic schools. But the Kenmarites and the merchants
shortly fell to blows upon the question of their future policy. The landed
interest were reluctant to put pressure upon the Government, and ultimately,
under the influence of the panic which the French Revolution had excited
amongst all men of property, pledged themselves by the so-called Contentment
address (December, 1791) to leave the date and the manner of Relief in the
hands of Parliament.
The address
was followed by a temporary schism. In 1792 the Kenmarites gave way, upon
finding that the general sentiment of the Catholics was against them, and that
obstinacy would entail a total loss of their old influence. But their
repentance came too late. They rejoined the committee, only to find that the
direction of policy had passed into other hands. In the troublous times which
followed the reunion the Kenmarites played a secondary though a creditable
part. Without in any way deserting the cause of their religion, they maintained
friendly relations with successive Lords-Lieutenant, and by doing so saved the
Catholics from being regarded in official circles as a mere rabble controlled
by obscure agitators. But, if the Kenmarites had been left to work alone, the
concessions of 1792 and 1793 would never have been obtained. Their confidence
in the good-will of Pitt’s Administration may not have been entirely mistaken ;
but it was certainly exaggerated. The mercantile body showed a sounder
common-sense, when it resolved to play upon the apprehensions of the
Government.
The
management of this audacious scheme devolved upon a respectable Dublin
merchant, by name John Keogh, who was certainly one
628
of the most
remarkable Irishmen of his age. Uneducated and of insignificant appearance,
with no charm of manner and with no oratorical power, he dominated the Catholic
Association entirely through his reputation as a man of business and a
negotiator. A shrewdness which often degenerated into cunning, a native caution
which always kept him on the safe side of the law, and an ambition which was satisfied
with the substance without the show of power, were his most salient
characteristics. Between 1791 and 1793 it seemed not unlikely that he would
anticipate the career of O’Connell as a demagogue; for in these years the
Association revived Wyse’s plan of a convention which should represent the
Catholics of every part of Ireland. This so-called Back-lane Parliament,
containing delegates from all the counties and forty-two towns, actually came
into existence during the agitation which preceded Hobart’s Act, and created
considerable uneasiness in official minds by its obvious desire to imitate the
Dungannon Convention of 1782. But the idea of the Back-lane Parliament emanated
from two of Keogh’s auxiliaries, Myles Keon and Wolfe Tone. Keogh allowed the
convention to dissolve after Hobart’s Act was passed. He may have done so in
anticipation of the Convention Act, which passed later in the same session; but
it should not have been difficult to evade this measure as it was evaded by
O’Connell. Keogh preferred to work through the old Dublin committee ; and it
says much for his practical ability that he won for this organisation the trust
and support of the provincial Catholics.
He extended
his influence outside the capital partly with the aid of the priests, and
partly by a judicious use of the Press. But he also found more dubious allies
in the Society of the United Irishmen, with whose disloyal designs he must have
been acquainted from an early date. The alliance was closest in 1792 and 1793,
when Wolfe Tone, the founder of the United Irishmen, was acting as the
under-secretary of the Catholic committee. Until 1793 no secret was made of the
alliance. The wrongs of the Catholics figured in the manifestos of the United
Irishmen. Simon Butler, the chairman of the latter, published a pamphlet
exposing the penal laws, which was officially sanctioned by his own body; and
he received a formal vote of thanks on this account from the Catholics. Keogh
himself never became a member of the United Irishmen, and refused to let the
committee be implicated in their plans. While informers denounced him to the
Government as a Jacobin of the deepest dye, Wolfe Tone was loudly complaining
of Keogh’s cowardice and treachery.
But Keogh was
perfectly willing to use the Republican organisation as a catspaw for the
Catholics. After the passing of the Hobart Act he made a feint of parting
company with the Republicans. Wolfe Tone received an honourable conge from the
Catholic service; and Keogh issued a proclamation warning the Catholics
“against any attempts
of pretended
friends or declared enemies to drive them into violence.” But it is doubtful
whether he was as loyal in his actions as his words. Some leading members of
his committee joined the United Irishmen ; William James MacNeven, who had been
the Catholic chairman, and Richard McCormick, who had been secretary, were
actually included in the secret Directory of Five. They strained every nerve to
involve the Catholics in the rebellion of ’98; and, although Keogh was against
proceeding to this extremity, he was certainly willing to frighten the
Government with the possibility of a general Catholic defection. He did not
brekk with MacNeven and McCormick; he is said to have joined with the latter in
coercing priests who were disposed to preach against rebellion; and it is
certain that he used his influence to prevent Catholics from enlisting in the
yeomanry, the only Irish force upon which the Government placed much reliance.
In the end the Ministry were forced to negotiate with him. Under the influence
of promises from Cornwallis and Castlereagh, he forbore to agitate against the
Union, although his committee had announced, after the dismissal of
Fitzwilliam, that they would never barter the independence of their country to
secure Emancipation. Perhaps the Rebellion had opened Keogh’s eyes to the true
nature of the anarchic forces with which he had coquetted. It is at least
remarkable that, after the Union, he joined forces with his old rivals the
Kenmarites, now under the leadership of Lord Fingal, and adopted the policy of
patient expectation which he had so contemptuously rejected in 1791.
New issues
and new methods came into the field when the Catholic cause was taken up by the
Catholic lawyers. The Irish bar formed an aristocracy of talent to which the
whole nation looked up with respect. Here were to be found the best orators and
the ablest men of affairs in the country; here also were those who felt most
keenly the surviving disabilities of Catholics. The Catholic barrister found himself
excluded from all the prizes of his profession. He could not be a judge or a
law-officer. He could not hope for a political career of the kind which was
open to his Protestant competitors. Apart from the general causes which had
thrust their class to the front in the American and French Revolutions, it was
only natural that the Catholic lawyers should take the lead in the second phase
of the Emancipation movement. It was about 1805 that the lawyers became
prominent in Catholic assemblies; and from the first they possessed two
exceptionally able representatives in Dennis Scully and Daniel O’Connell.
The former
was morally and physically a second Keogh: as homely in appearance, and if
possible more adept in the art of intrigue. Scully spoke seldom and spoke
badly. He was incapable of appealing to elevated motives, or of pursuing a
straightforward policy. Only the well-informed were aware of the influence
which he exercised behind the scenes. O’Connell was of a different stamp.
Boisterous, robust,
loud-voiced,
and voluble, overflowing with a humour which was exactly suited to the taste of
Irish audiences, he had already made a reputation as a public speaker. His
remarkable faculty of influencing individuals and organising masses had not yet
declared itself. He counted for more upon the platform than in the secret
committees of his party. But his was the first voice to be raised in favour of
a bolder agitation. He turned the tide of Catholic feeling against Eeogh and
Fingal, though it was Scully who succeeded to the leadership upon their
deposition. Thenceforward he and Scully worked in harmony; but with every year
O’Connell figured more prominently in the public eye; and Catholic policy came
in a few years to mean his policy.
Nature and
training had in fact combined to make him the type of the rising generation in
his party. Bom in 1775, he was among the first to profit by the opening of the
Irish bar. He was also one of the last who felt the effects of the old penal
laws. The scion of an old Catholic family in county Kerry, he learned his
alphabet from the master of a hedge-school, and his catechism from a
non-abjuring priest who had been prosecuted for the offence of saying mass. He
was bom late enough to benefit by the law tolerating Catholic schools, but not
so late that he could finish his education without resorting to a foreign
college. He had studied for two years at Saint Omer and Douai, and had imbibed
the usual lessons of such a training—an exaggerated reverence for the hierarchy
and an equally exaggerated aversion from the principles of the French
Revolution. An agitator by temperament, he nevertheless retained to his dying
day some traces of the conservative temper which was engrained in the
Catholicism of continental Europe. For the rest, he had studied law in the
English Inns of Court, and in doing so had contracted a profound mistrust of
F.nglisTimpn “ Nations have no sense of justice,” he is reported to have said
in later life, “ and the English less than others.”
On his return
to Ireland he joined the United Irishmen, with one of whose directors, Richard
Bennett, he had contracted a close friendship. But the year 1798 found him
peacefully engaged in making his debut at the Irish bar. When the Rebellion
broke out, he thought it advisable to leave Dublin and spend the summer in his
Kerry home; but there is no evidence to connect him with treasonable designs.
If he had dabbled in them, he was now converted; “the United Irishmen taught
me,” he says, “that all work for Ireland must be done honestly and above
board.” In the year of Emmet’s rising he turned out for active service with the
lawyer corps; nor could he ever speak of that unfortunate enthusiast without
impatience. His comment upon Emmet’s plans was to the effect that no political
change is worth & drop of human blood.
This is
eminently characteristic. There was no element of heroic recklessness in
O’Connell’s composition. Yet he was in his own way
enthusiastic.
For good and evil an Irishman, he shared the nationalist aspirations of Wolfe
Tone and Emmet, though he reprobated the idea of a resort to violence. Repeal
and Emancipation presented themselves as twin problems to his mind. If he put
Emancipation in the first place, chat was only because he deemed it the more
immediately practicable of the two objects, and foresaw that the religious
would smooth the way for the political agitation. After the Union, as before
it, he indignantly repudiated the idea of accepting Emancipation as an equivalent
for the loss of independence. It would be absurd to doubt that his nationalist
and religious sentiments were intensified by personal ambition. No man more
thoroughly enjoyed the sense of power, or was more frankly gratified to find
himself the cynosure of every eye. Still it must be recorded in his favour,
that for many years he taxed his energies and impaired his fortune to promote a
cause from which it was by no means certain that he would reap a proportionate
reward. His nature, if not of the most refined order, was eminently
uncalculating, frank, and generous.
The immediate
question on which he defeated Keogh and Lord Fingal was that of petitioning
Parliament. Pitt had returned to office in 1804 under a pledge not to press the
Catholic claims while the King lived; and the older Catholics were for waiting
Pitt’s good time. But Scully and O’Connell insisted that England’s necessity
should be Ireland’s opportunity; no time could be so favourable for petitioning
as one at which Irish recruits were urgently needed for the English forces.
They carried their point; and a petition was prepared which Pitt as a matter of
form was invited to present. He offered to the Irish deputation which visited
him a strange compromise. He said that he had no objection to any of his
friends presenting the petition and would see that none of them opposed it; but
his own public support he could not give. The Catholics, suspecting a plot to
burke the petition, preferred to place it in the hands of Fox and Grenville, to
the no small irritation of the ministerialists. It was foredoomed to failure;
but, as the first to be argued before the Imperial Parliament, it excited
considerable interest, and induced Grattan to break the silence which he had
observed since the Union. He was heard with respectful interest; but the
petition was rejected in the Commons by the immense majority of 336 to 124.
Grattan himself owned that the times were unpropitious; and the Whigs, when
they entered office in the following year, pressed the Irish Catholics to show
patience. Ag-‘ n O’Connell triumphed over the moderates, and persuaded an “
aggregate ” (or mass) meeting to vote for a new petition (February, 1807). But
Grattan declined to move the petition; in March the Whig Ministry was turned
out for refusing to pledge themselves against the Catholic claims; and Keogh
induced the Association to rescind their previous resolution. For the next two
years the movement languished. The petition of 1808 was
presented
only for form’s sake; the Convention Act seemed to preclude the feasibility of
appealing to a wider audience than the House of Commons.
In
1809 the horizon brightened. Now for the first time the Irish Catholics were
approached by their English brethren with proposals for cooperation. Although
numerically weak, the English body brought into the common stock a knowledge of
• English party politics which was extremely useful in future agitations. They
were also well led by a central committee which had temporarily settled the
disputes of Ultra- montanes and Cisalpines. Charles Butler, their secretary,
impressed upon Scully the desirability of organising the Irish body in like
manner. The result was that a Dublin meeting voted the establishment of a new
committee, to comprise all who had served on previous committees and all the
Catholic peers of Ireland. Keogh, O’Connell, and Lord Fingal, appeared on the
platform in the unfamiliar character of allies, while Scully in the background
shaped the resolutions and set the new committee to work.
■
The
characteristic feature of the new campaign was the desire of the committee to
widen the Association. In 1810 it was resolved to establish affiliated local
committees; and on January 1,1811, the central executive boldly defied the
Convention Act by issuing a circular which invited the Catholics of every
county to elect ten managers who might cooperate with the existing committee in
preparing a new petition. A saving clause, to the effect that these managers
should not be considered as delegates or representatives, merely emphasised the
intended evasion of the law. The counties promptly responded to the circular;
and in due course the representatives who were to be no representatives
appeared in Dublin. The Castle authorities at once took up the challenge. They
had already ordered the arrest of those who participated in the elections,
more as a sign of their disapproval than with the intention of literally
executing the threat, which would indeed have been impossible. But in December
they dispersed two successive meetings of the new convention at the Fishamble
Street theatre; and immediately afterwards secured a verdict against a certain
Kirwan who had been concerned in the elections.
Lord Fingal
and the aristocratic members of the convention, while protesting against the
decision of the judges, decided that they could not expose themselves to the
charge of wilful illegality. They retired from the convention on the
understanding that no further prosecutions should be instituted. O’Connell,
however, kept a certain number of the delegates together as “a
non-representative Board,” which continued to deliberate and to summon meetings
through the year 1812. The proceedings were closely watched by the Government,
who would have welcomed any excuse for suppressing what they regarded as a knot
of potential conspirators. But the informers could only report that the
speakers of the Board
habitually
referred in slighting terms to the Ministry and to the Prince Regent, whom the
Catholics regarded with some reason as a traitor to their interest. It was
finally decided to treat the Board with contempt.
To the other
misfortunes of the Catholic cause was now added that of internal dissension. In
1813 the question of the Veto suddenly emerged, raising the same issues which
had nearly wrecked the English Committee in 1792. The Veto had been a favourite
scheme with Pitt. In the negotiations which preceded the Union he had enquired
whether, in the event of Emancipation being conceded, the Irish Catholics would
allow the Crown a negative control over the nomination of their Bishops. The
proposal was sweetened with an offer of a state provision for the Catholic
clergy; and a committee of the Irish Bishops signified their willingness to
accept both the endowment and the Veto (1799). But a little later the Holy See,
on being consulted by the English Vicars Apostolic, discountenanced the idea of
accepting a state provision, though at the same time it pronounced the Veto to
be an admissible arrangement.
In
consequence the Parliamentary friends of the Catholics retained upon their
programme that part of Pitt’s programme which was designed to protect the
State, but abandoned the other, which was to have compensated the hierarchy for
their partial loss of independence. To do them justice, these statesmen
believed that they were acting with the approval of the hierarchy. They had
been assured by Dr Milner, the accredited agent of. the Irish Bishops and the
most influential of the Vicars Apostolic, that no objection would be raised to
the Veto; and it was on the strength of these assurances that, in the Catholic
debates of 1808, the Veto was offered as a concession to Tory apprehensions.
Unfortunately the Emancipationists took no pains to spare the susceptibilities
of their clients. “The Catholics,” said Ponsonby, “have considered among
themselves, and they have determined to make their superior clergy subject to
the Crown.” If his deliberate intention had been to wound the Bishops in the
tenderest place, he could hardly have found words better fitted for that
purpose. Milner repudiated his engagements; the Irish Bishops repudiated
Milner; and the advocates of the Veto stormed against both the agent and the
principals. Soon the Irish Catholics fell apart in conflicting camps of
Vetoists and No-Security men. The latter, among whom O’Connell took the lead,
asked whether the independence of the national Church was to be betrayed by the
ambition of the Irish layman. The argument struck a responsive chord in the
mind of the masses; and the Catholic Board reluctantly followed O’Connell’s
lead.
Already in
1810 these dissensions were notorious, and had increased the difficulty of
parliamentary agitation. Speaking on the Catholic question in that year,
Grattan was forced to own that he could no longer hold out the offer of the
Veto. The admission added strength
634 Grattan's Bill. The Bishops and the Veto, [ms
to the Tory
case; it was argued that the Catholics did not know what they wanted, and could
not be treated as a coherent body with which a bargain could be struck. In
1813, when the House of Commons had begun to doubt whether it was not essential
to concede demands which had so long divided parties and made the formation of
a vigorous Cabinet impossible, the question of the Veto again proved a
stumbling-block.
The Bill
which Grattan now produced was one which anticipated the concessions of 1829.
It proposed to give the franchise to the English Catholics, to admit those of
both countries to Parliament, and to throw open all lay corporations and all
offices, whether civil or military, with some few exceptions. Those who desired
to benefit by the Act, and all Catholic priests exercising spiritual functions,
were to take a special oath It was also provided that no alien might be
appointed as a Catholic Bishop in Great Britain or Ireland. But there was no
mention of the Veto; the susceptibilities of the Irish Bishops were spared. It
would have been well if the English friends of the Catholics had consented to
follow Grattan’s lead. But Canning and Castlereagh decided that the Veto was
essential; and Grattan, rather than lose their assistance, allowed them to
amend the Bill.
Their
amendments, it is true, gave to the Veto the least objectionable form that
could be devised. Both in confirming the election of Bishops and in granting
the regiwm exequatur for the delivery of papal letters, the Crown was to be
guided by Committees of the Catholic Peers; and Ireland was to be allowed a
separate Committee. But these palliatives failed to satisfy the clergy and
their congregations. The Irish Bishops again repudiated the Veto; and again O'Connell
induced his Board to approve the conduct of the Bishops. Peel, the ablest of
the Tory debaters, made the dissatisfaction of the Irish Catholics his chief
argument against the Bill; and it produced such effect that, in the committee
stage, his friend Speaker Abbot successfully carried an amendment to exclude
the Catholics from Parliament. The Bill was at once withdrawn by its
supporters; and the triumph of the Tories was partially justified by the
language in which O’Connell welcomed the event. He told his audiences that he
thanked God the Bill was gone. He taunted the Vetoists as men who discounted
their consciences and obtained money by their professions of piety.
In this
attitude he stood almost alone among the prominent laymen of his side. Lord
Fingal and Sir Edward Bellew declined to hold any communications with the
Board. Richard Lalor Sheil, the most accomplished and eloquent orator of the
Board, brought all his wit and logic to the support of the Vetoists. The
English Catholics complained that those of Ireland were in the thrall of a
hierarchy which aimed at absolute power in both countries. Grattan declined to
present the next petition of the Board. But the Bishops and O’Connell were
prepared, if necessary, to face the displeasure of the Holy See itself in the
support
1813-4] Papal decision.—O'Connell's Board
proclaimed. 635
of their
decision. During the absence of Pius VII from Rome the English Vicars Apostolic
consulted his representative, Quarantotti, the vice-prefect of the Propaganda,
on the subject of the obnoxious Bill. He replied, in virtue of his plenary
powers, that the proposed securities were unexceptionable, and that the Bill
ought to be thankfully accepted if it could be passed in the future. The Irish
Bishops appealed from Quarantotti to the Pope, who referred the whole question
to the Cardinals. That august body, while condemning the regium exequatur,
followed Quarantotti in approving the Veto; and their decision was duly
transmitted to Ireland by Cardinal Litta. But the Bishops defied the Cardinals;
and their lay supporters boasted that, on this point, not even a papal Bull
would compel the Irish Catholics to obedience. O’Connell openly asserted that
Cardinal Consalvi had sold the Irish Church to the English Government, and that
the Pope and the Cardinal were foreigners who could not understand the
intricacies of Irish questions.
Amid these
noisy recriminations the Catholic movement appeared to be at the last gasp.
O’Connell seriously thought of changing his tactics, and of heading a movement
for the reform of Parliament or the repeal of the Union, or both at once. The
question which he had hoped to make a bond of union seemed to have become a bar
to any common action. But the moment that he allowed his intention to
transpire, the Government bestirred itself to new measures of repression. The
Dublin Evening Post, the most influential of the Catholic newspapers, was
attacked in the person of the proprietor, Magee, on account of a libellous
tirade against the Duke of Richmond’s policy. O’Connell, who was retained for
the defence, showed more spirit than prudence in his pleading. On the pretext
that the truth of his client’s article must be considered, he spoke for four
hours on the subject of English policy toward Ireland and heaped vituperation
upon the Government in terms that far exceeded the virulence of the libel which
formed his text. This outburst merely exposed Magee to a severer sentence. The
Catholic Press was silenced; and the Board was proclaimed in 1814 with the
approbation of Grattan and most moderate Irishmen.
O’Connell
saved the Board from absolute extinction. A few of the members continued to
meet informally as his guests at a house which he hired for the purpose in
Capel Street. But the shadow of the Veto cast a chill over their proceedings.
It seemed scarcely worth while to evade the Convention Act while there was so
little prospect of uniting the Catholics in a common policy. The agitation
survived only among the frequenters of a few “Catholic” coffee-houses, in
which, according to the spies who visited them, nothing was to be heard but
talk of Reform, Repeal, and O’Connell’s “ levelling system.” The poorer classes
were to a man for O’Connell and the Bishops. But in Parliament the cause had
few supporters except Vetoists, who were not ill-pleased
636
Plunket's Bill.—Peel in Irelands '
[1814-23
at a defeat
the whole blame of which could be laid on their opponents. Petitions were still
presented; by Grattan and Plunket jointly, in 1815 and 1819; after the former’s
death, by Plunket alone. In 1821 Plunket revived the Bill of eight years
before, and carried it throiigh all its stages in the Lower House, which was
now only anxious to have done with the question. But the Veto clauses were left
in the Bill; for which reason Catholic petitions were presented against it in
the course of the debates. Plunket replied with a lofty denunciation of
religious bigotry; and O’Connell returned the compliment by describing
Plunket’s Bill as “ more penal and persecuting than any: or all the statutes
passed in the most bigoted period of Queen Anne or of the first two Georges.”
The Lords not unnaturally declined to accept a measure of Catholic Relief which
was thus described by Catholics. That the Commons would deprive the Lords of
their excuse by sending up a new Bill for unconditional Relief seemed in the
last degree unlikely. The Parliamentary Emancipationists were now brought,
like the Board, to an impasse.
O’Connell’s
persistent refusal of a compromise has been censured by good judges. Yet it would
be unfair to tax him with an ill-conditioned eagerness to humiliate Parliament,
to extort by. force the relief which might have been obtained through peaceful
methods. His object was not to injure England, but to unite Ireland. For this
purpose he relied upon agitation; but in 1821 he was ready to substitute a
political for the religious watchword, to agitate for Reform and let
Emancipation wait for the birth of a new representative system. He could not
have accepted the Veto without alienating the Bishops, the priests, and all the
more ignorant Catholics. Emancipation, if obtained at this cost, would be worse
than useless to the Irish people; it would have left them permanently divided
in three factions instead of two. The policy which O’Connell pursued, though
often defended in language which was gratuitously offensive and unjust to those
who differed from it, was sounder from a national point of view than the
Vetoist alternative which at first sight appeared to have an overwhelming
weight of argument in its favour.
His faith in
the soundness of his decision was severely tried between 1814 and 1823. When
Peel was residing in Ireland as Chief Secretary (1812-8), he could boast that
he had “almost forgotten” the question of Relief. He asked Parliament to turn
from so barren a subject to the more useful work of legislating against
agrarian crime, and from 1814 onwards applied the medicine of coercion to
disturbed districts. For the practical object which he had in view, his reforms
were excellent; a special constabulary, stipendiary magistrates, statutory
power to proclaim centres of agrarian crime, the choice of better magistrates
and better sheriffs. Regarding the Catholic leaders as a set of factious
demagogues, he used without scruple the most doubtful
weapons in
the official armoury to strengthen the Protestant ascendancy. His
correspondence at this time reveals to us glimpses of a subsidised press, of
Irish boroughs managed in the Tory interest, of patronage systematically
employed to buy support. Though his language on the subject of Emancipation was
less violent than that of the older generation of his party, the Catholics were
right in regarding him as the most formidable opponent of their cause. But his
system outlived his term of office, which came to an end simply because he grew
sick of the sordid methods by which alone the ascendancy could be maintained.
The visit of
George IV to Ireland (1821) produced, as it was intended to produce, a number
of false hopes. The Catholics celebrated the event with Conciliation dinners,
at which they and Orangemen of consequence exchanged embraces. O’Connell is
said to have presented the King at his departure with a laurel wreath, kneeling
as he did so in the surf; there is better warrant for the temporary existence
of a Royal Georgian Club, founded by the Liberator and intended to dine six
times a year in token of a nation’s gratitude. Lord Liverpool maintained the
illusion by sending out Lord Wellesley as Viceroy and conferring the office of
Attorney-General on Plunket. But simultaneously Goulburn, an able and bigoted
supporter of the ascendancy, received the Chief Secretaryship. There was in
fact to be a semblance of compromise without an iota of concession. Perceiving
at last how they had been duped, and at the same time deprived by coercion of
the ordinary means of attacking the Government, the Catholics abandoned
themselves to despondency. “At the beginning of 1823,” says Sheil, “an entire
cessation of Catholic meetings had taken place. We sat down like galley-slaves
in a calm.”
These
reverses were not altogether unmerited. O’Connell and the Vetoists alike had
been more concerned to promote a political campaign than to discover remedies
for the worst evils of their country. It was left for the English Parliament to
probe the economic situation. The committees that sat to collect evidence on
this subject in 1824 and 1825 opened questions which Irish orators had touched
superficially or not at all. It was proved that the secret societies and the
agrarian outrages, which had rendered it necessary since the Union to keep
Ireland almost continuously under a coercive regime, were due to rack- rents,
to the tyranny of tithe-proctors and middlemen, to the habitual absence of the
great proprietors, to the cowardice and want of public spirit which
characterised the squireen class. The committees reported that the wages of
hired labour stood in Ireland at a half or a third of the English rate; that
the demand for labour was small and stationary, while the numbers seeking employment
had increased and were increasing ; that thousands were in search of work
which not one in ten could hope to obtain. They found that, in this state of
things, the peasantry chiefly depended for food upon potato patches of which
the
rents, owing to
reckless competition, ranged as high as ,£10 an acre; that these holdings were
continually being subdivided to such a point that the produce, even in good
years, barely sufficed to keep the tenant and his family from starvation.
Witnesses from every part of the south and west quoted harrowing instances of a
poverty which they saw no hope of relieving, while the population continued to
increase and to be dependent on the land for a livelihood. It was necessary to
encourage the investment of private capital in Irish industries; to drive the
people into new employments by means of restrictions upon sub-letting; and,
until these employments developed, to encourage emigration as a counsel of
despair. But capital would not migrate to Ireland while agrarian crime defied
repression. The difficulty of repression was due to the general mistrust and
hatred of all constituted authorities. Witness after witness was asked to state
whether the religious question had any real connexion with the distress which
had been described. The answers gave the impression that Emancipation would do
nothing for the peasant, unless it were accompanied by the reduction or
abolition of tithe.
This,
however, was only half, and the less important half, of the truth, The
resentment of the peasantry against the law and the landlords, against drivers,
proctors, and middlemen, was exacerbated by religious feuds. The confiscations
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had saddled the Catholic masses with
Protestant landlords; the police* the magistrates, the laws themselves, were
regarded as the instruments of Protestant tyranny. There were prophecies in
circulation, under the names of Pastorini and Columbkill and McAnliffe, which
predicted the speedy expulsion of all Protestants from Ireland. The Ribbon
Societies, though primarily agrarian in their objects, admitted no Protestant
to membership and lived in a state of constant feud with the Orange clubs, from
which all Catholics were similarly excluded. In some of the Rock Societies the
neophytes took an oath “to fight knee-deep in Orange blood for the restoration
and continuation of the long-prom ed liberty to the Catholic Church.” No
genera] conspiracy of Catholics existed. It was doubtful whether the Rock and
Ribbon Societies received orders from central executives; it was certain that
such orders, if received, were but imperfectly obeyed. The better class of
priests denounced all secret societies. The Catholic Board habitually warned
the people against recourse to lawless violence. Middle-class Catholics saw in
the agitation an assault upon the principle of private property, and were no
less eager than the Protestants for vigorous repression. Still the agrarian
movement remained in many respects a religious movement, into the vortex of
which the new generation of priests, drawn from peasant homes and educated at
Maynooth, were gradually being drawn. These men were too nearly on the same
level with their flocks to act as a restraining influence. If they identified
themselves with the spirit of revolt, they had before them the prospect of
unbounded popularity; if they resisted
that spirit,
they ran the risk of losing fees and stipends, or, still worse, of being
treated as pariahs and traitors.
The people
could not be helped, while they continued to look askance at every overture
from Government. The surest way of gaining their confidence was to concede
Emancipation immediately and without conditions. This would at once dispel the
worst suspicions. It would give the Irish Catholics a confidence in the
Imperial legislature which Grattan’s Parliament had never won from them. It
would diminish the outcry for separation of the two countries. It would add the
coping- stone to the policy which had produced the Union; it would lay the
foundation of a more prosperous era in Irish history. By yielding in the
question of Relief, England would gain the opportunity of offering immediately
and freely what O’Connell’s party could only present as a goal to be reached by
a long and painful struggle. But England’s refusal to seize the opportunity is
O’Connell’s justification. Before the Committees begun to sit, the Ministry and
Parliament had already decided to cut the Gordian knot by a new Insurrection
Act (1822). The famine of the same year was alleviated by the generosity of
English subscribers and by a Parliamentary grant. Half a million was thus
raised for the benefit of the distressed—a conclusive proof that the goodwill
of England was genuine and active. But neither in the famine year, nor when
maturer enquiries had made it possible to frame comprehensive measures of
Relief, did English legislators show themselves disposed to attack the problem
as a whole. The Act of 1823, which introduced permissive, commutation of
tithes, was valuable as an instalment of reform; but it was the last word of
the Liverpool Administration on the subject of Irish reform.
It was
therefore no mere accident that the famine year became the starting-point of a
new agitation which, unlike those of the past, assumed a genuinely national aspect.
In the face of this great calamity the Vetoists and anti-Vetoists made common
cause once more. Sheil, the Vetoist leader, made a complete surrender of his
previous policy. He agreed with O’Connell to treat the Relief movement merely
as a step towards larger aims, and to accept Relief only in that unqualified
form which would unite the peasant and the priest in sympathy with the
politician. Other means having failed, the priest and the peasant must be
called in to fight the battle of the nation. The new programme originated with
O’Connell. He imparted it to Sheil early in 1823; and without much delay they
agreed upon their plan of action. On April 25 they persuaded a meeting of
Dublin Catholics to vote the establishment of a new Association, “ a body of
confidential friends to whom the people of Ireland could look for counsel.” The
first reported meeting of the new Association was held on May 12; on Saturday,
May 24, the rules suggested by O’Connell were finally adopted, and the
agitation was launched upon its course.
The essence
of the new policy may be stated as association without illegality, and
agitation without physical force. It was necessary to evade the laws, but easy
for a lawyer of O’Connell’s experience to do so. The chief obstacle was still
the Convention Act; another Act of 1823, which was directed primarily against
the administering of unlawful oaths, had also to be taken into account. Both
were frustrated by making the Association public in its procedure and
non-representative in its composition. Any man, whether Protestant or Catholic,
might enrol himself as a member by paying a subscription of one guinea. The
meetings, held weekly upon Saturday afternoon, were thrown open to reporters;
the minutes and the list of members were kept in constant readiness to be
inspected by anyone who asked for them. The object of the meetings was to
prepare petitions and to collect evidence as to the grievances of Irish
Catholics. The first petition, which was drawn by Sheil, received approval on
June 14 and was presented to Parliament in the same month. But the difficulty
was to sustain the enthusiasm of the members. At the outset the Association
enrolled some fifty or sixty members, and decided that ten should constitute a
quorum. But it often happened that a quorum failed to appear; on February 21,
1824, was passed the significant resolution “ that in future the chair be taken
at any time between the hours of three and five o’clock as soon as ten members
be present”—an amendment of the original rule under which the meeting adjourned
at half-past three if no quorum had yet appeared. O’Connell, who was
indefatigable in attendance, would sometimes go out into the streets and bring
back with him any Catholic acquaintance whom he could find, in order to complete
the quorum. On one occasion, only eight members having presented themselves, he
descended into the bookseller’s shop over which the meetings were held, and
impressed two Maynooth students who were total strangers to him.
These
students deserve a niche in history; it was their attendance which enabled a
meeting (described in the minutes as “numerous and respectable ”) to vote the
institution of a Catholic Rent (Feb. 4,1824). The idea had originated with Lord
Kenmare in 1785 ; and an attempt to apply it in 1812 had been one of the
reasons which led to the proclamation of the Board. But it had never yet been
presented in so popular a form as that which it now received. O’Connell
proposed that every Catholic, even the poorest, should be invited to subscribe
at least a penny a month, or a shilling a year. The fund, he said, would amply
suffice to promote the objects of the Association; and it would demonstrate
that the people were behind the movement.
The success
of the scheme showed that O’Connell understood his countrymen. The towns took
the lead in levying the Rent, and from first to last contributed about
two-thirds of the sums collected. But the country followed the example of the
towns with unmistakable enthusiasm ; and the most backward districts showed an
unexpected power of
improvising
the necessary organisation. The ordinary procedure was to convoke a parish
meeting under the presidency of the priest. Resolutions approving of the Rent
were passed; a secretary, a treasurer, and collectors were then appointed. In
October, 1824, the Rent was coming in at the rate of £350 a week; by the end of
the year this rate was doubled. The contributions of individuals were often far
from voluntary. The collectors, when they dared, employed threatening language.
The priests denounced defaulters in the chapels. Those who still held out
became the victims of mysterious outrages. In some cases the element of comedy
was not wanting. “I knew an instance,” says a police magistrate, “which was
officially reported to me. The priest at the altar demanded the Catholic Rent
and demanded a subscription at the doors of the chapel. It was refused, and he
was considerably irritated at this, and I believe that he went so far as to use
his horsewhip to them that did refuse him, and there was a considerable
disturbance about it; but since that circumstance the thing has gone on, and
the money has been paid, I believe.”
In the
expenditure of the Rent the Association adopted the budget suggested by
O’Connell. For Parliamentary expenses a sum of £5000 was voted; for subsidising
or, as opponents put it, for corrupting the Press of both countries, £15,000; a
like sum was to be spent in procuring legal redress for Catholics oppressed by
Protestants; £5000 were appropriated to the education of the Catholic poor, and
£5000 to train priests for the benefit of emigrants settled in America. Select
committees were appointed to deal with the various branches of expenditure.
But the Association continued to debate in public on every project and every
grievance. It openly copied the procedure of the House of Commons; and the
debates resembled those of a national Parliament, with the difference that
there was no Opposition. Any person could obtain admission by paying a shilling
at the door; and the oratory of the leaders was carefully adapted to the taste
of these chance auditors and to the populace out of doors who read the
proceedings in the newspapers.
The debates
could not be called seditious; the Government, though it habitually sent
reporters to take shorthand notes, could discern no pretext for prosecutions.
But, as the numbers of the Association grew, the character of the body changed
for the worse. The peers and landowners, who had acted as a moderating
influence, rarely attended, and when they did so failed to control the debates.
Sheil, O’Connell, Lawless, Aeneas McDonnell, Purcell O’Gorman, and a few
kindred spirits formed a species of cabinet, delivered the most important
speeches, and framed the resolutions. The same men were the life and soul of
the “ aggregate meetings,” which assembled periodically to endorse the policy
of the Association, but with which the Association was not formally connected.
The Government began to take alarm. The Viceroy told the Cabinet that
the economic
situation was improving, that the proclaimed districts were subsiding into a
state of order, and that the Association was chiefly to blame for whatever
discontent survived. The Cabinet told the House of Commons that such a body,
existing mainly to burlesque the proceedings of the Imperial Parliament, was
an outrage on the Constitution; that the chief business of the Association was
to pervert the course of justice, and that any man who paid a farthing to the
Rent ought to be incapacitated from serving as a juror.
On February
10,1825, Goulbum asked the House of Commons for leave to introduce a Bill in
restraint of the excesses of Irish associations. The Bill was allowed to pass,
since the friends of the Catholics hoped that it would smooth the way for an
Emancipation measure which was being prepared by Sir Francis Burdett.
Goulburn’s Act did not mention the Catholics by name. But it forbade societies
acting for the redress of grievances in Church or State, or for the prosecution
or defence of causes at law, to hold meetings of more than fourteen days’
duration, or to collect or receive money, or to appoint executive committees of
a permanent character. So long as this Act remained in force (and it was to
hold good for three years) the Catholic Association as then constituted could
be rigorously suppressed. The Association had petitioned against the passing of
the Act; and Brougham had moved that the bearers of the petition should be
heard at the bar. But the petition was rejected and the hearing refused.
O’Connell and his fellow- Jeputies were forced to sit as spectators, though in
a place of honour, while the fate of their body was debated between. Protestant
friends and enemies. They took the blow quietly. The Association, which founded
great hopes on Burdett’s Bill, dissolved itself before the Goulbum Act came
into force, boasting in a valedictory address to the nation that Relief was now
secured through its exertions.
But the
Association had underrated the courage of the Upper House. The Lords had never
abated their hostility to the political claims of Roman Catholics. In 1822 they
had thrown out Canning’s Bill for admitting the Catholic peers to take their
seats. In 1823 and 1824 they had refused the franchise to the English
Catholics. Nothing short of intimidation was likely to extort their assent to
the full Emancipation which Burdett proposed. In the House of Commons all went
well. Plunket, Canning, and Palmerston lent their powerful assistance to
Burdett. The Tories were half-consoled by the offer of supplementary measures
giving a state provision to the Irish hierarchy and disfranciiising the 40a freeholders, who formed the majority
of the Irish electorate, and were predominantly Catholic. O’Connell had
signified his adhesion to these “ Wings," so that they could not be used,
like the Veto in the past, to disunite the Emancipationists. Only Peel found
anything of consequence to say against the Bill itself; and his vague anxieties
for “the Protestant Establishment in Church and State”
had grown
stale by repetition. The Bill passed the Commons. But the majority (248 votes
to 227) was so small that the Lords did not allow the debate in their House to
proceed beyond the second reading. They were encouraged by the attitude of the
Duke of York, the heir-presumptive, who had already announced from his place in
the House that he would defend the Coronation oath and the Established Church,
“ whatever might be his station in life, so help him God! ” The Orange party
made the Duke a standing toast and printed his speech in letters of gold, as
though it were a charter confirming their political monopoly for yet another
reign.
Their
rejoicings were premature. O’Connell had never placed implicit faith in
Parliament. He had already devised the ways and means of making Goulbum’s Act a
dead letter. The most moderate of his followers now admitted that they no
longer owed a blind obedience to the law. As soon as Parliament was prorogued
and stricter legislation impossible, a new Catholic Association rose
phcenix-like from the ashes of its predecessor. Goulbum’s Act could not touch a
society formed for religious or charitable purposes, or for the advancement of
science, or for the improvement of agriculture and commerce. These therefore
were taken as the ostensible aims of the new society. The founders announced
that a new Catholic Rent would be raised “for the purposes of the Association
so far as not prohibited by law”; and that the political agitation would be
continued by fourteen-day meetings which, as the Act required, would be entirely
unconnected with the Association. The audacity of this challenge to the
Government provoked extraordinary enthusiasm among the lower classes. O’Connell
and Sheil went on mission through the south and west, addressing vast audiences
in terms as violent as the letter of the law permitted. The boisterous
vituperation of the one, the shrill rhetoric of the other, roused an excitement
which caused the Government none the less alarm because it seemed for the
moment to be completely under control.
But the
general election of 1826 provided the masses with an outlet for passions which
were after all more noisy than intense. While in England the Com Laws attracted
almost as much attention as Relief, in Ireland all other questions than Relief
fell into the background wherever the fortyTshilling freeholders showed a spark
of independence. Despite the Act of 1793, there were few cases in which any
Catholics had been able to qualify for the borough franchise. In many of the
counties they held a majority upon the register; but hitherto they had been
sent like cattle to the poll, under strict orders from their landlords.
O’Connell himself, as lately as 1825, had despaired of winning their support.
It was an unexpected triumph for the Association when the experiment of attacking
the Protestant stronghold of Waterford proved successful.
The
Beresfords had for a long time regarded this constituency as their private
property; and the head of the House, the Marquis of
Waterford,
had spared no pains or money on this occasion to secure the return of his
brother, Lord George Beresford. But the Catholic campaign was well organised;
in every barony there was a branch committee closely connected with a central
committee which sat in the county town. The priests were honorary members of
the baronial committees and proved themselves unrivalled canvassers; Villiers
Stuart, the candidate of the Association, had been fortunate enough to procure
the services of O’Connell as his election counsel. A tour which O’Connell made
through the county completed the rout of the Beresford interest. Parish by
parish, the tenants of the Marquis poured into Waterford and registered their
votes against his brother. They made their entry in procession, bearing the
banners of their respective baronies. Four thousand soldiers had been brought
into the neighbourhood as a precaution ; but there was no semblance of
disorder. The butchers of Waterford took upon themselves the duty of policing
the multitude. Armed with white wands, they patrolled the streets in bands of
six, and any voter found out of doors after eleven o’clock was summarily
conducted to his bed. Not the least dramatic incident of the contest was the
nomination of O’Connell by the patriarch of the Beresford tenantry. It was
merely a device to give O’Connell the right of speaking from the hustings; and
after an eloquent oration he retired in favour of Villiers Stuart. But for a
moment friends and opponents alike believed that their votes were to be
actually solicited for a Catholic candidate. It was no doubt this episode which
suggested O’Connell’s later candidature for Clare. The result at Waterford was
never in doubt; and on the fifth day of the polling Lord George Beresford
withdrew. The Catholic victory was followed by others in Louth, Westmeath, Monaghan,
and Armagh; amongst which that of Louth attracted most attention, because the
candidate of the Association, a retired barrister of no wealth or distinction,
overthrew the united interests of the Jocelyns and Fosters.
The results
of the general election gave a marked impetus to the activity of the
Association. O’Connell diverted a large proportion of the Rent to the purpose
of assist’ ig Catholic freeholders who had suffered eviction for their votes.
To make the collection more efficient, he procured in every parish the
election of Catholic churchwardens, who, besides collecting the Rent,
disseminated the news contained in the Weekly Register of the Association. He
also endeavoured to win over the Bishops by offering them a large subsidy
towards maintaining a society for national education; but this offer was
declined. The Bishops were more clear-sighted than the priests, and had no
intention of becoming the tools of agitation.
The newly
elected House of Commons not unnaturally resolved to show that it was proof
against intimidation; it threw out the Catholic motion at the commencement of
the session (March 5, 1827), and in the following year rejected a petition
which had been signed by the
congregations
of 1500 chapels. The ministerial changes of 1828 distinctly strengthened this
reaction. Canning, when he succeeded Lord Liverpool (April, 1827), asked the
Catholics to give him time. But the King had selected Canning without the
faintest intention of allowing him to carry Emancipation; and Canning’s death
(August) left the premiership to Lord Goderich, who was powerless for good or
evil. The Wellington Ministry, which was formed early in 1828, included a
certain number of the Canningites, and professed to treat Emancipation as an
open question. But this course had been taken merely on the ground that an
efficient Ministry could not be formed on any other terms. The Canningites
found themselves ill at ease under Wellington and Peel, who on their side
gladly embraced the first excuse for parting company with Huskisson and his
supporters.
Peel, the
Duke’s right-hand man, stood exactly in the same position towards the Catholics
as when he had been Chief Secretary. He felt on the subject more strongly even
than the Duke; and not solely for the reason that he stood more deeply pledged.
In Peel’s opinion, to emancipate the Catholics was to give the signal for the
separation of the two countries and for a civil war in Ireland. He believed
that an honest despotism, which would refuse to yield an inch, would be the ideal
government for Ireland. But he had little hope of bringing the House of
Commons over to his view of the situation. The hope vanished altogether when
the Commons, having forgotten their resentment against O’Connell’s tactics,
adopted, though only by six votes, a motion for a committee on the Catholic
claims. It was not a defeat for the Ministry which professed an open mind. But
it was a defeat for Peel, who had spoken against Burdett’s motion; nor was he
consoled when the House of Lords threw out a similar motion by a majority of
44. For he could not hope to fight the Irish agitators without coercive powers.
The Insurrection Act had lapsed; Goulbum’s Act was on the point of lapsing;
while the Commons remained in their present frame of mind, neither Act oould be
renewed. And there was little hope that the Commons would change their views.
Already Peel saw surrender impending as a necessity of the near future. The
chief doubt in his mind was whether he would make the surrender in person or
would retire, leaving the Duke to bear the weight of Tory discontent.
At this point
an unexpected reverse made it imperative that the surrender should come
quickly. The Clare election completed the work which the House of Commons had
begun. This famous contest arose out of the Ministerial changes necessitated by
the breach between the Duke and the Canningites. When Charles Grant vacated the
Board of Trade, it was offered to Vesey Fitzgercld, one of the members for
Clare. Fitzgerald was in favour of Emancipation; his family influence in the
constituency was great; and it never occurred to Ministers that his reelection
might be successfully opposed. They forgot that the Association bore Fitzgerald
a grudge for
supporting the Goulbum Act* and had long ago resolved to unseat him at the
earliest opportunity. Great, therefore, was the surprise when they learned that
Clare would be contested; greater still, when it was announced that O’Connell
would be the rival candidate. That a Catholic could be legally nominated had
been shown at Waterford ; that votes given for a professing Catholic were
valid, and that he could be legally returned, was a new discovery even to
experts in election law. No professing Catholic had been returned since the
Revolution. To put forward O’Connell as a candidate was an inspiration which
came to his friends at the last moment, after all efforts to find a Protestant
oandidate had failed. O’Connell himself shrank at first from making the
experiment. But his supporters would not allow him to withdraw. Within ten days
the sum of £28,000 was subscribed for his expenses.
Money,
however* played a secondary part in the struggle. Had money been the decisive
consideration, Fitzgerald might have had any sum for the asking. The gentlemen
of his own county subscribed £4000 to help him, and would readily have doubled
their subscriptions. But the priests and the Catholic orators were masters of
the situation. They set to work without delay; and their united exhortations
prevailed with the most timid of the forty-shilling freeholders. O’Connell,
reaching Ennis at three o’clock in the morning of the nomination day, found the
whole body of the inhabitants astir to do him honour. On the first day of the
poli ng the parish priests marched into Ennis at the head of their parishioners.
Each man wore a green favour; each parish marched together under a green
banner. Word had been given from the altars of the chapels that the whole male
population between 15 and 80 years of age should go to Enns. The order was so
well obeyed that some parts of the county wore, in the polling week, the aspect
of a desert. Competent witnesses averred that between forty and fifty thousand
persons were collected in the county town. They were marshalled under officers,
to whose commands they showed unhesitating obedience. At night those who could
find no lodging bivouacked in an orderly manner on the fair-ground. O’Connell’s
committee supplied them with rations, which were doled out by the priests.
Spirits were forbidden; and the publicans announced that they would not sell a
drop of whiskey while the election lasted.
At night,
while the Catholic leaders feasted in the inns, the rank and file went soberly
to bed. If any murmured, they were coerced by a force of volunteer police.
During the daytime the crowds were alternately harangued by the politicians
and the priests. A priest was stationed at every approach to the town, that he
might preach to the passers-by. Priests also stood in the polling-booths to see
what electors would dare “ to vote against God ”; the more extreme announced
that they would never administer the last rites of the Church to those who
forsook her in this time of need.
1828] O'Connell elected.—Lawless in Monaghan. 647
Pressure and
intimidation were not, however, the monopoly of the Catholics. Protestant
landlords threatened a general eviction of those freeholders who voted for
O’Connell. One Vandeleur attempted to defeat the priests by driving to the poll
at the head of his own tenants, from whom however he was dexterously separated by
the mob. Several of Fitzgerald’s friends did their best to force a duel upon
any orator whom they found particularly dangerous to their cause. But in the
end the peasants polled almost to a man for O’Connell, while the gentry and the
substantial freeholders were equally unanimous for Fitzgerald. The latter
retired before the last day of the polling; and the sheriff, after taking legal
advice, signed the return, with a note stating that O’Connell openly professed
himself a Catholic. The electors dispersed in the same order and with the same
military discipline which they had observed at their arrival. Intense
excitement pervaded the country; and the effects of the ill-will between
Protestant and Catholic were seen in a system of exclusive dealing, under which
the Catholics avoided so far as possible all business relations with Protestant
tradesmen and farmers. But criminal outrages remained conspicuously rare.
Evidently the same machinery which had decided the election was being employed
to restrain the peasantry from breaches of the law.
How long the
Catholic leaders would abide by their determination to avoid violence, and how
long they would be able to enforce their wishes, were questions eagerly
discussed in Ireland duririg the remainder of the year. The police reports from
the south and west were not unsatisfactory, so far as concerned agrarian crime
and riots. On the other hand political agitation was noted as prevailing almost
everywhere. The Protestants were forming Brunswick Clubs; the Catholics were
meeting in their chapels; the tension between the two religions was extreme,
even in parts of the country where amicable relations had hitherto subsisted.
The Catholics denounced the Brunswickers as oppressors and assassins, but in
their own notices and speeches employed language not a whit less inflammatory
than that with which they reproached their opponents.
The two
storm-centres were Monaghan and Tipperary. The former county was convulsed by a
feud between Protestant and Catholic which might at almost any moment lead to
civil war among the lower classes. In the month of September John Lawless
undertook to make a tour through Monaghan, in the character of a delegate from
the Association. His progress was accompanied by a Catholic rabble, recruited
from the adjacent counties and numbering, if police reports may be believed,
from fifteen to twenty thousand. After spending some days at Carrick* macross
in the composition and delivery of the most violent harangues, he announced his
intention of proceeding on the 23rd to Ballybay, The Protestants of Ballybay,
firmly believing that the town would be burned over their heads, appealed for
help to their fellow-Protestants in
the
surrounding country. Early on the morning of the 23rd the streets of Ballybay
were lined by four or five thousand Orangemen, armed with guns, swords, and
other weapons, and prepared to resist by force the entry of the Catholic
procession. Fortunately, the general commanding the district persuaded the
Orangemen to remain quiet while he rode off to expostulate with Lawless. A
compromise was arranged, Lawless holding his meeting at a chapel which stood a
mile outside the town. His followers, though deeply chagrined by their leader’s
“cowardice,” were content to parade the neighbouring hills with shouts of
victory, and dispersed quietly towards evening.
In Tipperary
the situation was different; the Protestants were numerically, insignificant;
and Roman Catholic demonstrations were fruitless except as a menace to the
Government. All the greater therefore was the political significance of the
so-called Reconciliation meetings which took place in the summer and autumn at
Clonmel, Fethard, Killanaule, Cashel, Roscrea, Nenagh, Tipperary. The
organisers professed that their sole object was to heal the meaningless feuds
of local factions which, under such names as “ Hens ” and “ Magpies,” “ Shana-
vests” and “Caravats,” “Padeen Gars” and “Moll Doyles,” had from time
immemorial disturbed the peace of the south. The real purpose, however, was to
show the strength and discipline of the Catholic body. Processions of farmers
and peasants, some mounted but the majority on foot, paraded the streets after
mass with drums and fifes at their head; they marched by files or in ranks of
threes with company-leaders and banners; some of the horsemen wore hussar
uniforms of green and white; all were decked with green ribbons, scarves, or
handkerchiefs. The numbers were not great, if mere spectators were left out of
account —in the most imposing processions from fifteen to seventeen hundred
took part—and the meetings passed off quietly in every case. Soldiers treated
them with contempt; the officer who attended to watch the proceedings at
Clonmel, where the greatest of these demonstrations took place, reported that
twenty, good dragoons would have dispersed the procession without difficulty.
At the same
time it could not be denied that these meetings increased in frequency and in
numbers; that the example of Tipperary was beginning to be imitated throughout
the south-west; and that all these demonstrations were in touch with the
central Association, whose lightest command would be implicitly obeyed. Lord
Anglesey wrote to England that it would soon be necessary, at all hazards, to
break up these gatherings, since they had begun to attract the criminal classes
and to excite alarm amongst the respectable of every denomination. On the other
hand the law-officers reported that, while such meetings were probably illegal
and might be dispersed by force, the inevitable consequence would be that the
Catholics would raise legal actions and would secure favourable verdicts from
any Irish jury. Nothing could be done
without new
coercive legislation; for the Government had no longer the advantage of an
Insurrection Act or even of the Goulbum Act. But how was it to be expected that
a House of Commons already committed to Emancipation would support a policy of
repression which had only become necessary because Emancipation had been
refused by the House of Lords ?
Meanwhile the
Association pursued its triumphant course. Immediately after the Clare
election the weekly Bent rose to the unprecedented figure of £2704; and, though
it soon resumed more normal proportions, there was no longer any fear of
pecuniary difficulties. The war-chest being full, the Association resolved to
put up Catholic candidates for every county at the next general election.
Liberal clubs were accordingly founded in many counties with instructions to
canvass and prepare a register of the Catholic electorate; to facilitate the
work, a branch club was to be set up in every parish. It was further resolved
to require from every Catholic candidate a pledge that he would oppose the
Ministry on every division until Emancipation should be granted. The popular
excitement was fostered by proclamations which spoke of the police and
magistracy as conniving at the crimes of Protestants, accused Protestant
jurymen of systematic perjury, and characterised the Liberal clubs as “
fortresses to which the oppressed may fly for protection.” On September 26,
when the Reconciliation meetings had already accomplished their purpose of
alarming the Government, O’Connell issued in the name of the Association an
appeal to the men of Tipperary to desist from these assemblies. His circular
was read to the congregations in the chapels, and was immediately obeyed.
But the
orators continued to allow themselves the licence which they denied to their
followers, denouncing the Government on every possible pretext, even on the
ground that it did nothing to repress political excitement. “ The Minister,”
said Sheil, “ 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.” Throughout these months, while the highest Irish officials were no less
in the dark as to the Government’s intentions than were the general public,
Sheil, O’Connell, and their friends flitted like stormy petrels from one part
of the country to another, addressing now their supporters and now, at no small
peril to their safely, whatever gatherings of Orangemen they encountered.
All kinds of
conjectures were abroad as to the intentions of the Government; and the words
of every public man were watched with breathless interest. In August, a speech
delivered at Derry by George Dawson, Peel?s brother-in-law and a
member of the Ministry, struck Ulster Protestants with consternation. Speaking
to a gathering of Orangemen, this former champion of the restrictive system
sang his palinode with no uncertain sound, telling his amazed and angry
audience that the
Association
could no longer be resisted. At first it was supposed that he spoke with
authority. Then the whisper spread that his colleagues were furious with him;
but it remained uncertain whether they regarded him as a traitor to their
cause, or merely as indiscreet. Archbishop Curtis, the Catholic Primate of
Ireland, had the courage to approach the Duke of Wellington by letter, begging
him to give way. The Duke replied in oracular language, that, if the question
could be buried in oblivion for a time, he did not despair of applying a
satisfactory remedy to the situation. Lord Anglesey, whose Catholic sympathies
were well known, was invited by Curtis to explain the meaning of the Prime
Minister. The Viceroy replied, expressing his disappointment that Emancipation
was to be deferred, but exhorting the Catholics to propitiate the Duke; and
gave Curtis to understand that Emancipation could not be delayed. The letter,
marked private and confidential, was naturally allowed by its recipient to fall
into the hands of the journalists. For the moment it seemed to be an official
and decisive announcement of policy. But then came the news that Lord Anglesey had
been recalled on account of his too public expression of sympathy for the
Emancipationists. Men knew not what to believe.
The fact was
that the Ministers had been for some months past prepared to accept the
inevitable. Already on August 1 the Duke had asked the King’s leave to consider
the Catholic question and had stated with unanswerable force the reasons which
made it imperative that leave should be granted. Ireland was on the b’ ;nk
of rebellion; the House of Commons was in sympathy with the Irish demands. A
general election would not change the views of the English element in the Lower
House; but it would mean the return of avowed Catholics from every county in
three provinces of Ireland. The Tories might resign or they might pass
Emancipation; but, if they resigned, no Cabinet strong enough to coerce the
Lords could possibly be formed. By August 3 the Cabinet had agreed that they
would not resign. Even Peel consented to remain, although he would gladly have
withdrawn to avoid supporting a measure which he had hitherto opposed on every
possible occasion. Opposition or even neutrality upon his part, so the Duke
assured him, would wreck the Ministry and the Bill; there is little doubt that
the Duke reasoned correctly. The strangest feature of the situation is not the
capitulation of the Tories, but the profound mystery in which they veiled their
future policy long after it had been settled. The fact was that they mistrusted
the King and feared the Tory Lords. George IV was capable of betraying any
promise which he had time to weigh before it took effect. It was therefore
undesirable to expose him to the reproaches of the Eldon party during the
months which had to elapse before Parliament could meet and legislate. True, he
would be obliged to give way in the last resort; but before doing so he might
irreparably injure the prestige of the Crown by public resistance to the
Commons
and his
Ministers. As for the Lords, forewarned they would also be forearmed; and the
Duke, like the experienced strategist he was, meant to carry their last
defences by surprise before they could take counsel with the King or one
another.
But the
reasons which dictated secrecy might seem also to call for rapid action. The
refusal of the Ministry to call an autumn session cannot be explained by any
doubts upon their part. Already, in the month of August, they had begun to
discuss the details of their Bill. Probably it was the King who had insisted on
delay, in the hope that the Irish situation might improve before Parliament assembled.
The main object of the Duke and Peel, in their correspondence with the King at
this time, was certainly to convince him that concessions could no longer be
avoided. On September 27 Peel wrote that all the disposable forces in Great
Britain had been stationed within easy reach of Ireland, and that the Lord
Lieutenant had discretionary powers to summon the whole of them to his
assistance. On October 14 Wellington, though he confessed that he saw no
immediate cause to fear rebellion, warned his master that a general combination
of the discontented Irish, to refuse the payment of tithes or rent, was well
within the bounds of possibility. The Ministers at home were in fact no less
convinced than Lord Anglesey of the necessity for coming to terms; and the
dismissal of that popular Viceroy was due to personal reasons. Anglesey had
lectured the Duke in his despatches; he had publicly reflected upon the party
which the Cabinet represented. He was showing more civility to Catholic Peers
than the King thought decent, and in fact was generally suspected of courting
popularity at the expense of his colleagues and the Crown. It was important to
convince the King and the Tories out of doors that the Cabinet were not
conceding Emancipation merely because a Viceroy of Liberal sympathies had told
them that it must be done.
The Bill,
which assuraed its final shape in January, 1829, was chiefly the work of Peel
and the Duke. They started from the principle that, in respect of civil rights,
the Roman Catholics should be put upon a footing of equality with all other
classes; but that certain offices and positions of trust should be excepted by
name. In its final form the Act provided that no Roman Catholic should hold the
offices of Guardian or Justice of the United Kingdom, of Lord Lieutenant or
Lord Deputy in Ireland, of Lord High Chancellor, Lord Keeper, or Lord
Commissioner of the Great Seal in either kingdom; nor any office in the
Established Churches of England, Ireland, and Scotland, in the ecclesiastical
Courts, in cathedrals, or collegiate, or ecclesiastical foundations, in the Universities,
or in the Colleges of Eton, Wesin ister, or Winchester, or any college or
school within the realm. The question of securities gave rise to long
discussions. The Veto was abandoned on the ground that it would entail the
recognition of the Roman Catholic religion as partially established; but
Ministers probably reflected that Emancipation
652
The King's resistance overcome.
[l829
accompanied
by the Veto would do little to appease Irish discontent. Clauses for the
endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy were cut out at the eleventh hour in
deference to the wishes of the English Church. Peel’s original desire had been
to limit the number of seats in the House of Commons which might be held by
Roman Catholics ; but on this point he was overruled by Wellington. Both
however agreed that it was advisable to bring in a supplementary Bill
disfranchising the Irish forty- shilling freeholder. Li all these points the
Cabinet rapidly agreed to the decisions of the two leading Ministers.
The King’s
Speech at the opening of Parliament (February 5) , announced that a Bill would
be introduced to suppress the Catholic Association, and that the laws affecting
Roman Catholics would be subsequently brought under consideration.
Simultaneously Peel announced to his Oxford constituents that, having decided
to support Emancipation, he placed his resignation in their hands. The party of
the Church at once raised the cry of treason; but the surrender of the Ministry
had been foreseen by the moderates of all parties, and even among extremists
produced more indignation than surprise. A Bill suppressing the Association was
introduced on the 10th. Advocated by Peel as the indispensable preliminary to
Emancipation, this measure passed both Houses with little discussion. Before it
became law the Association voluntarily dissolved, in spite of protests from
O’Connell. He was chagrined that the organisation upon which he had counted for
help in the campaigns of the future should be disbanded at the first victory.
But the moderates were against him, and in this hour of rejoicing the moderates
were in a majority. It was then announced that on March 3 Peel would move for a
committee on the Catholic question.
At this
point, when everything seemed settled, the King made a last stand for the
principles of “ his revered and excellent father.” The Bill, he suddenly
announced to his Ministers, involved a change in the Oath of Supremacy to which
he could never consent. At noon on the day preceding that fixed for the
Catholic motion the Cabinet presented their ultimatum through the Duke, the
Lord Chancellor, and Peel. The King talked wildly for six hours, refreshing
himself with brandy as he (iroceeded. At the end of the interview the deputation,
who had scarcely been allowed to speak a word, announced the resignation of the
Ministry and withdrew. Late in the evening, when they were expecting to hear
that a new Cabinet had been formed on Protestant principles, they received
instead the royal permission to proceed with the Bill.
Next day Peel
presented his apology and his case for the Bill to an attentive House. He
disliked Emancipation as much as ever. But the current of political opinion
both in England and Ireland left him no alternative save to submit. This
question could no longer be permitted to set the House of Lords against the
Commons, Ministers against their colleagues, and Ireland against England. Upon
the altar
of necessity
he was prepared to sacrifice his own convictions and his party ties. For
himself he remained a Protestant; he feared the effect of admitting Roman
Catholics to share in the working of a Protestant Constitution. But, since
Protestants had ceased to be unanimous in defending the policy of exclusion,
since even those of Ireland had presented a monster petition in favour of
Catholic Relief, what course remained for Protestant Ministers except to
surrender with a good grace? It might be said that he and his colleagues should
have left their opponents to assume the responsibility of this new departure.
But the existing Cabinet had felt it their duty to undertake a work which it
was doubtful whether any other group of politicians would be able to complete
as satisfactorily, or, indeed, to complete at all.
Seldom has a
political surrender been so frankly acknowledged or so ably defended. That the
surrender was a necessity could not be disputed, even at that time, save by
those whom religious or political bias had rendered blind to the plain facts of
the Irish situation. Whether Peel and Wellington did wisely in undertaking to
carry a measure of which they personally disapproved was, on the contrary, a
question hotly debated; but those who censured them did so without full
knowledge of the difficulties to be apprehended from the King and the Lords.
Only the combined influence of Peel and the Duke could overcome these
difficulties. The modem critic of their conduct will be less disposed to blame
them for their change of front than for the obstinacy with which they had fought
a losing battle, and for the ungracious manner in which they at last gave way
to the argument of force.
The Bill,
after being read the first time without opposition, passed the second reading
by 353 votes to 180, went through committee without any substantial alteration,
and on the third reading was carried by 320 votes to 132. Petitions poured in
against it; and Lord Eldon shed tears in the Upper House as he prophesied the
impending downfall of the British Empire. But the Lords had altered their convictions
or lacked the courage to continue the fight. In less than a fortnight they had
allowed the Bill to pass through all its stages. On April 13 it received the
royal assent.
In spite of
its sweeping character, it left many causes of friction behind. The disfranchisement
of the forty-shilling freeholders (numbering over 190,000), could not fail to
strike Irishmen as an act of party vengeance. Peel had expressed a hope that
his Emancipation scheme would heal the feud between the Irish landlord and the
Irish tenant; but a stranger method of promoting reconciliation has surely
never been devised. A pettier affront to the Catholics was the refusal to let
O’Connell’s election count as valid. After two nights’ debate the Commons were
induced by the Ministry to decide that he must take the oath which had been in
force at the time of his return. He appeared in the House, read the oath, and
refused to take it; whereupon a new writ
for Clare was
issued. He was of course reelected; but the slight was one which his countrymen
resented, if he did not. His treatment and that of the freeholders kept alive
the Catholic complaint of injustice, and exacerbated the agitation, which began
shortly afterwards, for the removal of their remaining disabilities.
These were
not altogether trivial. Some of the rights conceded by the Act of 1829 could
only be exercised by those who took a special form of oath. The Act also
imposed restrictions upon Jesuits and the members of monastic Orders which were
none the less offensive for being allowed to remain a dead letter. It required
the registration of all priests and Catholic places of worship. It left Roman
Catholic foundations for charitable and religious purposes still subject to the
law of superstitious uses, from which they were only in part relieved by an Act
of 1832. Marriages of Catholics celebrated by their own priests were only recognised
at law in 1838. The Acts of 1844 and 1846 were necessary to sweep away a mass
of minor restrictions and obsolete penalties. It was reserved to a later
generation to make Catholics free of the great Universities. And it must be
remembered that the social and political disabilities which legislation had
created could not be altogether removed by the mere repeal of the obnoxious
statutes. From the Irish Administration, from British constituencies, from high
political office, the Catholics were still excluded with but few exceptions;
and although there is much force in the contention that their long ostracism
from public life had left them unfitted for responsible positions, it cannot be
denied that theological animosities increased the difficulties in the path of
ambitious Catholics and were habitually regarded by such men as the chief
obstacle to their advancement.
These,
however, are facts which belong to the social history of a later period; and
the consideration of them would carry us far beyond the end of the movement
which we have been engaged in studying. The main point at issue in 1829 was not
the levelling of distinctions created by theological prejudice, for the
theological arguments against Emancipation were already exploded when Grattan
moved his first-great Bill. Rather it was a trial of strength between the Irish
electorate and the Imperial legislature; between a voluntary combination of
individuals and the Executive; between the agitator and the constituted
Government. It opened a new stage in the relations of the two countries by
showing Irish politicians the point at which the armour of England could be
pierced. It gave Ireland the hope of Repeal; it inspired England with the
determination to resist any change in the relations of the two countries which
might give a wider scope to the ambitions and the influence of agitators
working hand in hand with the priests of a still suspected creed.
GREAT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND.
(1832-41.)
The election of the first Reformed Parliament was
anticipated with alarm by the Tories and with confidence by the Whigs. The disturbances
that had been freely prophesied did not occur; and Grey expressed lively
satisfaction at the success with which his newly-launched bark was navigating
the rapids. The numerical result was equally favourable to the authors of the
Bill, who found themselves confronted by not more than 150 declared opponents.
The only familiar figure missing was Croker, who refused to offer himself as a
candidate for the Reformed Parliament, and who for the rest of his life
maintained his attitude of contemptuous aloofness, despite the example and the
banter of his political associates. Though extreme Tories made the most of the
fact that a prizefighter (Gully) was elected, the return of Grote, Jeffrey,
Macaulay, Molesworth, Bulwer Lytton, Gladstone, Lord Mahon, and other
distinguished men, falsified the prediction that an extended electorate would
confine its favours to men of mediocre ability and low social station.
The election
reduced the Tory party for a time to political insignificance. Half its
numbers fell on the field of battle; and Peel seized the first opportunity of
declaring that he accepted the situation created by the Reform Bill. The change
was reflected in the adoption of the name “Conservative”—an invention of
Croker’s—as an alternative designation of the party and its principles. Before
1832 the party had consisted almost exclusively of landowners. It now received
a considerable infusion of traders and manufacturers, who had little in common
with the Toryism of Eldon and Sidmouth. On the other hand the older Toryism
remained strongly entrenched in the Upper House, where even Wellington was not
Tory enough to satisfy the Buckinghams and the Londonderrys. Of this old Tory
section Lyndhurst rapidly became the spokesman.
If the Tory
party was weakened by internal divisions, the victorious Whigs were in similar
plight. Though Althorp, Russell, Durham, Poulett Scrope, and Dun cannon, were
almost wholly free from the
traditional
Whig distrust of the people, they were outnumbered in the Cabinet; and the Grey
Ministry was essentially Whig. A body of men, however, stronger in the
constituencies than in the House, regarded the Reform Bill as nothing more than
the first of a series of measures designed to sweep away the power and
privileges of the territorial aristocracy which had governed England since the
Revolution. This party, of which Fonblanque was the spokesman in the Press and
of which Joseph Hume had long been the leading spirit, was reinforced in the
new Parliament by influential demagogues like Cobbett and Attwood and by
recruits of higher social rank and intellectual calibre, such as Grote, Moles
worth, and Roebuck, trained for the most part in the school of Bentham and in
close touch with the elder and younger Mill and with Francis Place. The
Radicals maintained an attitude of complete independence towards the Ministry,
and formed the chief visible embodiment of the new spirit that had entered the
House. A second group of independent members was formed by O’Connell and his
followers. Though the Whigs had supported him on Catholic Emancipation and he
had loyally aided them to carry Parliamentary Reform, he stood for much that
they could not accept; and, while usually willing to aid them in repelling a
Tory attack, he was ready to oppose them should their Irish policy meet with
his disapproval. Thus the new House consisted of an enormous Whig majority and
a small Tory Opposition, with the two groups of Radicals and O’Connellites,
each about 30 strong, standing aloof from the historic parties. The history of
the second half of the Grey Administration is the record of a three-cornered
fight in which the Radicals and the Irish, though often acting on different
principles, were found in frequent combination against the joint forces of
Whigs and Tories; for the latter, well aware of their inability to form an
alternative Government, felt it their duty to save the Whigs from their Radical
allies. Thus the political situation, which the overwhelming Whig victory
appeared to render comparatively simple, was in reality exceedingly complex and
portended a condition of unstable equilibrium.
The feud
broke out at once, when the House met in 1833. The Radicals objected to a Tory
Speaker; and their disagreement with tht Government was further emphasised in
the debates on Ireland into which the House immediately plunged. The Cabinet
had a very difficult problem before them. English Whigs were disappointed that
Emancipation had not pacified Ireland; but the administration had not been
improved and deeply-felt grievances remained unredressed. Four years after
Emancipation and forty years after the great measure of 1793, no Roman Catholic
judge or stipendiary magistrate had been appointed; the towns were in the hands
of corrupt and bigoted corporations; and the High Sheriffs, Grand Jurors, and
officers of police, were largely Orangemen. The Irish Reform Bill was a bitter
disappointment,
adding only
five members instead of the 73 demanded by O’Connell as the share due to a
growing population; and the great measure of national education introduced by
Stanley, creating elementary schools throughout the country with combined
secular and separate religious instruction, was accepted without enthusiasm.
The commutation of tithe desired by Grattan and Pitt was still unaccomplished;
and the peasant, made aware of the power of combination and feeling the impost
more heavily as the increase of population led to the further subdivision of
holdings, resisted collection by force. The Whiteboys reappeared, murders were
committed, and sanguinary encounters with the constabulary took place. In a
series of Cabinet meetings in the autumn of 1832, the Viceroy, Anglesey, who
had returned to Ireland in 1830 as a member of Grey’s Ministry, advised that
the settlement of the tithe question, the reform of the Church, and the
introduction of a Poor Law, should precede any measure of coercion; while
Stanley, the Irish Secretary, insisted that coercion should precede or
accompany relief, and presented the Cabinet with a Peace Preservation Act and a
Church Temporalities Act. The former was so stringent that Althorp was only
prevented from resigning by the information that Grey would follow his example.
The Bills were slightly modified; and the Cabinet met the new Parliament with
an apparently united front.
When the
debate on the Address was over, Althorp rose to explain the Government’s
proposals with regard to the Irish Church. Of a population of eight millions,
not more than one-tenth belonged to the State Church, the annual income of
which amounted to over =£750,000, exclusive of £60,000 from Church cess. Out of
this enormous sum, the %% Bishops received <£*150,000. Althorp proposed to
deduct from the bishoprics, chapters, and richer benefices, a sum sufficient to
cancel the cess; to abolish ten bishoprics, and to apply their incomes to such
purposes as Parliament should determine. The old Tories and the High Churchmen
were aghast; and Keble denounced the suppression of bishoprics in a sermon
which Newman afterwards described as the starting-point of the Oxford movement.
On the other hand, Wellington supported the second reading; Peel delivered a
temporising speech; and O’Connell expressed his cordial satisfaction. The
healing effect of the measure was cancelled three days later, when Grey
introduced the most stringent Coercion Bill that Parliament had witnessed since
the Six Acts. The Lord Lieutenant was empowered to suppress all meetings and to
declare any county to be in a state of disturbance; while it was rendered penal
for the inhabitants of suspected districts to be out of doors between sunset
and sunrise. Since such provisions might be nullified by the refusal of juries
to convict, offenders in disturbed districts were now to be tried by
court-martials The measure passed the Lords almost without discussion; but it
was hotly denounced by O’Connell and Sheil; and Althorp allowed his own dislike
of its provisions to
appear. The
fate of the Bill was in doubt, when Stanley rose and, in perhaps the greatest
oratorical effort of his life, won back the wavering House by a lurid picture
of outrage and robbery and carried the measure almost without amendment.
O’Connell denounced him as “Scorpion Stanley”; and Fonblanque dubbed him in
bitterness “Secretary at War with Ireland.”
The Ministry
now turned to their remedial measure; but a section of the Cabinet disliked the
diversion of the revenues of the suppressed bishoprics; and the omission of the
clause was moved and carried by Stanley, under pretext of smoothing the passage
of the Bill through the Upper House. O’Connell and the Radicals loudly
complained that its chief merit had disappeared; but, even thus lightened, the
measure was nearly shipwrecked in the Lords. Though the Irish Bills were
carried, they had strained the Ministry almost to breaking-point; and Durham,
unable to work harmoniously with Grey, disgusted at Stanley’s despotic sway in
the Cabinet, and tortured by disease and family troubles, immediately resigned.
It was generally felt that the position of the Government was veiy insecure.
The Prime Minister attempted to strengthen his position by transferring Stanley
from Ireland to the Colonial Office, where work of an equally exacting but more
fruitful character was awaiting him.
The growth of
the humanitarian spirit, combined with the new outburst of reforming zeal,
rendered it almost certain that the great work of the Whig Ministry of 1807
would be completed by its successor. The evils of slavery were as terrible as
those of the slave-trade; but its abolition appeared an even more formidable
task. It would be a forcible interference with property; and it might lead to a
terrible insurrection and possibly ruin England’s wealthiest colonies. On the
other hand, the trade of the West Indies was now less than half what it had
been during the war; and the social and political influence of the planters had
in consequence diminished. Wilberforce had felt the task to be beyond his
strength; but in 1821 he persuaded Thomas Fowell Buxton to assume the
leadership of a new crusade. The new leader commenced his apostolate by
mastering the facts collected for him by Zachary Macaulay and other veterans;
and in 1823 he demanded the general abolition of slavery. Canning replied by
resolutions promising the alleviation of its hardships; but the Assembly of
Jamaica told Parliament to mind its own business, while in Barbados an attack
on the missionaries followed the receipt of the despatch. In Demerara the
slaves, believing that they had been set free, refused to work, and were
treated like rebels. The insolence and ferocity of the planters provoked a
storm of indignation in England; but the restrictions imposed on their power
accomplished little for lack of supervision.
In 1830
Brougham’s powerful voice boldly demanded abolition; and, when in 1831 Buxton
pressed the matter on the attention of Ministers,
Althorp
emancipated the slaves who were the property of the Crown. Jamaica negroes,
believing that all slaves were to be freed, refused to work, and attacked a
number of plantations. The insurrection was speedily quelled, and the
Government granted compensation to the planters; but the need for a decision
became more and more urgent, since the declining prosperity of the colonies,
and still more the rapid decrease in the number of slaves, made the planters
exact harder work from their chattels. In the following year Buxton secured 136
votes for an abolitionist resolution. The vote was a surprise to Althorp, who
remarked: “that division has settled the slavery question; the Government will
take it up.” On his appointment to the Colonial Office in 1833, Stanley
introduced a measure for the abolition of slavery, on lines suggested by James
Stephen, counsel to the Colonial Department. The Bill proposed the immediate
emancipation of children under six, and for all over that age a transitional
state, the slaves being apprenticed to their masters for twelve years and
obliged to give three-quarters of their time in return for food and clothing,
special magistrates being appointed, with power to flog them on their refusal
to work. A loan of 15 millions was to be made to the colonists; and moral and
religious training was to prepare the negroes for their release. In committee
the period of apprenticeship was reduced to seven years; and the hostility of
the planters was disarmed by substituting a gift of 20 millions for a loan of
15. When the moment of emancipation arrived, on August 1, 1834, fears of
insurrection and disorder proved to be groundless. Buxton’s goal was reached;
but he continued to hold a watching brief for the natives, and created the
Aborigines Protection Society to aid him in his task. •
The same
fruitful session witnessed the first sustained effort to deal with another
equally urgent problem. The enormous increase of population ensured a plentiful
supply of child labour; and, when one died from overwork, insanitary
conditions, or cruelty, a dozen were ready to fill its place. The working day
was seldom less than twelve hours. Neither party was anxious to grapple with
the task, the Tories from dislike of change, the Whigs from their belief that
political economy forbade any interference with the conditions of labour. Thus
the championship of the children fell to men outside the inner circle of party
leaders, who rejected the current Ricardian individualism and had no belief in
the efficacy of purely political remedies. The most powerful defender of these
views in the Press was Southey; but the actual work of propaganda was
undertaken by Michael Thomas Sadler, the member for Leeds, Bichard Oastler,
soon known as the “ Factory King,” and Joseph Rayner Stephens, a Wesleyan
minister, who were before long joined by Lord Ashley, and John Fielden, a
cotton manufacturer. In 1831, when Sadler introduced a Bill to limit the
working day of young persons under eighteen to ten hours, the question was
referred to a Select Committee.
660
The first Factory Act.—Finance.
[l832—4
The report
made legislation a necessity; and in 1833 a Bill was introduced by Ashley, who
had accepted the position of Parliamentary spokesman of the movement when
Sadler lost his seat at the general election. The measure forbade employment under
nine years, limited the working day of those under eighteen to ten hours, and
provided for the appointment of inspectors and the education of the children.
To carry the manufacturers with him, Althorp limited the application of the ten
hours’ clause to children under thirteen, and,, when Ashley gave up the Bill in
disgust, adopted it as a Government measure, altering it once more to secure an
eight hours’ day for children under thirteen, but allowing twelve hours a day
or sixty-nine hours a week till the age of eighteen. In this modified form, the
first important Factory Act was placed on the statute-book.
The new
Parliament had thus in its first session abolished slavery, reduced the Irish
Establishment, and regulated the labour of factory children, in addition to
terminating the monopoly of the East India Company and revising the Bank
Charter; but the measures of the Government had raised up enemies on every
side, while its Coercion Bill had provoked the Radicals and Irish to fierce
hostility. Its weakness was increased by the unpopularity of its finance.
Althorp had hitherto met deficits by reducing expenditure; but the newly
enfranchised electors of the towns clamoured for the extinction of the tax on
houses, while the country gentlemen demanded the repeal of the duties on malt.
The reductions proposed in the budget of 1833 satisfied no one; and a proposal
to halve the duty on malt was carried against the Government; but, when the
repeal of the house-tax was also demanded, Althorp pointed out that the deficiency
resulting from the removal of these two taxes would have to be met by a general
tax on property, and in this way seeured the retention of both. Nevertheless,
the refusal to remove the assessed taxes led to great indignation in the towns.
The Government perceived its unpopularity; and Althorp reduced the house and
window tax, promising to repeal the former as soon as possible. At this moment
the trade of the country began to recover from the depression which had lasted
since 1826; but agriculture had no share in the rising tide of prosperity. It
was to the removal of one of the causes of rural distress that the session of
1834 was to be devoted.
In 1832, at
the suggestion of Hyde Villiers, a brother of Clarendon, the future Foreign
Secretary, a commission of enquiry into the Poor Law was appointed, the chief
members of which were Blomfield, the indefatigable Bishop of London, Nassau
Senior, one of the first of living economists, and Sturges Bourne, the chairman
of a committee which had sat on the same question in 1817, to whom Chadwick, a
disciple of Bentham, introduced to Senior by Mill, was added in 1833. At
Brougham’s suggestion, the commission was divided into a central board and
itinerant commissioners, the latter to be chosen by the former. Reports on
every
part of
England and Wales were received early in 1833 ; but so voluminous was the
material that the report of the commissioners was not ready till 1834. The
picture it revealed was of startling gravity. The Elizabethan Poor Law had
worked fairly well till the great French war, when high prices and low wages
led to the adoption of the allowance system, which supplemented earnings by a
parish dole. Whole parishes thus became pauperised; and the rates increased by
leaps and bounds. A premium was put on early and thriftless marriages by extra
doles for the wife and each additional child, while a mother usually received
two shillings a week for her illegitimate offspring. The system was not more
disastrous to the wages and self-respect of the labourer than to the landed
classes and the farmers, who began to sink under the terrible burden of the
rates. In one parish the rates had risen in thirty years from i?18 to ,£367;
the tenants had given up their fanns, the clergyman his glebe and tithe; of 139
inhabitants 104 were paupers. The commissioners were unanimous, that* if such a
state of things continued, the country would soon be bankrupt. The committee of
1817 had uttered a specific warning as to the disastrous effects of the
existing system, and demanded a responsible and elected local authority ; but
its recommendations left the causes of the disease untouched.
The report of
the commissioners now cut at the root of the evil by recommending the abolition
of outdoor relief, the establishment of a workhouse test, the alteration of the
Law of Settlement, and the creation of a central board, with power to unite
parishes in unions and supervise the entire system. The justices were sharply
censured; and it was contended that these enormous evils were only rendered
possible by the utter want of central control. “ The great source of abuse,”
they declared, “ is the outdoor relief afforded to the able-bodied in kind or
money”; and they recommended that after a given date no out- relief, except
medical aid, should be given to any able-bodied man. The report was almost
exclusively the work of Nassau Senior and Chadwick; the literary arrangement of
the report was Senior’s; the administrative changes were the work of Chadwick.
Parishes were to be grouped according to administrative and geographical convenience,
the enlargement of the unit of administration being designed to secure economy
in contracts, diminution in the number of officials, and a better
classification of paupers. A new authority, consisting of guardians elected by
the ratepayers, was to replace the overseers and the justices; and the actual
work of relief was to be undertaken by paid relieving officers, appointed by
the Guardians. Finally, a Central Board of three was to sit in London, which
should issue regulations, receive all reports, and audit the accounts of every
union, disallowing any improper expenditure. The scheme adopted many principles
which Bentham had incorporated in his Constitutional Code, such as central
control, reports, the formation of areas without regard to tradition, the
payment of
executive officers, and the election of the local authority by the ratepayers.
The
commissioners presented the Cabinet with a complete scheme, which was warmly
championed by Althorp and Brougham. A Bill was introduced by Althorp in April,
1834. The report had done its work; and the second reading was carried almost
unanimously. The measure was discussed at enormous length in committee and
passed the Lords with a few slight amendments, both Peel and Wellington, as
well as the Benthamite Radicals, such as Grote and Joseph Hume, lending it
their support. It was opposed by the Times and excited a storm of popular
indignation; but its effects were felt almost at once—the cost of relief, which
had averaged nearly seven millions in the preceding five years, falling to four
and a half millions in the five years following. To Nicholls, who accepted a
seat on the Board, and Chadwick, who became its first secretary, were chiefly
due the rapid extension of the new Act throughout the country, and the
elaborate regulations issued for the guidance of the local authorities. Though
its adoption entailed a considerable amount of suffering, it is probable that
any less drastic measure would have failed to arrest the rapid demoralisation
of the people.
The reform of
the Poor Law was the last great achievement of the Grey Ministry. Its principal
difficulty throughout had been Ireland; and Ireland was the cause of its fall.
The attempts to remedy the tithe grievance by voluntary or compulsory
commutation had failed; and in 1833 the arrears had amounted to over a million
pounds. This sum Stanley’s successor, Edward John Littleton, advanced to the
tithe- owners on the security of the arrears which the Irish Government was
empowered to collect, proposing at the same time to commute tithe into a
land-tax payable to the State. In the debate on the second reading Stanley used
language which appeared to Russell to pledge the Government to maintain the
revenues of the Church unimpaired. Russell thereupon rose and asserted his
belief that the revenues were larger than were needed, and that the surplus
should be appropriated to other objects. His words drew from Stanley the
historic note to Graham, “ Johnny has upset the coach.” Littleton tried to save
the situation by declaring that the question was not before the House ; but a
crisis was precipitated by a motion pledging the House to appropriate the
surplus. An attempt was made by Grey to postpone the difficulty by appointing a
commission of enquiry into the resources and needs of the Irish Church; but
Stanley regarded the question as one of principle; and on the eve of the discussion
Stanley, Graham, Ripon, and Richmond resigned. Grey lost his nerve and was
anxious to retire; and Althorp grasped eagerly at the opportunity of escaping
from the official life that he abhorred; but Brougham and other members of the
Cabinet dissuaded the leaders from resigning, and the vacant offices were
quickly filled. The Government
gained in
homogeneity by the change, but lost in weight in Parliament and in the
country. Stanley was beyond comparison the most brilliant debater in the House
of Commons; and his success in 1833 had caused Russell to prophesy that he
would succeed Althorp, and Melbourne to pronounce that he would be the next
Whig premier and might hold office as long as Walpole. His high birth and
bearing, his imperious temper, and his impassioned eloquence, fascinated the
House; but he was never at home with the Whigs, and had grown to be as conservative
as and far more clerical than Peel. Writing thirty- five years later on the
death of Lord Derby, Russell declared that, though he lived to be thrice Prime
Minister, his career had reached its highest point in 1833. The “ Rupert of
debate ” was a host in himself; but his friend Graham, who had proved himself
an excellent administrator at the Admiralty, was also a serious loss. Ripon
and Richmond had taken little part in the work of the Cabinet and were scarcely
missed.
The Ministry,
thus patched up, proceeded with their work. The Coercion Bill of 1833 expired
with the session; and Littleton believed that O’Connell might be induced to let
the Tithe Bill pass in return for dropping the power of the Lord Lieutenant of
prohibiting public meetings. It was true that Wellesley had recently asked the
Cabinet to retain it; but Brougham, an intimate friend, urged Littleton to
request him to withdraw his demand. Next day the Cabinet decided to retain the
clauses; but three days later Grey learned from Wellesley (who had succeeded
Anglesey in 1833) that he could govern without them. By the same post Littleton
received a favourable answer from Dublin, and gained Althorp’s sanction to see
O’Connell and persuade him to withdraw his opposition to a Whig candidate in
an election then pending, on the assurance that the Coercion Act would be
modified. O’Connell at once urged his friends to support the Whig candidate.
Meanwhile Grey learned from Wellesley that he had changed his ground, owing to
representations from home. Grey now indignantly determined to retain the
obnoxious clauses, in which Althorp, in order to prevent the Premier from
resigning, reluctantly concurred. Littleton had to inform O’Connell that the
policy of the Government had changed; and on the introduction of the Bill
O’Connell in disgust revealed his transactions with the Irish Secretary to the
House. Littleton at once resigned; and three days later Althorp declared his
position in regard to the Coercion Act intolerable. Grey refused to remain in
office without him, and sent his own resignation with that of Althorp to the
King. He was an aristocrat to the core, and had never felt himself entirely at
home in the new world which he had done so much to create. Since the Reform
Bill he had taken a far larger part in foreign than in domestic affairs; and
his colleagues and the party had advanced beyond him. He was more than seventy
years old and had begun to feel the burden of age.
His
character, moreover, was anxious and desponding; and early in the year he was
only prevented from resigning on a question of foreign policy by the most
urgent entreaties. A month before his resignation, he told Creevey that he had
lost his sleep and was harassed to death, and Creevey prophesied that he would
never meet another session as Premier. For a time he felt deeply wounded by the
conduct of his colleagues; and Lady Grey and other members of his family spoke
with indignation of Brougham as the cause of his downfall; but he quickly
regained his tranquillity at Howick. The fallen Premier, however, became more
and more antagonistic to the policy of his old colleagues, while his horror of
Radicalism and of O’Connell grew into a mania. His letters to Princess Lieven
reflect his gradual loss of interest in public affairs and the gloom which
gathered round the closing years of one of the most honest though by no means
one of the greatest of English statesmen.
The King
believed that the opportunity had now come for carrying out his favourite plan
of a coalition; and in sending for Melbourne he expressed a wish that such a
Ministry might be formed. Melbourne refused to enter on a hopeless task; and
the King with a bad grace resigned himself to another purely Whig Ministry, in
which Althorp, at the entreaty of the whole party, returned to his old
position. Brougham afterwards asserted that he recommended Melbourne to the
King; and Durham declared him to be the only possible leader, since he was the
only man of whom nobody would be jealous. He had had a political experience of
nearly thirty years, of which twenty-three were spent in the House of Commons.
Though a convinced Whig, he had accepted office as Irish Secretary under
Canning in 1827, and became Home Secretary when Grey formed his Government in
1830. His administration had been marked by unexpected vigour; but he was never
an enthusiast for the Reform Bill, and entertained a whole-hearted contempt for
the Radical programme. Though somewhat less conservative than Grey, he was far
less advanced than Russell; but in all matters of religious liberty and
equality he was singularly liberal. He expected little from legislation, and
wholly lacked the feeling which animates the bom reformer that abuses should be
attacked and removed with the least possible delay. When a reform was suggested
his first inclination was to ask: Why can’t you let it alone ? This attitude of
apparent indifference, his pococurante air, as Stockmar called it, was in part
assumed; but it was not in his nature to throw himself unreservedly into the
political struggles of the moment. “ It does not much matter what we say,” he
once remarked in Cabinet, “but we must all say the same thing.” Without being
indolent, he did not believe that anything was worth a great deal of trouble.
The wreck of his home and happiness, again, made the ups and downs of public
life appear relatively insignificant; and Greville’s charming pictures of the
literary evenings at Holland House show that
he possessed
the key to a world where the discordant sounds of party strife were unable to enter.
His exuberant vitality and raciness were not more marked than the vein of
thoughtfulness and melancholy, his boisterous heartiness not more
characteristic than his tenderness and general scepticism. In a well-known
passage in the Letters to Archdeacon Singleton (n), Sydney Smith satirises his
friend’s assumption of reckless indifference and “ accuses ” him of high and
noble purposes. “ By sceptical observers,” wrote Fonblanque, “ he has been
taken for a trifler, for no better reason than that he trifles so well; but who
in the next breath reasons more acutely or brings readier or ampler knowledge
to bear on any question that arises ? ” He hated the affectation of greater
knowledge or virtue than men actually possessed, and indeed underrated the better
motives of mankind; but his devil-may-care manner concealed a deep anxiety to
find and follow the right. The appointment aroused great interest, and Greville
records that everyone was wondering “ how Melbourne would do.”
The first
announcement of the Ministry was that the clauses of the Coercion Act which had
led to the fall of Grey would be dropped; and, thus lightened, the Act was
continued for a year. The recess was to prove not less eventful than the
session just concluded. The Lord Chancellor, Brougham, determined to make a
political tour in Scotland, and at the same time to take part in a banquet to
be given to Lord Grey in Edinburgh. His journey was like a royal progress; and
his speeches were filled with eulogies of the King, the Ministry, and himself.
The tour finished at Edinburgh, where Brougham startled his hearers by
condemning the hasty spirits who were in such a hurry to go on a voyage of
discovery to unknown regions that they would not wait to see whether the
compass was on board. The allusion was perhaps to Durham, who was present, and
who promptly retorted that he was one of those who saw with regret every hour
which passed over the existence of recognised and unreformed abuses. The
controversy was continued by speech and pen ; but Brougham’s conduct throughout
the tour was universally reprobated. The King spoke of him as an itinerant
mountebank, and now formed the resolution of dismissing the Ministry when a
pretext should arise.
The
opportunity occurred in November, when Lord Spencer’s death removed Althorp to
the Upper House, and gave the signal for his final retirement from public life.
He used to say that nature intended him for a grazier, but that men insisted on
making him a statesman. He was genuinely Liberal; but he was no speaker, and
there were a score of men in the party of more brilliant gifts. His ascendancy
was due not to mental but to moral qualities. His word was better than another
man’s bond; and his absolute straightforwardness won him the confidence of the
House in a degree unparalleled before or since. He had, moreover, piloted the
Reform Bill and the new Poor
Law through
the House with real knowledge and ability, and his removal opened the question
as to how his place should be filled. It was decided by the Cabinet that the
Premier should recommend Russell for the leadership of the House; but, when
Spencer’s death was hourly expected, Melbourne had written to the King
apprehending “ the most serious difficulty and embarrassment”; and when the
news arrived, he wrote again, declaring that, “as the Government was mainly
founded on the personal weight and influence of Lord Althorp in the House of
Commons, and that foundation was now withdrawn," he proposed to take his
Majesty’s pleasure as to whether other arrangements should be made for carrying
on the government, adding an entreaty that no personal considerations should
prevent him from taking any measures he thought necessary or seeking other
advice. The King replied that he would be glad to see him; and the next day
Melbourne journeyed to Brighton. The King protested that Lord John would make
“a wretched figure” in debate, when opposed to Peel and Stanley, and added that
Russell was pledged to encroachments on the Church, which he was determined to
resist. He further expressed his disapproval of the recent conduct of the
Chancellor. On the following morning the Premier received a letter, dismissing
the Ministry on the ground that its general weight and consideration were so
much diminished that its tenure had become too precarious to proceed. The final
audience with the King was cordial; and Melbourne returned to London carrying a
summons to Wellington. The same evening he saw Palmerston and Brougham, the
latter of whom, though pledged to secrecy, at once informed the Times, which
next morning concluded its account of the King’s action with the words: “ The
Queen has done it all.” When the Duke reached Brighton, he pointed out the
danger of thus dismissing a Ministry with a large majority, but promised his
aid, advising the King to send for Peel, who was spending the recess with his
family in Italy. A messenger was at once despatched to Rome, and the Duke was
named First Lord and Secretary of State till his return. The King, indignant at
the insult to the Queen, came up to town and insisted on the immediate
resignation of the Ministers.
There had
been no such step since the dismissal of Grenville in 1807; and the King would
not have ventured on it but for the resignations which had occurred a few
months before and the growing unpopularity of the Government. His defence,
drawn up and sent to Peel a few weeks later, asserted that he quite expected
the Premier to announce his resignation at Brighton; and the letters already
quoted show that the King only did what his Minister had invited him to do.
Moreover, in a letter to Grey, written immediately after his audiences,
Melbourne himself declared that he was in no way surprised at the decision, and
could not entirely condemn it; and Grey took the same view. But the King’s
action, though consistent with the principles of the English
Constitution,
was inconsistent with its practice; and the stroke by which he believed that he
would rid himself of the Whig Ministry gave it new strength and prolonged its
life for six years.
While the
nation was discussing the dismissal of the Ministry and the royal courier was
on his way to Rome, the whole power and patronage of the State were in the
hands of Wellington. The Duke, however, took no steps that would bind the hands
of Peel, who, by travelling night and day, reached London early in December,
rather more than three weeks after the crisis. Peel afterwards stated, in his
memoir on the incident, that he greatly doubted its wisdom, and only accepted
office in order to spare the King humiliation. He at once invited Stanley and
Graham to join the Ministry; but they replied that they had been too recently
in antagonism, adding that they would be of greater assistance as independent
supporters. Thus thwarted, he was compelled to fall back on the old Tory Ministry.
With Stanley and Graham it is possible that he might have been able to maintain
himself; without them his attempt was doomed to failure. Taking the Exchequer
himself, and confirming Lyndhurst in the Chancellorship, he placed Wellington
and Aberdeen at the Foreign and Colonial Offices respectively, while
subordinate posts were entrusted to Gladstone and Sidney Herbert. The powerful
support of the Times was secured by negotiations between Lyndhurst and the
editor, Barnes. The first task of the new Ministers was to hear and approve a
letter which the Premier had written to his constituents, explaining the policy
of the new Government. The Tam- worth Manifesto, as it came to be called,
reminded the country of his own claims to the title of Reformer. He had
reformed the currency ind the criminal code, and he was prepared to consider
the reform of municipal corporations. He had supported the abolition of Church
rates, and the relief of Dissenters in regard to the celebration of marriages.
He was willing to open the Universities, and he desired to commute the tithes
of the English Church. Though its immediate effect was not very great, the
document is of outstanding importance as marking the substitution of a rational
conservatism for the pure negations of the old Toxy party. At the dissolution
which followed, Peel scored numerous successes in the counties, but gained no
foothold in the towns; and the Opposition retained a substantial majority.
The old
Houses of Parliament, which had witnessed the debates of two centuries, had
been destroyed by fire during the recess; and the new House' met in temporary
premises. The struggle at once began with the election of a Speaker, the
Opposition proposing and carrying a Whig by a majority of ten. Peel took his
defeat calmly; but the Whigs next carried an amendment to the Address deploring
the recent dissolution. A third rebuff was incurred on the appointment to the
embassy at St Petersburg of Londonderry, the brother of Castlereagh and the
inheritor of his political ideas. Peel was extricated from
668
[l835
disaster by
Londonderry’s voluntary withdrawal; but the episode damaged the Government in
the House and the country. The Premier now proceeded to his programme and
explained his plan of dealing with Dissenters’ marriages and with Irish and
English tithes ; but the Opposition denied his right to remain in office
without a majority. An address to the Crown to grant a charter of incorporation
to London University was carried, though the matter was under the consideration
of the Privy Council. The defeat led to rumours of resignation; but Peel
introduced his Irish Tithe Bill, which differed little from Littleton’s plan of
the previous year. The Whigs could not oppose their own proposals ; but they
refused to accept a Bill which did not appropriate the surplus revenues of the
Irish Church. After prolonged debate, Russell’s resolution was carried by 33;
and after two more defeats on the same question Peel resigned. He had already
played his trump card by dissolving; and he felt that there was real danger of
foreign Powers taking advantage of the weakness of the Ministry. The King did
not realise the gravity of these continual defeats; and Malmesbury records the
rumour that he had threatened to abdicate and retire to Holland if the Ministry
fell; but Peel was inexorable. He had fought a losing battle on ground not
chosen by himself; and his Hundred Days had won the admiration of his opponents
as well as of the country. The sovereign’s impatience had arrested the
Conservative reaction; but the ability, courage, and resource of the defeated
Minister convinced the nation that it had a statesman of the first rank in
reserve.
The King was
deeply mortified by the turn of events, and applied for advice to Grey, who
urged him to summon Melbourne and Lans- downe. A coalition was once again
suggested, and again declared impossible; and Melbourne returned to office.
There were, however, three important differences in the character and
Parliamentary position of the new Government. In the first place, Brougham was
no longer Chancellor. The intrigue with Wellesley had left a deep impression on
Melbourne’s mind; and the tour in Scotland had made Brougham impossible. He
had broken up the Grey Ministry, and his conduct had been one of the principal
causes of the fall of its successor. While Peel was still in office, Melbourne
wrote to Grey: “ I will have nothing more to do with Brougham. The reasons are
two—his whole character and his whole conduct.” His exclusion was a surj se to
nobody but himself. Despite his immense services with tongue and pen to the
Whig party, he had ruined his position by his capricious conduct, his
ungovernable temper, and his colossal egotism. The Times had hinted that he was
mad; and the conviction was shared by many less hostile judges. The letters to
Brougham, in which the Premier subsequently explained and defended his action,
constitute one of the most scathing indictments ever brought against an English
statesman; but few will deny that every word was justified.
1835] O'Connell and the Whigs.— The King's
attitude. 669
The second
difference was the rise of Lord John Russell to a position equalling, if not
rivalling, that of the Prime Minister. He had gained prestige by his services
to Parliamentary Reform; but it was not till Stanley and Althorp were removed
that the world knew the fertility of resource, the debating power, and the
capacity for affairs which lurked within the diminutive person of “ the widow’s
mite.” Entering upon his duties as leader of the Opposition on the dismissal of
the Whigs, Russell surprised both friends and foes by his ability during the
stormy weeks of Peel’s Administration, and compelled Grey and other doubting
critics to confess themselves mistaken. For the next six years Russell was not
only the one commanding figure on the Treasury bench, but the chief director of
the domestic policy of the Government.
A third
difference was the relation between the Whigs and O’Connell. Grey declared him
to be an unprincipled ruffian who engaged in politics for his own ends; and
Melbourne’s dislike of him was scarcely less pronounced. Yet the new Ministry
had no more faithful supporter than the Irish leader, and indeed was only kept
in office by his influence. The violence of his language passed all bounds;
and, when he described Alvanley as a bloated buffoon and Disraeli as a lineal
descendant of the impenitent thief, men of all parties shrank from him in
disgust. But though unmeasured in speech, O’Connell was moderate and opportunist
in action, and always preferred half a loaf to no bread. Russell, again, had
visited Ireland, was an intimate friend of the poet Moore, and was entirely
free from the unreasoning fear of the Irish entertained by his former and his
present chief. The compact, however, originated in an accident during Peel’s
Ministry. The desire to overturn the Government, which was common to all
sections of the Opposition, led Russell to invite his supporters to meet him at
Lichfield House. Without Russell’s knowledge an English member sent a bundle of
invitations to O’Connell, with a request that he would send them to his
supporters. O’Connell at once wrote to Russell, undertaking to avoid all
contentious matters till Peel was overthrown. Russell was at first alarmed at
this unsolicited advance, and was only dissuaded by his colleague Duncannon, a
warm friend of O’Connell, from sending a cold answer; but the parties worked
oyally together, and, at a dinner to Russell, O’Connell publicly acknowledged
him as his leader. The King’s objections prevented the offer to him of high
office; but he was generally consulted with reference to Irish appointments.
Though Melbourne could declare that he was in no way pledged to O’Connell,
there was a tacit understanding between him and Russell that the repeal
agitation should be shelved, and that the Whigs should abstain from coercion
and introduce remedial legislation.
The King took
no pains to conceal his hostility to the new Ministry; and his rudeness was
incredible. He graciously informed Melbourne that he believed him to be as
conservative as himself; but his dislike to Russell and some of his colleagues
was so extreme
that the
Premier was forced to remonstrate, and obtained an apology. Though relations of
ordinary politeness were gradually restored, almost every Government proposal
found the King a troublesome opponent. The session of 1835 was nevertheless
redeemed from barrenness by the passing of a measure scarcely less important
than the Reform Bill. Most of the boroughs then enfranchised possessed no
municipal institutions; but the government of the old boroughs, scarcely two of
which were the same, was full of abuses. The petitions for reform were so
numerous that Althorp had appointed a commission of enquiry. The final report,
which appeared in 1835, put the question clearly before the country. Municipal
institutions arose out of the committee to which the town had entrusted its
common business; but the existing charters, granted for the most part by the
Tudors and the Stewarts, rendered the governing group independent of the main
body of the burgesses, the councils being nearly always chosen by
self-election. The corporations limited the number of freemen; and wealth or
favour became the conditions of entry. In Portsmouth, for instance, in a
population of 46,000, only 102 were freemen. Despite the loss of their
political monopoly by the Reform Bill, freemen still possessed in some cases an
exclusive claim to certain charities or to exemption from the borough tolls.
But even freemen rarely shared in the government of the borough. In small
boroughs the mayor usually possessed almost the sole authority j and sometimes
administered the entire revenues. In most boroughs there were local civil
Courts; and in the larger there were municipal magistrates, usually members of
the Council and chosen by it. But the magistrates were often illiterate; and,
though in criminal cases they were sometimes assisted by a Recorder, he was not
necessarily a lawyer, and often left his work to the town-clerk. In many cases
local Acts had conferred powers for lighting, draining, police, and similar
purposes, on trustees or commissioners appointed ad hoc, and independent of the
municipality. Municipal elections, in the rare cases where they were held, were
a farce, the corporate offices a prize, the mayor often a tyrant. The report
revealed the utter breakdown of administrative efficiency, and concluded by
recommending a thorough reform.
Reform was
first achieved in Scotland, where a Commission had undertaken the work of
investigation several years earlier. The Bill founded on the report of the
English commissioners was introduced by Russell and applied to 178 boroughs.
The commissioners had investigated 285 towns, of which 246 possessed municipal
powers. Of these London was reserved for special treatment; and 67 were omitted
as too small. The Government wisely determined not to complicate their task by
any elaborate scheme for the removal of territorial anomalies, the boundary of
the Parliamentary borough being usually taken as the boundary of the
municipality. All charters, privileges, and customs were swept away. The
governing body was to consist of a mayor and
council, the
councillors being elected by residents who had paid rates for three years.
Meetings were to be public and the accounts to be audited yearly. The pecuniary
rights of existing freemen were to be preserved till their death and not
renewed, while the charity estates were to be managed by a committee of the
burgesses. Justice was to be separated from administration, magistrates being
appointed by the Crown as in the counties. A Recorder was to be nominated by
the Crown for quarter-session boroughs from among barristers of five years’
standing, and to be paid by the borough. The sanction of the Treasury was made
necessary for the raising of loans and the sale of municipal property. The
Improvement Commissioners, where such existed, were continued, though before
very long they almost universally transferred their powers to the corporation.
Peel favoured a large measure of reform; and the Bill was read a second time
without a division and passed through committee with little friction. His
influence, however, did not extend to the Upper House. The Lords insisted that
counsel should be heard in support of a petition against the Bill, and also
that the House should receive evidence; but the evidence merely served to
confirm the commissioners’ report. A few Peers desired to throw out the Bill;
but Lyndhurst promised to transform the measure in committee. The promise was
kept; and the Lords decided to preserve for ever all the rights of freemen, to
impose a high property qualification for councillors, of whom a quarter should
be elected for life, and to continue the powers of the existing justices for life.
The sweeping changes irritated the country, which approved the Bill, and
brought the Houses into sharp collision. Peel in vain begged Wellington to
moderate Lyndhurst, who replied, with an oath: “ What is Peel to me ? ” Russell
refused to admit aldermen elected for life, but agreed to a limited number to
be elected by councillors for six years; refused the Lords’ qualification for
councillors, but offered a substitute; accepted the amendment preserving the
Parliamentary franchise for freemen; but denied them exemption from tolls.
Other changes were resisted, and Peel supported Russell’s stand. The chief
decisions of the Commons were at length accepted by the Lords; and a reform of
the first magnitude was placed on the statute-book.
The session
of 1836 was largely devoted to Ireland. The Orange Lodges, which had come into
existence shortly before the Union, had spread over the country and were
introduced into Great Britain and even into the army. At this moment the Duke
of Cumberland, of whom Wellington declared that his amusement was mischief, was
Grand Master; and there were some 1500 Lodges in Ireland, with about 150,000
members, and a smaller though still considerable number in Great Britain.
Initiation was accompanied by an oath which pledged the members to active
service at the call of the Grand Master. The Duke found a zealous agent in
Colonel Fairman, the Grand Secretary and
Treasurer,
whose duty it was to travel through the country and establish Lodges. At the
end of 1835 Joseph Hume demanded and obtained a Parliamentary Committee of
Enquiry. The debate showed that the Duke had signed warrants for the formation
of Lodges in the army, though his predecessor, the Duke of York, had expressly
forbidden them. When the Duke made no reply, an address was carried censuring
the formation of army Lodges; and a circular was issued 'ordering the trial by
court-martial of any soldier belonging to such a Lodge. The Committee collected
a quantity of incriminating information, and believed themselves to have traced
a plot to set the Duke on the English throne, though the Duke declined to give
evidence and Fairman refused to produce the records. It was resolved to
prosecute the heads of the movement; and, when Parliament met, Hume and
Molesworth moved an address for the removal of any official, civil or military,
who was an Orangeman or who attended the meetings of an Orange Lodge or any
other secret political club. In a speech of astonishing boldness Molesworth
described the offenders as titled criminals and demanded their transportation.
The proposal was too sweeping to be adopted; and Russell persuaded the House to
leave the King to take measures for the discouragement of the Lodges. The King
replied that he would do so; and the Orange Lodges were everywhere broken up.
One great
burden was thus removed from Ireland; but the effort to remove another met with
stubborn resistance. Irish municipalities were afflicted with the same evils as
the English, with the added injustice that Catholics were almost everywhere
excluded from the corporations. Though Peel declared that Ireland was not ripe
for local government, a Bill on the English model passed the Commons; but the
Lords feared that the reformed corporations would be completely dominated by
Catholics, and therefore, while willing to dissolve the existing bodies,
declined to substitute others. Substantial concessions were made; but the Lords
refused all compromise, and the Bill was withdrawn. A renewed attempt to pass
the Tithe Bill met with a similar fate.
The discussion
of Irish tithes had led English agriculturists to protest against their own
burdens. Peel had only been prevented by his fall from introducing a Bill under
which tithes could be voluntarily commuted in every parish for a perpetual com
rent, as they had already been commuted for a fixed payment in hundreds of
parishes under the authority of private Acts. In the session of 1836 the Whigs
introduced a Bill encouraging a voluntary arrangement, the tithe being commuted
for a money payment of between 60 and 75 per cent, of its nominal gross value,
which was to be computed according to the average value of wheat, baxley, and
oats during the preceding seven years. The measure passed without difficulty,
and within a few years payment of tithe in kind ceased in England.
The difficult
question of Dissenters’ marriages was next settled.
Since the Act
of 1753 marriage had been a religious ceremony which could only be legally
performed, except in the case of Jews and Quakers, by a clergyman, who kept the
parish register in which all baptisms, marriages, and burials, were entered by
him. To the Unitarian the declaration of belief in the Trinity was blasphemy;
and attempts had been made to secure its omission from the marriage service. A
proposal by Russell in 1834 to enable Dissenters to marry in their own chapels
after publishing the banns in the parish church of course proved unacceptable;
and Peel brought forward the bold suggestion of civil marriages, retaining only
the registration by a clergyman. Peel’s measure fell with him; and Russell now
proposed that a registrar should be appointed for each union, reporting to a
central registry in each county, which in turn should forward details to a
Registrar-General in London. Banns were retained; but, as an alternative, names
might remain on inspection for twenty-one days. The Bill thus gradually evolved
was carried without difficulty, and a grievance was removed.
A third
useful measure was passed in the same session. Paper and advertisements were
taxed; and the newspaper itself paid a heavy duty. The high stamp encouraged
the production of unstamped papers, all the more that the vendors, not the
printers, were liable to punishment. Under the Grey Ministry nearly five
hundred persons were thus punished; and the imprisonment of ignorant men and
children created a strong feeling against the law. The Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of which Brougham was chairman and Althorp,
Russell, Denman, and other Whigs, were members, could have accomplished little
if it had observed the law. Its publications were undertaken by Charles Knight;
and the immense success of the Penny Magazine and Penny Cyclopaedia revealed
the possibilities of cheap and good literature. The open evasion of the law by
these and similar publications, while other offenders were being prosecuted and
imprisoned, made a change inevitable. The proposal to repeal or reduce the
Stamp Acts was met in
1834 and 1835 by the reply that the revenue could
not afford the change; but in 1836 a large surplus allowed of a reduction from
fourpence to a penny, while the excise on paper was also reduced.
A fourth
achievement of the session was the foundation of the Ecclesiastical
Commission. A committee of enquiry into financial and other questions affecting
the Church had been appointed by Grey and another by Peel, of both of which
Blomfield, Bishop of London, was the moving spirit. Their recommendations were
hotly opposed by Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, in the House of Lords, and in
Sydney Smith’s Letters to Archdeacon Singleton, in which his exquisite wit was
for once employed to support illiberal reasoning. But the Ecclesiastical
Commission became a permanent statutory body, in which the surplus revenues of
the Church were vested; and during 1836 and the following years Russell at its
instigation carried Bills combining old sees, creating new ones, diminishing
pluralities,
and equalising episcopal incomes. Its wide financial control has been, on the
whole, exercised with conspicuous success.
The session
of 1837 was exceedingly barren. The Government reintroduced the Irish Municipal
Bill without success; and some of the Ministers spoke of resignation. But at
this moment their fortunes were improved by the death of the sovereign. The
King’s virtues were highly extolled by Wellington, Grey* and Melbourne. But
Fonblanque declared that his best epitaph would be, “ He passed the Reform
Bill,” since the praise he then earned was all the praise to which he was
entitled. He was anxious to do what seemed to him right; but he was thoroughly
mediocre and lacked the education necessary jo
fit him for his position. He was utterly without dignity, and manifested
such eccentricity and morbid irritability that, as Greville bluntly records,
many believed him to be “ cracked.” His tactlessness was remarkable; and his
habit of delivering impromptu speeches on every opportunity, filled with
tirades against the French or the Duchess of Kent or some other foe, made him a
general laughing-stock. The King was seen at his best in his own family, for he
was devoted to his wife and a kind father to his natural children.
The new
sovereign, now eighteen years old, was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, fourth
son of George III. Though heir-presumptive since 1830, she had li’ ed a,
retired life at Kensington, owing to the violent feud between the Duchess and
the King. She was devoted to her mother and to her go”emess, the Baroness
Lehzen, while her uncle Leopold had taken the place of a father till his
accession to the throne of Belgium in 1831, and was still her chief adviser.
When she attained her majority, Leopold sent his trusted friend Stockmar, who
had known England for twenty years, to begin her political education; but
within a month the Princess found herself on the throne. The impression created
by the mingled dignity and modesty of the young Queen was highly favourable;
and a feeling of personal loyalty unknown and indeed impossible under her
immediate predecessors became general. The first result of the Queen’s
accession was the separation of England and Hanover, the throne of which passed
to the Duke of Cumberland. A second was the rearrangement’ of the Civil List,
from which it was decided to remove every charge not directly connected with
the support of the Crown. Her uncles and grandfather had surrendered all the
Crown Itinds except the, duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall; and a select committee
recommended a sum of £385,000 exclusive of the duchies, £10,000 more than the
net personal income of William IV. Though attempts to reduce the estimate
received little support, it was determined to limit the creation of new
pensions for deserving claimants to an annual sum of £1200 supplied by the
Treasury.
The
substitution of a friendly for a hostile sovereign was a welcome change to the
Ministry. The difficult private secretary question was solved
by Melbourne
undertaking the post; and a friendship was commenced between the Queen and him
which brought unclouded happiness to both. The Prime Minister was the Queen’s
constant companion, at work with her in the morning, riding with her in the
afternoon, dining and playing chess with her in the evening, and by a great
effort guarding his language. “ I have no doubt he is passionately fond of
her,” wrote Greville in his diary, “as he might be of his daughter if he had
one, and the more because he is a man with a capacity for loving without having
anything in the world to love.” The Queen repaid him with filial affection and
showed herself an apt though precociously self-reliant pupil. It was a tribute
to Melbourne’s character that even Tories like the diarist Baikes were
convinced that he would not abuse his position. The only direction in which his
conduct gave offence was his advice that she should choose her chief lady
attendants from the relations of the Ministers. The Duchess of Kent continued
to live with her daughter, but to her great annoyance was entirely excluded
from business. Stockmar, on the other hand, remained in close attendance for
the first year of the reign. Though Palmerston called him the most
disinterested man he ever met, and Melbourne entirely approved his confidential
position at Court, the public was suspicious of “the German Baron,” who,
indeed, was inclined to emphasise the monarchical power ant. besought the young
sovereign not to be “ a nodding mandarin.”
While the
Government had gained at Court, its position in Parliament was weakened by the
general election which the change of sovereign necessitated. The Irish
supporters of the Government profited by the election; but the Radicals
returned in diminished numbers, and became for some years an almost negligible
quantity. Though no other section of the House contained so much ability, they
had never been able to influence affairs as much as they had hoped. They had no
leader, though there were at least four men worthy of the post. Grote’s maiden
speech on the ballot seemed to mark him out for the place; but he was somewhat
too academic. Roebuck was by far the best debater, and his Pamphlets for the
People had given him a great position in the country; but he lacked judgment,
had a rasping tongue, and was difficult to work with. Joseph Hume was the most
experienced man in the party, but was unable to make an intelligible speech,
and was not thought sufficiently hostile to the Whigs. Sir William Molesworth
combined the culture of Grote with the energy of Roebuck, and proved his zeal
for the cause by establishing the London Review and founding the Reform Club;
but the older men did not care to follow one scarcely out of his teens. Cobbett
and Attwood had proved the truth of Canning’s dictum, “Firebrands, when they
touch the floor of the House, hiss and expire,” and were out of the question.
There was equally little unanimity in regard to opinion. Since the resignation
of Grey the Radicals had taken a less prominent part in the life of the House.
In
1836 Charles
Buller remarked one night to Grote, “ You and I will soon be left to tell
Molesworth ”; and Macaulay, on his return from India, discovered that the
Radical party consisted of “ Grote and his wife.” In the Queen’s first
Parliament the party almost ceased to exist. Roebuck lost his seat for Bath;
and Grote returned to his History of Greece, declaring that it was not worth
his while to continue to defend Whig conservatism against Tory conservatism.
Many years later Mill declared in his Autobiography that too much had been
expected of the Radicals by himself and others, since their lot fell in the
time of inevitable reaction after the excitement of the Reform Bill. Their task
indeed was not to carry measures through Parliament but to prepare the country
for them. Their programme contained free trade, compulsory education, extension
of the suffrage, Irish disestablishment, the ballot, allotments, reform of the
game laws, abolition of flogging in the army, and much else that has found its
way on to the statute-book. Thus, though the parliamentary record of the “
Philosophical Radicals ” appeared disappointing, their work was no more wasted
than that of other pioneers.
The first
task of 1838 was to provide Ireland with a Poor Law. Several committees had sat
since the Union; and in 1833 Althorp appointed another, of which Archbishop
Whately was chairman, which pursued enquiries for three years. Interim reports,
appearing in 1835 *nd 1836, revealed a terrible condition of poverty, confirmed
a few years later by the Devon Commission. Labourers received 2s. 6d. a week;
and the peasants lived on a plot of land too small to produce potatoes for the
whole year, and were thus driven to seek work in England during the harvest.
The final report suggested that relief should be confined to the infirm, to
those too old or too young to work, and to casual destitution. They further
proposed that bogs should be reclaimed, waste lands cultivated, agricultural
schools founded, and public works undertaken, while wholesale emigration should
be attempted. These recommendations were criticised with such severity by
Comewall Lewis that it was determined to ignore them and to adopt the English
system —a policy strongly urged by Nicholls, one of the three English commissioners,
after two official visits, to Ireland. Nicholls declared that eighty or a
hundred workhouses, erected at a cost of £700,000, would suffice. A Bill
founded on his suggestions passed without difficulty; and Nicholls was sent
over to administer it. The number of workhouses required and the total cost
proved greater than he had anticipated; and his task was rendered more
difficult by O’Connell’s, disapproval of the system ; but the work was
completed and was to prove its value in the fiery ordeal of the famine. At the
same time the tithe question was settled by converting the tithe-composition
into a rent-charge of 70 per cent, of the nominal value of the tithe,
abandoning the claim to the repayment of the advances and voting a quarter of a
million to the extinction of arrears.
The
Government was earnestly attempting to help Ireland by legislation ; but it
conferred a still greater boon by its administration. The Viceroy, Lord
Mulgrave (1835), loyally endeavoured to hold the scales even between landlord
and tenant, Catholic and Protestant, and went so far as to ask O’Connell to
dinner at the Castle. He was ably seconded by Lord Morpeth, the Chief
Secretary; but the ruling spirit of the administration was the Under
Secretary. At the time of his appointment in
1835 Thomas Drummond was already a well-known man.
His invention of the Drummond light led to his introduction to Brougham, who
in 1832 selected him as the chairman of the Boundary Commission for delimiting
the new political areas. He had subsequently served as private secretary to
Althorp, and he was known to the Whig leaders as a man of rare force and
originality. His first task was to suppress the two political societies by
which Ireland was infested. That Bibbonism would never completely disappear
without legislative changes Drummond knew well; but by making the law respected
he persuaded the peasants to give evidence and the juries to convict, and
greatly reduced the number of serious outrages. The Orangemen were still more
powerful; and, though the Lodges, as has been related, were dissolved in 1836,
the Orange spirit remained. Drummond proceeded to grapple with it by
substituting stipendiaiy magistrates for the local justices, and by appointing
a considerable number of Catholics to posts of authority. Above all, he
organised an efficient police force, composed indifferently of Catholics and
Protestants. Neither police nor soldiers were any longer despatched to assist
in the collection of tithes; and, when the Tipperary magistrates implored the
Government to employ coercive measures against agrarian outrage, Drummond
answered, in a sentence which has become classical, that property has its
duties as well as its rights, and that such crimes were chiefly due to the
neglect of those duties. O’Connell, who was for the first and last time on
excellent terms with the Executive, suspended his agitation for repeal; and
Plunket declared that he had never known Ireland so tranquil. For such a result
Father Mathew’s temperance crusade claims part of the merit. The period of
good-will was brought to an end by Drummond’s untimely death in 1840; but his
five years’ rule had shown how much could be done by firm and sympathetic administration.
The later
years of the Whig Government were disturbed by grave troubles in the colonies.
The Jamaica planters had never forgiven emancipation; and the negroes who were
apprenticed to bad masters were treated with greater cruelty than when they
were slaves. Ugly stories were also told of the atrocities of foreign
slave-traders, who threw their cargo overboard when too closely pressed by a
British cruiser. The matter was taken up by Brougham; and the discussion made
it clear that the system of giving a bounty on every slave recovered encouraged
the search ships to wait till the living cargo was
taken on
board. A tonnage bounty on captured slave-vessels was therefore substituted;
and the Government, though leaving the apprenticeship system to continue until
1840, as originally fixed, urged the planters to conciliate their critics by
releasing their apprentices before that date. More than 120,000 were thus
released; and Jamaica agreed to shorten the period by two years. A Bill to
regulate the Jamaica prisons, however, was denounced as a violation of its
rights by the Assembly, which as a protest suspended its meetings. The
Government resolved to suspend the Constitution for five years; but, ten
Radicals voting against the Ministry, the majority fell to five and the Whigs
resigned. The Queen burst into tears when Russell brought the news; but, after
consulting Lord Spencer, she sent for Wellington, who advised her to summon
Peel. She expressed a wish that there should be no dissolution; and Peel
assured her that he had no such intention at present. In two days the Cabinet
was formed, Stanley and Graham, who had long since crossed over to the
Conservative benches, readily accepting office. After showing the Queen the
list at a second interview, Peel remarked that it would be necessary to make
some changes in the household. His intention was to remove two or three of the
relations of the outgoing Ministers ; but he failed to make his meaning clear.
The conversation ended without any arrangement being reached; and, directly
Peel had gone, the Queen wrote a passionate letter to Melbourne, saying that
Peel wanted to rob her of her friends and had treated her like a girl. The next
day he received a note in which the Queen refused her consent to the removal of
the ladies of the bedchamber on the ground that it was contrary to precedent
and repugnant to her feelings. Peel at once resigned his commission ; and
Melbourne consented to resume office. The three parties concerned in the
incident, which has become known as the Bedchamber Plot, must divide the blame.
Peel’s mistake was in not taking pains to make clear the strictly limited scope
of his proposal. The Queen lost her self-control and acted too hurriedly;
indeed she confessed her regret some years later to Russell, and added, “It was
entirely my own foolishness.” Finally the Whig leaders acted unconstitutionally
by giving advice to the Crown after they had left office. It must be admitted,
however, that their position was singularly difficult. Their first instinct had
been to advise the Queen to renew her negotiations with Peel; but she was “ so
warm and almost transported” that they resolved to support her. Spencer
declared that as gentlemen they must stand by her; and Grey, after some
hesitation, arrived at the same conclusion. Though Peel acted within his
rights, he evinced a singular lack of tact; and the feeling of the countiy was
on the side of the Queen.
The Whigs
returned to office, but henceforth they reigned without governing. “ Nobody
thinks I want to stay, do they ? ” asked Melbourne; and indeed nobody thought
so. Macaulay entered the Ministry in place
of Ho wick;
but, more than ever, Russell was left to bear the burden, and he moved to the
Colonial Office as the place where the fire was hottest. Sydney Smith, who had
humorously declared that Russell would without hesitation take the command of
the Channel Fleet or operate for stone, now confessed that while any other
member of the Cabinet might resign without being missed, the Whig Government
would be dissolved five minutes after Russell’s departure. Even in these
circumstances two measures of the utmost importance were passed in the session
of 1839. The Whigs had created a system of national education in Ireland in
1832; and in 1833, at the instigation of Brougham, they voted £10,000 a year to
each of the two great English societies. In 1837 Brougham introduced a Bill to
establish an Education Board in London; and in 1839 Russell proposed that a
committee of the Privy Council should act as a central board and distribute the
Government grant, which was raised to £30,000. The measure was violently
attacked by the Conservatives, and the majorities sank to five and two ; while
in the Lords the Archbishop of Canterbury moved and carried a series of
resolutions denouncing the scheme. By the aid of Blomfield, however, a real
friend of education, a compromise was arranged by which the Privy Council’s
inspector, should be approved by the Bishops and present their reports to the
Bishop of the Diocese as well as to the Privy Council. With these modifications
the Bill was passed; and the supervision of education was added to the duties
of the State. The second achievement was the creation of the penny post. The
postage of a letter varied with the distance, in some cases exceeding a
shilling; the post-boxes were closed at seven o’clock, and there was only one
mail in the day. To these and other abuses attention was called in 1837 in a
pamphlet entitled Post Office Reform, in which the author, Rowland Hill, showed
that, though population and wealth were increasing, the postal revenue was
declining. With the rapid development of railways which was now taking place,
distance made little difference to the cost of carrying a letter; and a low
uniform rate was suggested. Hitherto the clerks had to estimate the postage of
every letter, and the postman had to collect the sum on delivery; but by
prepayment and a uniform rate these labours and delays would be avoided. The
scheme was debated in both Houses; and the Government decided to introduce
penny postage at the beginning of the following year, members of Parliament at
the same time surrendering their privilege of receiving and lending letters
post-free. The revenue fell by a million in the first year;' but the direct
loss was quickly reduced by an increase of correspondence, while the indirect
gain to the country was incalculable.
In the
session of 1840, which witnessed the death of Lord Holland, the anxieties of
Ministers were incessant. Palmerston’s Eastern policy, which nearly caused a
split in the Cabinet, brought war with France within sight, while at home
Chartism grew into a national menace.
The greater
part of the session was occupied with a case of privilege. It had been decided
in 1835 to allow the sale of Parliamentary papers; and in the same year a Bill
was passed to appoint inspectors of prisons. Their first report casually
mentioned that a book which they had found in Newgate, published by Stockdale,
was indecent. Stockdale at once brought an action against Hansard, the
Government publisher; and, chough the jury declared the book to be indecent,
the Chief Justice ruled that Parliament could not shield its publisher from the
penalties of libel. The House replied by resolving that in matters of privilege
no Court could intervene. Four more actions were brought by Stockdale against
the unfortunate Hansard; and finally Parliament, wearied with the indignities
of the strife, passed a law protecting all persons employed in the production
of Parliamentary papers. In the same session the Irish Municipal Bill, now
introduced for the sixth time, was presented in a form so attenuated that it
disarmed the opposition of the House of Lords. Irish towns were to be divided
into three classes, the governing bodies of the large towns being elected by
householders rated at £10 a year, and the Viceroy being empowered to concede a
charter on the application of a majority of residents rated at £8 and upwards.
A further achievement was the settlement of the question of election
committees. The Government had felt too weak to grapple with the question; but
Peel now introduced and carried a scheme authorising the Speaker to appoint a
general committee of elections, which should choose the members of the several
special election committees.
In 1841 the
humiliating drama reached its close. Prosperity had declined since 1837, and
the recurring deficits had been met by additions to existing taxes; but in 1841
the deficit was the greatest that the Whigs had known, no steps having been
taken to balance the decline of the Post Office revenue. The situation turned
the thoughts of Russell towards Free Trade. The Com Laws had been constantly
attacked by Hume, Villiers, and other Radicals; and in 1836 an association had
been founder! in London to work for their repeal. Two years later a similar
body had been created in Manchester, which was soon joined by Cobden and
Bright, who systematically set to work to convert the country. The budget
proposed the reduction of the duty on foreign sugar, Russell adding that he
intended to substitute a fixed duty of eight shillings on wheat for the
existing scale. The sugar clause was defeated by 36; but the Government refused
to resign till it had explained its Free Trade proposals. Peel at once proposed
a vote of want of confidence and carried it by one, whereupon the Government
dissolved Parliament. The country was weary of the Whigs; and the effect of
Russell’s tardy conversion to Free Trade was neutralised by Melbourne’s
well-known adherence to Protection. The newly-elected Parliament at once
declared its want of confidence in the Government by the substantial majority
of ninety-one; and Melbourne’s Administration resigned. The Whigs had
governed
England for eleven years. They had spent their force, and Peel was ready to
take their place.
The accession
of the Conservatives to power was facilitated by the fact that the Queen was no
longer without an adviser. Early in 1840 she was married to Prince Albert,
second son of the Duke of Saxe- Coburg-Gotha. The people were anxious that she
should marry; but her choice was not universally approved. It was said that the
Prince was too young; and certain Tories whispered that he was a Papist or an
infidel as well as a Radical. Nor were the necessary arrangements concluded
without friction. The Queen’s wish to make him King Consort was refused, and an
income of <£*30,000 was substituted by Parliament for the <£50,000
suggested by Melbourne. A third rebuff occurred when a clause giving him
precedence after the Queen was shipwrecked by the opposition of the Duke of
Cumberland; and a fourth when Melbourne declined to allow the Prince to choose
his own private secretary. The Prince Consort immediately became the chief
political adviser of the Queen. When the fall of the Whigs was imminent, the
Prince, with the full cognisance of Melbourne, informed Peel that the three
principal Whig ladies would resign on a change of Government if Peel expressed
such a wish to the Queen. Peel replied that it would be better if the ladies
resigned of their own accord; and the problem of 1839 was thus amicably
settled.
While the
party struggle raged at Westminster, the working-classes, throughout the
country and especially in the north, had been passing through a time of
exceptional suffering. The good harvests and the general hopefulness that filled
the air immediately after the Reform Bill soon gave place to a series of lean
years and to a conviction among the working-classes that far-reaching political
changes were needed to lift them out of their slough of distress. Several
independent currents of discontent combined to form a very threatening
movement.
Chartism, in
its narrower sense, was an outburst of Radicalism consequent upon the discovery
by the people that they had only exchanged the domination of the upper classes
for that of the middle; but in its broader meaning it was also the expression
of their discontent with their economic condition—a new name, as Carlyle
remarked, for a thing which had had many names. The growth of manufactures,
which added to the wealth of the manufacturers and the country, seemed to
increase the degradation of the workers. The survey of Dr Gaskell in 1833, the
speeches of Ashley, Fielden, and Oastler, and the evidence of the Parliamentary
Committees, amply confirm the terrible and familiar pictures of Sybil and Mary
Barton. Chadwick had not yet begun his great reforms in sanitation; fever was
endemic in the noisome *Ueys and cellars; and men worked long hours for a
pittance, or sat idle at home, ousted by the competition of their own children.
At this time of social despair Owen’s ideas began to permeate the working-
classes.
Factory legislation was at most a palliative; but the antagonism of interest
between masters and men could be overcome by the workers themselves controlling
the productive processes of the country. The Owenite propagand t began
seriously in 1834, and was welcomed by the worker as a revelation. . <
Owen’s
teaching found the readiest acceptance in the Trade Unions. Since 1829 the:
idea of a unanimous and irresistible organisation had flitted through the minds
of working-men. In 1833 Owen and Fielden declared for the plan, the latter
urging a general strike for an eight (hours’ day; and in 1834 was launched the
Grand National Consolidated Trades’ Union, which counted before long half a
million members. Before any joint action had been taken, many masters dismissed
all of their employees who belonged to the Union. The rapid growth of the
organisation and its extension to agricultural districts thoroughly scared the
ruling classes; and an obsolete Act, passed in 1797 to cope with the Mutiny of
the Nore, was revived against six Dorsetshire labourers for administering oaths
on the admission of members. Though no outrage or intimidation was alleged, the
men were condemned to seven years’ transportation. The sentence was hotly
attacked in Parliament by the Radicals; petitions poured in; and a monster
procession, organised by the Trades’ Unions and estimated by the Times at
30,000, marched to Whitehall, where Melbourne refused to see them. The
labourers were allowed to return after two years; but the federation was
paralysed by the blow, and rapidly fell to pieces. The ultimate cause of the
Chartist movement was the misery of the working-classes 5 its proximate cause
was the Poor Law of 1834. The choice now lay between starvation and the
workhouse. Horrible tales, like that of Oliver Twist, were circulated of the
wanton cruelty to which inmates of workhouses were subjected, and the formation
of each new union in the north was hotly resisted. The feature of the new
system which aroused the most passionate resentment was the separation of the
sexes; and huge audiences were lashed to madness by stories of the agonised
parting of aged couples on the threshold of the worker’s prison. The crusade
was led by Stephens, who thrilled vast crowds by his passionate oratory, and
exhorted them to demand by force the repeal of the hated law, which was only
passed for five years. The good harvests of 1835-6 prevented the full effects
of the new law being immediately felt; but the rise in the price of com which
began in 1837 turned dissatisfaction into uproar, and made an explosion
inevitable.
Owen,
Oastler, and Stephens did not believe in political remedies; but the crowds
that they addressed soon passed beyond their instructors. In 1836 a Working
Man’s Association was founded in London by James Robert Black, an American
friend of Place and an enthusiast for popular education. The Secretary was
Lovett; and Hetherington, Cleave, Watson, and Vincent were amongst the members.
The society quickly
passed out of
its purely educational stage, and drew up articles declaring its independence
of Whigs and Tories, and urging working-men to combine for securing equal
political rights. The Association grew rapidly, and in February, 1837, held a
meeting at the Crown and Anchor, to organise a petition to Parliament for
universal suffrage, annual Parliaments, equal electoral districts, removal of
property qualification, the ballot, and payment of’ members. These were the
famous Six Points; and a further meeting was held in June to form an
association to secure them. The demands of the Charter, as O’Connell named it,
had been the commonplaces of reformers for two generations; and several of them
were supported by the “Philosophical Radicals” in Parliament. Branches of the
Association were founded in the provinces; lectures were given by Vincent and
Cleave; and manifestos were issued by Lovett. The movement received a notable
impetus from Russell’s declaration in the autumn of 1837 that the Government
regarded the Reform Bill as final. A few days later Fergus O’Connor began to
publish the Northern Star, the great Chartist organ, at Leeds.
The Charter
was published in May, 1838. The standard was raised, but a leader was lacking.
Lovett and Hetherington had not sufficient prestige to head a national
movement; and Fergus O’Connor was hardly known in the south. Attwood, the
founder of the Birmingham Political Union, was hardly a Chartist at all; but
his failure to convert Parliament to his currency proposals led him to support
plans of further reform. He therefore revived the Birmingham Union, and
suggested a national convention, a national petition, and a national strike if
the petition were refused. O’Connor, who had founded an organisation in the north
to work for universal franchise in order to repeal the Poor Law, promised to
follow Attwood. Stephens, though caring nothing for the Charter, threw in his
lot with the movement, but was arrested at the end of 1838. The National
Convention met in London in February, 1839. The Working Man’s Association had
given the name and programme; but the movement soon passed out of its control.
When violent methods were suggested, the Birmingham delegates, who mostly
belonged to the middle class, retired in protest; and the movement became
dominated by the so-called “physical force party.” The Convention felt itself
in danger in London, and moved to Birmingham, where a disturbance was caused by
the unwise interference of the police; and Lovett and other leaders were imprisoned.
A week later the House debated and refused the national petition, which had
been introduced by Attwood. The action of Parliament led thousands in despair
to join the physical force party, and a few bold spirits determined to rise, in
the belief that a single victory would again rally the masses to the cause. It
was arranged that the town of Newport, where Frost, a Chartist leader, resided,
should be seized one day in November; but the plot was betrayed, the converging
parties failed to meet, and an attack
684
Reasons for the
failure of Chartism. [i839
on a hotel
commanding the road was beaten off with loss. The rebels dispersed; Frost and
his colleagues were convicted of treason'; the National Convention was
dissolved; and the first chapter of the Chartist movement came to an end.
The complete
failure of Chartism was primarily due to disunion and lack of definiteness. In
the absence of a controlling mind, its leaders were not agreed as to whether it
should be a strictly constitutional movement or whether it should rely on
force. Nor was there any clear notion what should be done after the Charter had
been yielded, except to repeal the new Poor Law and to establish a Ten Hours’
day. It was widely imagined that Chartism was a Socialist movement; and many
were convinced that it stood for an attack on property and the repudiation of
the National Debt. Such a belief was entirely erroneous. Though thousands of
Chartists had at one time or other been under the influence of Owen, Owenism
and Chartism were radically different. Owen was no democrat, and he believed
that his reforms could be obtained without any serious political changes. In
the next place, though there were doubtless advocates of violent expropriation
and repudiation in the Chartist ranks, such proposals found no support with the
leaders. The error arose chiefly through a misconception of the views of
Brouterre O’Brien, the thinker or, as O’Connor called him, the schoolmaster of
the movement. O’Brien believed that most of the evils of the workers arose from
the private ownership of land, and adopted the principle of nationalisation
from the followers of Thomas Spence, but he was in favour of a fair and
peaceable transfer. Again, he proposed, not the repudiation of the National
Debt, but the repayment of the capital. Moreover, these views formed no part of
the official programme; and nationalisation was expressly condemned by
O’Connor, who favoured a rival scheme of small tenancies. The final cause of
the downfall of Chartism was the attitude of its leaders towards the Com Laws.
Their abolition had been demanded as frequently and almost as violently at the
mass meetings as that of the Poor Law; but, when the League began its work, the
Chartists held aloof. They suspected it as a middle-class movement, all the
more since its leaders had supported the Poor Law and were the avowed opponents
of factory legislation. They believed too that the success of the League would
serve to increase the power of the employers and capitalists, and strengthen
industry at the expense of agriculture. But, though the attitude of the
Chartist leaders is intelligible, it was fetal to the continuance and extension
of their influence. Progress follows the line of least resistance; and it was a
true instinct that led men to support the demand for cheap food rather than to
await the uncertain bounties of a completely democratised State.
CANADA.
The Peace of Paris (1763) did not strike that
decisive blow at the maritime and commercial position of France which Pitt desired,
but it brought to an end in favour of England the long struggle for the
possession of North America. The settlements on the St Lawrence, the
trading-stations amongst the lakes and streams of the interior, Acadia and the
islands of Cape Breton and St John, almost all the laborious results of a
century and a half of colony-building and empire-planning on the part of
France, were now transferred, or guaranteed afresh, to the Crown of Great
Britain. So far as their trade was concerned, these acquisitions were of little
value. But the interests of the American Colonies in the removal of the French
power from their neighbourhood, and the future advantages likely to be derived
by England from an almost undisputed authority over the whole continent,
provided sufficiently strong grounds for their retention.
To introduce
into the British Empire a French people, forming a compact society and
remembering a great history, was a problem new in our colonial experience. At
the moment, however, Ministers saw in Canada only a part of a British America,
of small importance in itself, but destined soon to be occupied by British
immigrants. They therefore thought the wisest policy would be to assimilate
its character, laws, and institutions, as quickly as possible to those of the
remainder of the empire; and they announced their intentions in the
Proclamation of 1763. By this the old French Colony was dismembered. Labrador
and Anticosti were placed under the Government of Newfoundland; Cape Breton and
St John under that of Nova Scotia. The province of Quebec was created, with
boundaries, on the east at the St John’s river, and on the west at a line
connecting Lakes Nipissing and St Francis, the inland regions being
provisionally reserved for the Indians and the fur-trade. Military
administration gave way to a Governor with a nominated Council, and with power
to summon an assembly when circumstances permitted. The introduction of English
law was ordered; and English merchants and settlers were invited to enter the
country.
Nothing was
said of religion ; liberty of conscience had been guaranteed by the Peace. All
this constituted the usual colonial regime, conferred by the same proclamation
on the Floridas and Grenada, yet calculated to break up the old political and
social framework of Canada, and so to render it homogeneous with the other
societies across the Atlantic.
Within a few
years the situation in America, which had suggested the policy of Anglicising
the new conquest, wore a different aspect. Ominous signs were on the horizon.
Few Englishmen had settled in the province of Quebec; and the threatened
changes deeply troubled the French. Despatches from the Governor told of
“disorders and divisions,” of greedy and oppressive officials, of arrogant
immigrants, of the uncertainty and maladministration of the law, of the
possibilities of racial strife, and of the failure of the Government to win the
confidence of the influential classes, the nobility, and the clergy. The
movement of events in the old Colonies, making it necessary to ensure the
loyalty of the French, quickened the appeal of justice. In 1774, Lord North,
who had been conducting a long enquiry into the conditions of Canada, produced
his Quebec Act. Its object was to satisfy the desires of the new subjects by
guaranteeing to them their traditional customs and institutions, and, at the
same time, to rebuff the ambitions of the Americans, by enlarging the province
of Quebec, through the addition of the country between the Ohio and the
Mississippi, to its former dimensions. The measure marks a veiy important
stage in the growth of Canada. Its first end was achieved—the nationality of
the conquered people was secured from attack, and the province received the
character which it was to retain. From this time onward the jealous but natural
care of the French for the maintenance of their distinctive inheritance has
given rise to many of the peculiar problems, both economic and political, *
which have marked the changing phases of Canadian history.
A clamour of
disapproval was raised by the older Colonies and by the English settlers in
Quebec. Virginia, Pexmsylvania, and New York saw their Hinterland taken from
them; the English settlers encountered the disappointment of expectations
reasonable and unreasonable. By the recognition of the Roman Catholic faith and
the retention of the French civil law the new Constitution discouraged British
immigration; while by vesting a power absolute, save for the right of taxation,
in a Governor and a Council without an assembly, and by omitting the Habeas
Corpus Act and trial by jury in civil cases, it deprived the English of those
rights of self-government and that security of person and property to which
they felt by birth entitled. But worse than their irritation were the
difficulties resulting from the outbreak of the American War, which rendered
the initiation of a new political system far from easy. The unsuccessful appeal
of Congress to the French to rebel was followed, in 1775-6, by a dangerous
invasion of Canada,
frustrated,
after the capture of Montreal, by the conspicuous daring and resource of
Governor Carleton. To meet their difficulties, both Carleton and Haldimand (his
successor) were driven to arbitrary actions, winch provoked a well-founded, if
sometimes perverse, opposition. Fortunately, suspicion of the Americans and the
influence of the nobility and clergy kept the French peasantry loyal, even when
their mother-country joined in the struggle. This is some evidence, perhaps,
that they had no longer serious grievances or apprehensions. Conquest had but
little disturbed their life. They had been found an uneducated, unprogressive,
contented people, and so they had been left. Nothing was done for them, or for
any other class; but none saw itself threatened with the loss of ancient rights
or the imposition of new burdens. Hence the material gains of peace after
endless wars, of reviving agriculture, of trade increasing with the removal of
monopoly* were balanced against the sentimental loss, and helped to secure an
unenthusiastic acquiescence in British rule.
But the
American Revolution, in its influence on Canadian history* was to prove far
more than a searching trial of British policy towards the French. It induced a
migration from the United States with which English colonisation on the St
Lawrence, and any colonisation in the interior of the country, virtually
commenced, and which made Canada the home of two nations. The cessions of the
Peace (1783) ended the colony’s long connexion with the favoured. Ohio valley,
established to the south of it a foreign State, and thus, owing to the stem
limitations which nature imposed on the north, dictated as the only possible
direction of expansion a straight march westwards. A narrow belt of
fertile'land* encumbered with dense forests, and ending sharply to the north of
Lake Superior in an apparently uninhabitable wilderness, was all that, after
1783, seemed left of America for British settlements Moreover, the illiberal
colonial policy, now, for a time, adopted by the mother-country, in part as a
result of the war, found in Canada its principal victim, and must share the
responsibility for that unceasing political restlessness which characterised
the life and threatened the progress of the country for nearly half a century.
In 1778 some
exiles from the old Colonies arrived in Canada, and were stationed round Lake
St Peter above Montreal. But Nova Scotia, being nearer, and offering, as it was
thought, fewer difficulties and better opportunities to the immigrant, received
the great influx of “Loyalists” that followed the conclusion of peace. Some
25,000 people settled on the St John’s river, round the Bay of Chaleurs, and in
Cape Breton Isle. At the same time, by. overland routes, a movement began into
the valley of the St Lawrence; and soon a population of 10,000 was established
along the line of the river from Montreal to the shores of Lake Erie. To those
who left their homes during the struggle the name of United Empire Loyalists
was given, and
towards their
losses the Imperial Government made a considerable grant; for no satisfaction
could be obtained from their exhausted and embittered countrymen. The migration
did not cease at once. Till the end of the century there was a dribbling of “
late Loyalists ” across the border.
Very
important in its influence on the history of Canada was the character of the
men who thus first bore the standard of British colonisation into the western
forests. They were not pioneering spirits who, had they remained in theijr own
States, would have led an advance across the Ohio. Some were disbanded
soldiers, but the majority consisted of professional men, clergy of the English
Church, officials, and merchants, attached to law and order, and to the
practices and institutions of civilised life. Many came destitute, all came
poor, prepared indeed to suffer hardships as they had formerly been to make
heroic sacrifices, but, save in temper of mind, little fitted to open ags.i i
the battle for existence in the wilds of an almost unknown country. They brought
with them what they prized more than all material comfort, an ardent loyalty to
the British connexion and their conservative principles. It must constantly be
kept in mind that the English provinces were settled by men who were seeking,
not to exploit a new land, but to maintain certain ideas of politics and
society. Such an immigration promised to Canada a stable political development,
but not rapid economic progress.
The whole
question of the government of the Colony had now to be reopened. In 1784 Nova
Scotia was divided; and the part which lay west of the isthmus was formed into
the province of New Brunswick, and given a constitution similar to that
conferred on the whole in 1758. Quebec provided a far more difficult problem.
The legal confusion, which still continued, and the absence of representative
institutions, were grievances demanding a remedy; while the relations of the
two peoples, who, though occupying different parts of the country, intermingled
in its cities, needed some permanent adjustment. To Pitt it seemed that
“clashing interests’’ prevented the amalgamation of both in one State. His
policy, therefore, as laid down in the Constitutional Act of 1791, was to
separate French from English by dividing the old province of Quebec, at a line
following for the most part the course of the river Ottawa, into the two
provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, and so to ensure to the French in Lower
Canada the preservation of their nationality. At the same time he conferred on
each of the new provinces thus formed a constitution resembling that of Great
Britain; and, by the reservation of a certain proportion of the Crown lands,
made provision in each for a Protestant Church establishment. Convim ng as
this course of action seemed, it was really a tremendous experiment; and once
more the chief lines of Canadian 'listory diverge from a common point.
The
succeeding twenty years proved uneventful. Each province had now a Governor, a
Legislative Council nominated by the Crown, and an Assembly elected by the people.
In Upper Canada the pioneers— increased in numbers to 70,000 by 1806 through
the coming of “ late Loyalists,” Irishmen, and Highlanders—were learning the
nature of their new country, clearing land, cutting roads, founding villages,
and bringing up children in regions where schools and churches were still
non-existent. Of the grim and lonely battle with nature fpught in this heroic
age the details must be left to the imagination. Here and there the transition
to ordered settlement was slowly made; but politics and social pursuits were
necessarily neglected. To the first meeting of the Council and Assembly,
summoned at harvest4ime, only seven out of the twenty-one members found leisure
to come. In the maritime provinces a better-known country, with access to the
sea and a variety of occupation, rendered the initial struggles perhaps less
severe. In Nova Scotia fishing and agriculture, in New Brunswick lumbering,
occupied the principal attention of the inhabitants. Halifax and St John,
moreover, were becoming social and commercial centres, not, of course, to be
compared with Quebec or Montreal, but more active and important than Kingston
and Niagara, the only towns as yet rising amongst the scattered settlements of
Upper Canada. As for the French, they had long enjoyed the conditions of an
organised society. Save where British and American settlers were making homes
in the eastern townships their province was no longer confronted with the
problems that lie on the threshold of colonisation. Yet troubles of a different
kind disturbed its peace. The end of Pitt’s policy, so far as it involved the
separation of the two races, was never attained^ and seems almost to have been
forgotten. Englishmen entered Lower Canada, and by superior energy monopolised
its commerce. The French, fearing for their nationality, drew together; and an
opposition of interests and feeling began steadily to divide the two peoples.
Thus, at the
beginning of the century, the Colony as a whole had no unity. It lacked not
only common nationality and a single government, but also adequate means of
communication and the habit of much commercial intercourse between its
different parts. As yet there was no recognition of general interests, nor any
sense of a common life. The American War of 1812-4 came as a rough but, in some
ways, a salutary interruption of this course of development. Its history is
elsewhere narrated in this work. It meant more for, Canada than the suffering
and loss which it inflicted on the Upper province; for it necessitated united
action, and awakened the Canadians to their first conception of a national
patriotism. It directed, too, the attention of the mother-country towards her
vast possessions across the Atlantic, at the very time when she believed
herself suffering from economic evils to be alleviated only by a large
emigration. , This seemed to promise well for a Colony whose resources were
principally arp cultural, and whose chief need was men
with the
patience and energy to become cultivators of the soil. Yet, in the competition
that now ensued between Canada and the United States for the stream of labour
that began to flow from Europe to the new lands, it became increasingly evident
that the majority of immigrants preferred the States. Of those who entered the
British provinces at least half passed either immediately, or very soon, to the
other side of the border; and there was even an exodus of native inhabitants.
The warmer climate of the United States, their rapidly growing prosperity, and
their industrial life, were in part the cause of this; but much must also be
attributed to the disturbed political and social condition of Canada, and to
the manner in which the settlement of the country was being carried out.
“Without forethought, preparation, method, or system of any kind”—thus Lord
Durham summed up, in 1838, his opinion of the emigration to Canada during the
century, contrasting with the inaction of the mother-country and the Colony the
greater energy and foresight exhibited by the United States. His criticism of
the way in which the land had been distributed was equally severe. For the
errors committed the whole responsibility rested with the home Government.
Rightly feeling that in an agricultural colony land should be easily
obtainable, it adopted at first a system of free grants without itteirpting
sales. Unfortunately its good intentions were defeated by the practices of its
officials; and the most reckless profusion resulted. The limitations on the
size of free grants were evaded, and the conditions attending them generally
violated. In 1838 the provinces were found to have disposed of the greater part
of their surveyed lands on a system that had brought almost no profit, and in a
manner that had tended to retard most seriously their prospects of progress. In
Upper Canada not one-tenth of the grants were even occupied; in Lower Canada
nineteen- twentieths remained perfectly wild. Unreclaimed land, consisting of
clergy reserves or of blocks in the hands of speculators, everywhere intervened
between cultivated parts, and rendered contiguous settlement and the creation
of efficient routes of communication impossible. When, after the Act of Union
(1840), the matter was transferred to the provincial assemblies, it was
perceived that a great opportunity had been lost; for, by that time, the
Americans had passed through the eastern forests of the continent on to the
western prairie, with which the timbered lands of Canada could not compete.
A few of the
immigrants during this period were Americans of strong republican sentiments;
but the majority were from Great Britain— weavers from Scotch towns,
agriculturists from the Highlands, and many Irish and English whom economic
changes had reduced to poverty. Some the Imperial Government had assisted in
various ways. Others were sent over by the Poor Law Guardians. Many had been
attracted by the energetic policy of the great Land Companies; and several
successful settlements had been carried out under the direction of notable
persons such
as Galt, Talbot, and the Earl of Selkirk. Probably more than half of the
new-comers entered the Upper province, where, between 1806 and 1841, the
population rose from 70,000 to 455,000. Elsewhere the rate of growth was less
rapid. In the maritime provinces during the same period there was an increase
from 110,000 to about 400,000; in Lower Canada from 160,000, in 1791, to
625,000 (of whom perhaps a quarter were British) in 1841. Such an immigration
meant the introduction of a fresh element into the population of Canada; and
it was the work of the formative period, which We are considering, to unite the
Loyalists, with their conservative ideas, and these new men, of a different
class and in many cases entertaining the views of English Liberals, in the
social and economic order of a young and growing nation. This did not prove
easy, for a deep-seated unrest was disturbing the life of Canada. Its causes
require some analysis.
Though in no
two provinces were the conditions the same, everywhere the nature of the
political system was at the root of the trouble. The mother-country had not yet
satisfactorily solved the problem of colonial government. It did not seem
possible for a colonial Governor to be at the same time the servant of the
Crown and of his own legislative body. Hence, while the British Constitution
had been transplanted in form to Canada, that principle which makes it
workable, the responsibility of the Executive to the majority in the Lower
House, had been omitted. A considerable part of the colonial revenue was raised
under Imperial Acts, and this was placed at the disposal of the Governor and
his Council; so that the people had no efficient control of their rulers, who
continued to manage public affairs, whether they enjoyed the confidence of
their provincial assembly or not. Moreover, depending for their positions on
the approval of the Colonial Office, they transferred thither the settlement of
all matters of any importance, though it was too far off to be properly
cognisant of conditions in the country, and also, unfortunately, for a long
period was out of sympathy with the aspirations of the Canadians. Slowly the
provinces came to see that, while the forms of self-government had been
conceded to them, the reality had been denied, and that representative
institutions had been created without “ the necessary privileges ” of
representative bodies, with the result that every legislative assembly in the
colony embarked on a struggle with its Executive for what it felt to be its
proper place in the Constitution. Though from 1826 onwards the mother-country
followed a policy increasingly liberal, and readily redressed all grievances,
she could not bring herself to take the great step of granting to the colonists
the control of their own affairs.
In Upper
Canada permanent power fell into the hands of a section of the Loyalists, which
came to be designated the “Family Compact,” though its bonds of union were
party interests and social sympathies rather than personal connexions. This
strong alliance controlled the
Executive and
Legislative Councils, and sometimes secured a majority in the Assembly. It
appropriated large portions of the public domain, and filled the offices of
Government and the high places of the legal profession with its adherents. It
maintained the illiberal political system, and supported the claims of the
English clergy to the reserved lands. An opposition party grew up with its
strength in the elected House, working for a reform of the government, and for
a more progressive policy in the development of the province. The situation of
Lower Canada was also peculiar. There the two peoples had drifted completely
apart. United by no common religion or literature, they could not understand
each other. Marriage unions between French and,English, at first frequent, had
become gradually very rare; and social intercourse had ceased. No passionate
enmity showed itself; but a complete and sullen separateness extended from the
highest to the lowest classes. “I expected,” wrote Lord Durham in 1833, “ to
find a contest between a Government and a people. I found two nations warring
in the bosom of a single State.” Such was the fatal issue which differences of
race, aggravated by the opposition of interest between a commercial and an
agricultural people, and by the unwisdom of Governors who failed to win the
confidence of the French, had at last produced. Moreover the political struggle
had been absorbed into this more dangerous racial strife, with the result that
the executive Government, supported by the opinion of the British inhabitants, was
arrayed against the Lower House, which possessed the sympathies of the whole
French population.
In both
provinces the Assembly had aimed first at securing entire control of the
reveuue. When, in 1832, the Colonial Office virtually yielded this, the Assembly
of Upper Canada voted a permanent civil list, but did not relax its efforts to
secure the responsibility of Ministers. In Lower Canada, however, a civil list
was still refused; and the struggle was continued with such bitterness that the
whole administration was jeopardised. The Imperial Government tried
conciliation, and sent over commissioners to enquire into the state, of the
province, but declined to give way to the demand for an elective Legislative
Council. This refusal, expressed in. Lord John Russell's resolutions of 1836,
was the signal for an outbreak in Lower Canada early in the following year.
Arms were taken up in the Richelieu district; but the movement was never formidable,
and was quickly suppressed. Meanwhile, in Upper Canada, the Governor, Sir
Francis Bond Head, precipitated a crisis by representing at the election of
1836 the issue between the reforming party and the Government as that of
allegiance to the mother-country. Defeated by this manoeuvre at the polls,
William Lyon Mackenzie, who led the Opposition, proceeded to organise
rebellion. His march on Toronto failed; and the rising was put down without the
aid of regular troops, though filibustering expeditions of American adventurers
and Canadian fugitives from across the border continued for some time. In both
provinces the
resort to
arms proved a mistaken step, and failed to command general sympathy, The needs
of the situation did not justify it; and neither Mackenzie nor Papineau, the
leader of the French, carried more than a fraction of his party with him in his
last moves. There was no widespread desire to sever the connexion with Great
Britain.
Nevertheless,
the strife of races in one province, and the strife of parties in the other,
had developed a state of irritation so intolerable that it was little wonder if
short-sighted men hurried to desperate remedies. Realising the extreme gravity
of the situation,- Lord Melbourne’s Cabinet despatched the Earl of Durham as
High Commissioner and Governor-General to redress the grievances in the
Canadas; and, following the advice of his memorable Report, which made
intelligible the evils from which the colony was suffering, presented to
Parliament, in 1840, “An Act to reunite the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada
and for the government of Canada.” This measure gave to the united provinces an
elective Assembly, consisting of forty-two members from each, and a nominated
Legislative Council. The principle of ministerial responsibility to the Lower
House was asserted at the first meeting of the new Assembly, and recognised
during the next few years in all the provinces; and to the Governments of the
Colony the entire management of its domestic concerns was gradually
transferred. Taken with the concessions that preceded it and those that followed
as a corollary, the Act of 1840 marks the beginning of a new era in British
colonial history. From this time Great Britain has been less anxious to ensure
her authority over her dependencies than to carry forward the policy then first
outlined—to build them into strong States by conceding to them self-government,
by uniting their races, and by confederating contiguous geographical areas.
Though the Act contributed much to allay the troubles in the Canadas, it was
only a stage on the road towards their complete and final settlement. By
bringing the two peoples together in almost equal numbers it removed any
opportunity for the domination of one over the other; but it did not teach them
sympathy and cooperation, and the working of the new political system was far
from satisfactory. Everything could not be done at once; but the results of
this first step slowly made it clear that all the provinces of British North
America needed to be united for the ■jake of their common interests, and,
at the same time, that the local concerns of each were best removed from the
general control.
The
agitations of these, years exacted their price in a sacrifice of material
progress. The inevitable period of difficulty which attends the beginnings of
settlement was unduly prolonged, when circumstances made the form of
government, and not the work of colonisation, the principal concern of the
people. Yet it is not to the political troubles but to the geography of the
country that we must look for the chief causes affecting the rate of its
development. Though nature had endowed Canada with
694
valuable
resources, they were not of an attractive order, nor easily exploited without
patience and wise policy. No precious metals as yet drew population. The hope
of the colony lay in agriculture and in the production of raw materials for
export. Unfortunately its forest-covered lands were not easily brought under
cultivation, nor was it really happy in the class of immigrants which it
secured for the purpose. This was the more important, because to the new-comers
fell the work of founding settlements, and not of merely filling up the
interspaces of a growing society. Commerce, resting principally on agriculture,
was slow to expand, though, owing in some measure to the encouragements of the
imperial fiscal system, its basis had been broadened beyond the historic
fur-trade of the preceding centuries. After the American War commercial
relations with the West Indies had been established; and, early in the
nineteenth century, the mother-country, by granting a differential advantage to
colonial wheat and timber entering her ports, had endeavoured to stimulate
Canada's productive powers in these directions. The surplus of wheat varied
from year to year; but the export of timber soon attained considerable
importance. General economic conditions did not yet favour the foundation of
industries. Such as there were, with the exception of distilling, grew up out
of the foreign trade, and consisted in the sawing of timber, the milling of
grain, the drying and pickling of fish, and the manufacture of potash and
pearlash.
For the
encouragement of settlement and commerce the opening of communications between
the different parts of the Colony, and between all parts and the sea, was a
vital matter. As colonisation had followed the course of the St Lawrence, the
principal work to be done was the improvement of the river navigation. This was
a large undertaking, and demanded united action on the part of the two chief
provinces and considerable expenditure. But the Canadas were neither united nor
rich. General schemes for the development of the country were beyond the
conception and power of the little Governments of a divided Colony. In Lower
Canada the policy of the French was to encourage agriculture rather than
commerce, and to devote their spare revenue to the small works required in
rural districts. The Upper province attacked big difficulties, and did serious
work in the cutting of the Rideau, Cornwall, and Welland Canals; but it could
not reap the full advantage of its efforts so long as Lower Canada failed to
remove the obstacles to navigation east of Montreal. Moreover the division of
the Colony had left Upper Canada without a seaport; and, to increase its
revenue from customs duties, it required the consent of the other province,
which was not easy to obtain. Hence the construction of proper main and local
thoroughfares was neglected for want of money, with the result that the various
settled parts, divided from each other, with little exchange of products or
intercourse of ideas, developed on separate lines, and acquired distinct
interests and character. Nevertheless, in these years the outlines
were marked
out of those great works which have given to Canada a series of waterways
unparalleled on any other continent.
The state of
education throughout the Colony reflected the conditions of its life. In Lower
Canada the majority of the peasants still grew up woefully ignorant. For the
higher classes there was an abundant provision of college instruction under
clerical control. Upper Canada was in some ways less well provided for. The
Assembly had begun the establishment of a public elementary system; but,
though the people were far from indifferent, State action was paralysed by the
political trouble, by the agitation of the question of the clergy reserves, and
difficulties between the denominations. Private enterprise, in spite of great
obstacles, had done much; but the common schools were still too few in number,
and sadly inefficient both as regarded buildings, teachers, and system. Yet
here, and in the maritime provinces, where educational progress had been more
rapid, institutions providing the means of higher instruction had already been
founded.
Thus, at the
epoch where our narrative pauses, Canada was but just emerging from her early
troubles. Economically and socially the country was backward in its
development. The signs of its youth were still evident. It had lacked that
unity of action, wisdom of policy, and enterprising ambition in its people
which had done so much for the United States. The struggle with nature had been
severe; and many circumstances had combined to aggravate the hard conditions.
Some of its difficulties had arisen because the mother-country thought that the
life and institutions of an old land could be transported to a new; and, half
unconsciously, throughout these years the Canadians had been struggling for the
necessary social and political elasticity and freedom of a young community.
That battle was now almost over. Between the clouds that still remained
glimpses of a brighter future could be discerned. Through bitter experiences
Canada had been seeking, and had at last found, a form of government which was
to guarantee for many years to come the independence of a colony within the
unity of an empire. It was a great work to have achieved, and perhaps a
necessary preliminary to the greater work of building a nation from many
divided societies, and developing the ample resources of a vast and little-known
land.
THE
REVOLUTION IN ENGLISH POETRY AND FICTION.
By the Revolution of 1688 a constitutional balance
was struck between a number of active principles which for nearly a century had
been striving for mastery in the English body politic. After three generations
of struggle between the Crown and the Parliament, the prerogative of the
former, without being specifically retrenched, had been practically limited by
the Bill of Rights. The ancient feudal system had finally lapsed with the, Act
for abolishing military tenures; nevertheless feudalism remained a social
influence, and the nobility and gentry still exercised in their several
neighbourhoods much of the authority to which they had been accustomed in the
Middle Ages. A bitter experience of the tyranny, occasioned both by
Presbyterian rule and the attempt to restore the Roman Catholic religion, had
taught the country finally to acquiesce in the via media of the Anglican
Church, fortified in its supremacy by the operation of the Test Acts.
In the period
that immediately followed the English Revolution, literature, and in
particular poetry, faithfully reflecting the spiritual movement in society,
exhibited analogous lines of compromise. Throughout the seventeenth century
there was strong rivalry between the medieval or romantic tradition of poetry,
which had spontaneously directed invention since the time of Chaucer, and the
more regular principles of taste derived from the revival of classical
learning. During the first half of the century the poets who followed either of
these two streams of artistic development worked according to their own will,
without interfering with each other’s practice; romantic caprice and “metaphysical
” fancy more than held their own. But after the Restoration criticism began to
formulate itself. Dryden, in numerous prefaces, reasoned about the proprieties
of style in the various branches of his art. His example was followed by
Addison, in The Spectator, and by Pope, in his Essay on Criticism; and, as no
critic appeared in defence of either the “ romantic ” or the “ metaphysical ”
tradition, the weight of public opinion gradually inclined to the side of
classical correctness. The romantic element was by no means eliminated from the
English imagination, but it was for the time being depressed, in the same
proportion as medieval influences declined in the sphere of politics. In
the period
between the Revolution of 1688 and the middle of the eighteenth century, the
movement of the classical Renaissance, which since the middle of the fifteenth
century had been spreading northward from Italy, bore down all opposition in
English taste.
But,
though respect for classical tradition became the guictmg principle of the
English poets of the post-Revolution period, the authority of Greek and Latin
example never established itself so absolutely in this country as in Italy or
France. In England the classicalism of the Renaissance was opposed by two
strong counter-currents—the national taste of the aristocracy, now the rulers
of the country, and the steady persistence with which the chief English poets
adhered to the principle of continuity in the development of thur native
language. While the revival of learning had in England, as in every other part
of Europe, been mainly promoted by the patronage of princes and nobles, it had
here adapted itself to the genius of free institutions, and had been employed
in the service of living interests. Attempts to turn language into an
instrument for distinguishing the manners of the Court or of the noble caste
from those of the vulgar met with only temporary success; and, from the reign
of Elizabeth till the Revolution, a steady disposition is visible among the
greater poets to base their style on the normal development of the English
tongue. •
The
leading characteristics of the poetry produced after the Revolution were, as
regards matter, an always increasing volume of ethical thought, whether satiric
or did.xtic, and, as regards form, a great predop’.inj.nce either of the
rhyming heroic couplet or of heroic blank verse, before which metres every
other mode of poetical expression tended to disappear. The lyrical form, so
frequent in the seventeenth century, is in the first half of the eighteenth
century seldom employed. An obvious explanation of this change of style offers
itself in the fact that the minds of men were now chiefly occupied with the
social settlement necessary after a revolution both in politics and taste, so
that reason became the governing principle in the arts of expression, rather
than that imaginative caprice which prevailed while the Revolution itself was
in the pangs of delivery. By a directly parallel movement the correct and lucid
expression of intelligible thought came to be accounted the chief merit in the
art of poetry, in place of the invention of far-fetched metaphors
characteristic of the “metaphysical” school in the seventeenth century. Pope,
Parnell, Johnson, and Goldsmith, among those who used the heroic couplet,
Thomson and Akenside, among those who wrote in blank verse, were the chief
representatives of what has been justly called the “classical age” of English
poetry. Young, the author of Night Thoughts, wrote with success in both metres. . ‘
.
About the
middle of the eight&mtn century the tide turned. The compromise aimed at in
the English Revolution had been secured; and
698 Revival of medieval and democratic ideas.
full liberty
of expression was now allowed to those medieval elements in the life of the
nation which had been suppressed ?o long as there appeared to be a danger of
their interfering with the constitutional settlement. Many men of imagination,
now that civil liberty was safely established, looked back with regret on the
variety and picturesqueness of the old feudal regime. Joseph Warton, a good
scholar and critic, declared: that the ethical movement in poetiy had gone too
far, and that a revival of lyric enthusiasm should be the aim of all lovers of
the art. Thomas Warton, his brother, in his Observations on the FaSry Quern,
directed the imagination of his countrymen to the older forms of English
poetiy; and, somewhat later in the century, Thomas Percy (afterwards Bishop of
T)romore), by the publication of his Reliqties of Ancient English Poetry,
revived the public interest in medieval minstrelsy. The rather grotesque
experiments of Horace Walpole in Gothic architecture and romance prepaired the
way for the novels of Beckford, Mrs Radcliffe, and “ Monk ” Lewis, which
themselves formed a middle stage of fiction on the way to the Waverley Novels.
Proceeding along the lines suggested by the Wartons, Collins and Gray struck a
distinctive note of lyric poetry; and the latter, by his Fatal Sisters and
Descent of Odin, opened a fresh field of poetical exploration in the remains of
Scandinavian mythology. Almost at the same time Macpherson, with his pretended
translation of Ossian, sounded the first note of Celtic revivalism; and, not
long afterwards, the Rowley forgeries of Chatterton gave an impulse to the
medieval reaction which was making way under the guidance of Thomas Warton.
All these
literary tendencies fell in with religious and political movements in the
heart of society, on the Continent as well as in England. Through the whole of
the seventeenth century the opinions of the Deists continued to assert themselves
in the neighbourhood of Geneva; and in the first half of the eighteenth century
these received a philosophical extension in the works of Rousseau. An
opposition between the institutions of society and the self-consciousness of
the individual began to find expression in European literature, a feeling
closely allied with the love of Nature and solitude of which Rousseau was the
first articulate apostle. Such sentiments helped to strengthen the democratic
movement which, since the days of Calvin, had found its main base in Genevan
Protestantism; and a constant reciprocal intercourse was kept up through this
channel between Continental and English society. Books like Thomson’s Seasons,
Pope’s Essay on Mem, Young’s Night Thoughts, and Richardson’s novels, enjoyed
wide popularity in Switzerland, France, and Germany; Macpherson’s Ossian
produced a much greater effect on the Continent than at home. On the other
hand, the influence of Rousseau’s philosophy is plainly manifest in the poetry
and character of Shenstone; while Wesley’s field-preaching in England seems to
have been the result of his intercourse with the German Moravians.
But, however
freely democratic ideas were admitted from without,
and medieval
ideas were allowed to react within the English Constitution, this liberty of
thought did little to shake the firm hold which in the sphere of politics
aristocratic rule had obtained on the Government, and, in the sphere of taste,
the principles of the Renaissance had fixed on the imagination of cultivated
society. Gray and Collins were sensitive to the new romantic! influences in the
air; but the forms in which they gave expression to their feelings were
strictly classic. Watts, Charles Wesley, and, above all, Cowper, while impelled
by the spiritual forces operating outside the doctrine and ritual of the
Established Church, never failed, in expressing their religious emotions, to
maintain over language and metre the masculine control which they had learned
from the study of Greek and Roman models. Hence, in most of those who may be
specially called the liberalising poets of the eighteenth century, there was no
abrupt severance of the continuity of tradition; while, in the great expansion
of imaginative feeling caused by the French Revolution, varied and long-established
practice in metrical composition afforded a basis from which the poets who were
directly inspired by that movement could readily attempt a new departure. The
history of the revolution in poetry and fiction may conveniently be treated
under the following beads: the effect of the French Revolution on the classical
traditions paramount during the eighteenth century; the effect of the
democratic movement on poetic sentiment and diction; the Lake School; the
growth of Romanticism; the aesthetic reaction in the language and rhythms of
English poetry.
At no period
of English literature was poetry at a lower ebb than in the years immediately
preceding the meeting of the States General in France. The exhaustion of the
imaginative movement of the Classical Renaissance was indicated by the
disappearance of almost everything in the shape of poetic invention. Album
poetry and didactic verse of the most trivial kind were the classes of
composition mostly in vogue. Coteries of authors, meeting for the purpose of
mutual admiration, flourished; the most notorious of them being a society in
which a trio of poetasters—Robert Merry (1755-98), Mrs Robinson (1758-1800),
and Mrs Cowley (1748-1809)—made public love to each other in a paper called The
World, under the names of Della Crusca, Laura Maria, and Anna Matilda. After a
while, the impostures of these people were exposed and crushed by William
Gifford’s (1756-1826) imitation of Persius, The Baviad and Mceviad.
Vapidity in
the matter of poetry was emphasised by a corresponding display of classical
forms. Abstraction, impersonation, inversion, and the abundant use of Pagan
mythology revived all the affectations of external classicism that had been
ridiculed by Addison. Of this extravagance the most striking example is to be
found in The Botanic Garden of Erasmus Darwin (1781-1802), a man of scientific
genius,
700 Erasmus Darwin.—Campbell.-—Crabhe.
who used
verse for the purely decorative purpose of illustrating his physical
observations. >3is leading idea was to personify the forces of nature under
the forms of Greek polytheism, while at the same time he accentuated all the
prominent characteristics of the English heroic couplet which had been first
developed' in Pope’s translation of the Iliad. The effect of this excessive
classicism on diction and rhythm is illustrated in the following extract from
Darwin’s poem:
Pervade,.
pellucid forms, their cold retreat!
Ray from
bright orbs your viewless floods of heat!
From earth’s
deep wastes electric torrents pour, ’
Or shed from
heaven the scintillating shower! 1 Pierce the dull root, relax its
fibre trains,
Thaw the
thick bipod that lingers in its veins!
Melt with
warm breath the fragrant gums that bind Th’ expanding foliage in its scaly
rind!
And, as in
air the laughing leaflets play,
And turn
their shining bosoms to the day,
Nymphs! with
sweet smile, each opening flower invite,
And on its
damask eyelids pour the light!
The general
result of such mannerism was to turn metrical composition in the heroic
couplet, which during the classical age had almost secured a monopoly in
poetry, into what Cowper calls “ a mere mechanic art.” But the sanguinary
excesses of the French Revolution, arousing antagonistic passions in the heart
of English society, reacted with bracing effect on taste; and the necessity of
combating subversive ideas stimulated all writers of poetry who adhered to the
old traditions to animate their satire with political fire. One Of the happiest
monuments of this conservative spirit survives in the excellent satire of the
Anti-Jacobin, in which Canning, Frere, and th ir associates, exerted their
powers to ridicule alike the morality and the taste of the writers who appeared
to be influenced by the new revolutionary ideals. Another production of some
merit though more pretension, devoted to the defence of old traditions and the
denunciation of French principles, was The Pursuits of Literature, a poem
written by Thomas Mathias (1754-1835), in which Dr Priestley, Erasmus Darwin,
and William Godwin, are all brought under the lash of the satirist.
The brilliant
and stirring action of the time exercised also a reviving influence on the
lyric genius of the country. Under its inspiration Campbell (1777—1844*) wrote
his very fine stanzas entitled Hohen- Vmden, while the enthusiasm of patriotic
pride found utterance in his Odes, Battle of the Baltic and Ye Mariners of
England. But perhaps the operation of the spirit of the age on the traditional
classic style is most noticeable in the poetry of Crabbe (1754-1832), the
character of whose genius had disclosed itself in The Village even before the
beginning of the French Revolution. With scarcely any sense Of beauty, and with
a defective taste, Crabbe had an imaginative insight'
into the
depths of human nature. His own experience of life taught him to despise “
mechanic echoes of the Mantuan song,” the sham classic pastoralism under which
the poets of the early part of the eighteenth century had veiled the frequent
wretchedness of the English rural labourer. He used the ethic, mode of the
heroic couplet employed by Pope, and afterwards developed by Johnson and
Goldsmith, as an instrument for describing the actual condition of the poor;
and his Parish Register, his Borough, and his Tales, entitle him to the praise
bestowed upon him by Byron as “Nature’s sternest painter, yet her best ”
Meantime the
great advance of the democratic spirit in the British nation is clearly
illustrated by the vernacular poetry of Scotland. This spirit assumed various
external forms. In the first place, a strong centrifugal tendency in the
constitution of the body politic made its appearance. Ever since the Union
between England and Scotland a large party in the latter kingdom had
deliberately emphasised the separate interests of the two countries; and this
disposition of the Scottish people soon reflected itself in poetry. It is
particularly manifest in the poems of Allan Ramsay (1685-1758), who. encouraged
the sentiment of particularism by the use of the Scottish dialect in his
poems, and by building a theatre in Edinburgh for the performance of Scotch
plays. The latter proceeding tended to produce a revolutionary moral movement
in society, bringing, as it did, poetical liberty into conflict with
ecclesiastical public opinion, to which the stage, with all belonging to it,
was an abornina ^on. The strict and metaphysical form of Scottish theology
provoked rebellion in men of strong natural instincts; and this stimulated the
poet to express the feelings of nature in the simplest modes of lyrical
diction. “Scots songs” became immensely popular, particularly in the form which
they received from the genius of Robert Fergusson (1750-74). An ardent
Jacobite, and an enemy to all kinds of religious hypocrisy, Fergusson delighted
to express his dislike of England, his love of, old Scottish customs and
superstitions, and his convivial impulses, in the national dialect, finding for
it an admirable metrical vehicle in the rime couee;(caudata), which had taken
root in poetry at a very early date in the history of Scotland1. He
had received, like all his contemporaries of the same class, a training in
Greek and Latin literature, which he turned to excellent account when writing
in his native dialect. Most of his Scottish poems are of a light and humorous
order; and he never soars to the regions of pathos and sublimity characteristic
of his successor and imitator, Robert Bums (1759-96). Bums, carrying on the
particularist tradition, which had descended to him, with a,sentimental
Jacobitism, from Ramsay and Fergusson, gave
1 In
this system the stanza concludes with a line of fewer syllables than the lines
immediately preceding it rhyming with a previous line of the same number of
syllables.
this feeling
perhaps its finest form of expression in his Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled.
His enthusiasm for liberty led him, though he was in government employ, to
sympathise with the beginnings of the French Revolution; but this cosmopolitan
tendency was strongly counteracted by his patriotic instincts, and by his
apprehension of foreign invasion. On the other hand, the democratic ideas of
the time, embodied in the French revolutionary phrase of “fraternity and
equality,” often find utterance in Burns’ verse, the best example being perhaps
furnished by the fine song, Is there for honest poverty, with its burden “ For
a’ that and a’ that.”
Not less
characteristic are the poems in which Bums gives utterance to his natural
impulses in opposition to the Calvinistic theology of the Scottish Kirk.
Fergusson, entertaining the same sentiments, had confined himself to playing
practical jokes on the loose-living professors of the doctrine of “election,”
without ever venturing to attack them in his verse. Bums, however, whose ardent
temperament and irregularities of conduct more than once brought him into open
collision with Kirk authority, avenged his own injuries by the bitterest satire
on his ecclesiastical judges. In his Twa Herds, Holy Willie’s Prayer, and The
Kirk's Alarm, he pours forth the volume of feeling which for three generations
had been gathering among his countrymen in violent rebellion against the social
tyranny of Presbyterianism.
But it was
not so much the matter of Burns’ verse as the complete propriety of its poetic
form, which won for him the unique place he holds in the affections of his
countrymen. He never sought after originality, much less eccentricity, of
individual expression. The essential excellence of his poetry lies in its
thoroughly representative character. When he aimed at eftects in the “
classical ” style of eighteenth-centiuy diction, he was generally unsuccessful;
scarcely one of his compositions in ordinary English is other than commonplace.
On the other hand, peasant as he was, he possessed the refinement of genius,
and had an incomparable instinct as to the right way of handling the
time-honoured songs of the people. In most of his vernacular lyrics the
suggestion of the words or the tune may he found in the melodies of often
nameless composers that had been for generations literally floating in the air.
The genius and originality of Bums shine in giving a new turn to an old
sentiment, in finding a current meaning for a traditional phrase, in putting
the stamp of universal experience on idioms which, but for him, might have
perished in local and particular obscurity. The versatility he shows in
adapting the Scottish tongue to various metrical purposes is marvellous,
ranging from satires and epistles in rime cauee, full of words in common use,
and written in the most colloquial idiom, to brilliant humorous narrative like
Tam o’ Shanter, and again from this to songs of exquisite sweetness, such as
Mary Morrison, in which the polished language is just tempered to the required
Doric simplicity
by a slight
admixture of dialect. In all of them is manifest the embodied force of
democracy, breaking through the half-literary, half-aristocratic conventions of
language, which the continuous practice of many generations had established as
the standard of English poetry.
Far different
was the effect produced by the French Revolution on the taste of the more
highly educated classes in England. Throughout the eighteenth century the
principle which had given elevation and enthusiasm to the thoughts of these
classes was civil liberty. As the natural consequence of party conflict, the affairs
of the countiy had always a tendency to aimless drifting; but in political
emergencies representative men—William III, Walpole, and the two Pitts—never
failed to appear and to steer the vessel of the State on a constitutional
course. Guided by an analogous critical influence, the English poets and
prose-writers since the Revolution in their own country had continued to
develop the language on the lines that had been followed by their predecessors
in the three preceding generations. The stress of the French Revolution
threatened to break down all the boundaries of constitutional tradition both in
government and art. By it the hereditary doctrines embodied in the Declaration
of Right were extended into sympathy with the perfectly abstract principles of
liberty proclaimed by the French philosophers as the Rights of Man; and, by an
analogous intellectual movement, the freedom of invention, which had always
been claimed as their birthright by English poets, in opposition to the
supposed Aristotelian “ rules,” was now transformed into a metaphysical theory,
which demanded for the individual imagination liberty to dispense with rules of
every kind.
The poets by
whom the new principles of art, as well as of politics, were first
philosophically defended were known as the Lake School. Technically, indeed,
the term “school” is hardly applicable to them, for the three leading writers
who were classed under the name differed among themselves in the most striking
manner as regards their thought and style. But they were united by certain
fundamental agreements. All of them were in sympathy with the early principles
and aspirations of the French Revolution, and in active opposition to the
national polity of the English Government; all of them at a later period changed
their views and became vehement anti-Jacobins; and, lastly, all of them,
severing themselves, in theoiy, from the principle of historic continuity, by
which the diction and versification of English poetry had hitherto been
determined, proceeded, for the most part, upon the lines suggested by
individual impulse. They were thus equally removed in practice from the
aristocratic, classical school of Pope and his followers, and from the
democratic, romantic school of Ramsay, Fergusson, and Burns.
The eldest of
the three, and the first pioneer of the new departure in poetry, was William
Wordsworth (1770-1850). Bred in the society
of Cumberland
“ statesmen,” he was secluded during his childhood and youth from all contact
with city life, and, in the Arcadian isolation of . lake and mountain scenery,
habituated himself to an impas oned observation of the moods of external Nature
and of his own mind. The imaginative tendencies thus formed in him were
strengthened by his literary studies at Cambridge; and, after he had taken his
degree, a tour in France inclined him to a strong sympathy with the abstract
principles of the French Revolution. On his return to England he engaged in a
political controversy with Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, in which he
appeared as an advocate for some of the doctrines of Tom Paine. At the same
time he published a volume, of poems, chiefly characterised by an attempt to
express an enthusiastic love ,of Nature in the conventional diction of the
heroic couplet. Soon afterwards, in his Female Vagramt, he employed the Spenser
stanza as a vehicle for describing the common objects and experiences in which
his imagination was interested. But it is evident that, finding these elaborate
and artificial metres unsuited to his purpose, ,he became more and more
disposed to look for his instrument in the simplicity of the ballad metre, and
to free himself, in longer compositions from the trammels of rhyme. In 1795 he
made the acquaintance of Coleridge; and the two almost immediately formed an
alliance which exercised on the genius of each a reciprocal influence,
ultimately destined to react on the public taste. The firstfruits of their
cooperation were Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, the character of which is
thus described by Coleridge:
“ The thought
suggested itself—to which of us I do not recollect— that a series of poems
might be composed of two sorts. In the one the incidents and agents were to be
in, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist
in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth. of such emotions as
would naturally accompany such situations, supposinp them real. And real in
this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of
delusion, has at any time believed i mself under supernatural agency. For the
second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters and
incidents were to be such as will be found in every village and its vicinity
where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice
them when they present themselves.” (.Biographia IMeraria, Vol, n, Chap. 1()
. The first
class was represented by Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner; the larger part of the
volume being made up of poems by Wordsworth, written in his new ballpd manner,
mixed with others in a more elevated style of blank verse. Neither attenipt was
at first received with much favour by the reading public. Wordsworth was
inclined to attribute the ill-success of the volume to the appearance in it of
The Ancient Mariner. Coleridge, with more justice, ascribed it to the
over-simple style of some of Wordsworth’s poems, which offered an obvious mark
for critical
ridicule. In
1800 a second edition of Lyrical Ballads was issued, accompanied by a preface,
wherein Wordsworth offered a philosophical defence of his poetical practice,
both as regards conception and expression, and seemed to argue that his were
the only principles on which true poetry could be composed. The somewhat
arrogant motive of his reasoning was indicated with particular emphasis in his
theory of poetical diction: “ The first volume of these poems,” he said, “ has
been already submitted to general perusal. It was published as an experiment
which I hoped might be of some use to ascertain how far, by fitting to metrical
arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid
sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted
which a poet may rationally endeavour to impart.” At the same time he endeavoured
to prove that poets of established reputation had imparted pleasure by
irrational means, and declared that, if his reasoning were right, men would
have to revise their opinion as to the merits of the greatest writers of verse.
On the question of poetical diction Coleridge was completely at issue with
Wordsworth, and the difference between them led the former to the reasoned
system put forward in Biographia Literaria as the philosophical basis of all
poetical composition.
Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (1772-1834) had by far the greatest natural genius of those who
composed the Lake School. Distinguished for powers of discursive eloquence in
conversation perhaps beyond any man since the time of Socrates, he could bring
an array of arguments, images, and emotions to bear with intense conviction
upon any subject that for the moment excited his enthusiasm. But he was wanting
in the moral force and resolution required to bring his manifold intuitions to
a practical result. His mind was full of title-pages; he saw in a moment of
inspiration the contents of a book, which he imagined himself to be writing,
but of which not a page ever appeared. He sometimes thought out a whole system
of apparently connected metaphysics, only to acknowledge, when it was reduced
to form, that it had no basis of reality. Hence he could not compare with
Wordsworth— inferior as the latter was to him as a philosophical critic—in the
influence he exercised on the course of English poetry.
He agreed
with his friend in the principle of cutting loose from all historical
continuity in the practice of the art; since for history and fact he cared
nothing. He agreed with him also in making the mind of the individual poet the
centre of all poetical production. “ The Imagination,” he says, “ I consider
either as primary or secondary. The primary Imagination I hold to be the living
power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the
finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I am. The secondary Imagination I consider
as an echo of the former, coexisting with the conscious will, yet still as
identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and
706 Coleridge’s criticism of Wordsworth.
differing
only in degree and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses,
dissipates, in order to re-create: or, when this process is rendered
impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealise and to unify. It
is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed
and dead.”
Something of
the same kind had already been said by Schiller and Schelling in Germany; and
Coleridge, working on 'the views of the latter, constructed a theory of the
association of ideas, to form a philosophical basis for that peculiar
analytical exercise of the imagination which Wordsworth and he alike regarded
as its proper function in poetiy. Had their philosophy been founded on
universal truth, new rules of practice might have been deduced from it; for,
when the design of Lyrical Ballads was framed, both poets were enthusiastic
believers in the principles advocated by the apostles of the French Revolution.
But, when the time came to reduce their conceptions to form, it was evident
that the ideas of poetical expression, embodied, on the one hand, in lyrics
like Alice Fell, and, on the other, in poems like The Ancient Mariner, were to
each other as opposite poles. Wordsworth, on his side, had no conception of
poetry regarded as an art. Restricting his view of it entirely to the ideas
existing in the mind of the individual poet, he defined it as “the spontaneous
overflow of powerful emotion.” And, holding that the true principles of
poetical expression lay in the close imitation of the language actually used by
men in a state of excitement, he thought that this could be observed in its
most perfect, because its most simple form, in the idioms of the peasantry.
Coleridge, on
the contrary, a man endowed with the finest perceptions of artistic propriety,
saw that the system of Wordsworth broke down both in theory and practice. In an
admirable chapter of his Biographia Literaria (Vol. n, Chap. 5), he showed that
metre is an essential element in the expression of poetic thought; that the use
of metre entails a peculiar arrangement of words; that the kind of language in
use among the peasantry is quite unsuitable for the higher purposes of poetry;
and that, when Wordsworth himself wrote in a really poetical manner, he
discarded his own principles. But, though he criticised so destructively the
philosophy of his friend, he made no attempt to organise any artistic system of
his own. Satisfied with defining the sense in which he held the poet to be a
creator, according to his theory of association, he left the subject with the
dogma that poetry, as being the utterance of the true poet, was “ the best
words in the best places.”
The
fundamentally weak point in the poetical philosophy of both Coleridge and
Wordsworth was the ignoring of an historically-minded audience, as an essential
condition in the art of metrical composition. They started on their career with
the belief that human society was about to be regenerated by the French
Revolution, but they were also fully
1'he achievement of Wordsworth.
707
persuaded
that the Revolution would proceed according to their own ideas of it. Each held
that the poet was, above all things, an inspired prophet, who could discover
truths to which mankind in general were blind, and by the strength of
imagination could place objects before the world in a new and true light. They
therefore considered themselves entitled to dispense with the lessons of
experience, and with historic continuity as a principle of action alike in
politics and art. By degrees their eyes were opened to the tyrannic tendencies
of the Revolutionary movement, which, when perceived, made them eager to bum
the idols they had hitherto adored. Their desertion naturally exasperated
their old allies; and party prejudice, quite as much as critical antipathy,
blinded a large portion of the nation to the merits of their poetical experiments.
The Edinburgh Review, in particular, as the organ of the Whigs, was emphatic in
its denunciation of their artistic principles.
When the
passion of partisanship on either side subsided, it was seen that the great
achievement of Wordsworth was his enlargement of the domain of poetry; This
had, before his time, been, as a rule, limited by forms devoted to the
representation, in some shape, of the active life of men and manners;
Wordsworth, by his impassioned feeling, embraced in the art the contemplation
of the still life of external Nature. The character of his poetical genius is
best described in his own noble lines:
Such was the
Boy—hut1 for the growing Youth What soul was his when, from the
naked top Of some hold headland, he beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world
in light! He looked—
Ocean and
earth, the solid frame of earth,
And Ocean’s
liquid mass, beneath him lay In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touchcd,
And in their
silent faces did he read Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice
of joy: his spirit drank The spectacle ! sensation, soul, and form,
All melted
into him: they swallowed up His animal being; in them did he live,
And by them
did he live: they were his life.
To find
metrical forms for the expression of feelings like these was not easy; nor
indeed was Wordsworth largely gifted with artistic invention. In his longer
poems, where he adopts a narrative or dramatic manner, his style almost
instinctively falls into prose; his real poetical successes consist in his
appropriation, for his own purposes, of vehicles like the Ode, the Sonnet, or
some well-established stanza, which enable him to communicate to the reader
lofty yet intelligible thoughts in the pure and noble English of which he was
master. When he is writing about himself, or about common objects, in The
Prelude and The Ewcurdon he seems never to be aware whether a thought, as he
expresses it, will strike the reader as bald, trivial, or absurd: he is
convinced that
708 The imaginative poems of Coleridge.
everything he
says, as being “the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion,” • must be worth
saying in metre. But in compositions like Laodamia, the Ode on Immortality, and
the finer Sonnets, in which the thought has been carefully selected and
assimilated, before being expressed, the maxim of Horace is fully justified,
Cui lecta potenter erti res Nee faeundia deseret hunc nec Itieidus ordo.
The genius of
Coleridge was of an altogether opposite kind. He has informed us that the part
assigned to him in Lyrical Ballads was to produce poems of which the incidents
and agents were to be “ supernatural.” But the compositions to which these
words seem to point, The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan, Love, The
Pams of Sleep, and the like, are not so much “supernatural” in scope and
motive, as contrary to the usual order of nature; the aim of the poet being to
link together detached images in metrical words, and in such a manner as to
produce that effect of paradoxical reality experienced in dreams. No poet was
ever so well qualified to accomplish this task as Coleridge. His vivid
imagination, intensified by his habit of opium-eating, had made him acquainted
with the “truths of emotion,” familiar to “every human being, who from whatever
source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural
agency.” His fine powers of invention enabled him to communicate these
sensations to the reader by his skilful employment of the abrupt manner of the
ancient ballads, which raises in the imagination an idea of wonder and
mystery, quite different from that produced by the regular order of epic
narrative. The more conventional compositions in which he seeks to embody the
reasoned results of his philosophy—though many of them, such as France and the
Hymn in the Vale of Chamowni, are nobly poetical—are much less characteristic
of the man than tours de force like The Ancient Mariner or Christabel, and show
the influence of Wordsworth on his imagination. He had a keen sense of humour
which exhibits itself in his parodies of the sonnets of Lloyd, Lamb, and
himself, as representing the new school of affected simplicity.
Robert
Southey (1774-1843) was associated with Coleridge and Wordsworth in early
sympathy with the principles of the French Revolution. He made the acquaintance
of Coleridge in 1792, when he was an undergraduate at Balliol, and, accepting
the Unitarian views of the latter, joined with him in framing a scheme of
“pantisocracy.” His early poems, Wat Tyler, Joan of Arc, and The Fall of
Robespierre, are all strongly coloured with republican sentiment. He abandoned
sooner than his friends the Revolutionary cause, and in 1806 accepted a
government pension. In 1813 he was made Poet Laureate, after the post had been
offered to Scott, who declined it. This political defection was thrown in his
teeth in 1821, when, having written a poem in English
hexameters on
the death of George III, entitled The Vision of Judgment, in the preface to
which he alluded to Byron and Shelley as the “Satanic school,” the Laureate was
assailed by Byron in his famous satire of the same name, and was reminded of
his youthful sympathies with the Revolution, illustrated in his Wat Tyler,
which had been surreptitiously published in 1817.
Southey’s
theories as to the art of poetry are less subversive than those of Wordsworth.
He was above all things a student; and his imaginative efforts were for the
most part devoted to enlarging the boundaries of poetry by excursions into the
realms of literature. In the preface to his collected works in 1837 he
described the character of his poetical genius as follows: “ When I add, what
has been the greatest of all advantages, that I have passed more than half my
life in retirement, conversing with books rather than men, constantly and unweariably
engaged in literary pursuits, communing with my own heart, and taking that
course which upon mature reflection seemed best to myself, I have said
everything necessary to account for the characteristics of my poetry, whatever
they may be.”
This seclusion
from society, which seemed to Southey a qualification for the composition of
good poetry, was in the judgment of others rather a drawback. Byron’s lines on
the Lake School are suggestive:
Yon,
gentlemen, by dint of long seclusion From better company, have kept your- own
At Keswick, and by long continued fusion Of one another’s minds, at last are
grown To deem, as a most logical conclusion,
That poesy
has wreaths for you alone.
And it is
obvious that Southey’s determination to follow his own line, without
considering the expectations of his readers, is answerable for that frigidity
and defect of human interest which petrify his long quasiepics. His scheme of
a series of heroic poems, embodying the essence of the principal mythologies of
the world, was formed after reading Picart’s Religious Ceremonies. Thalaba and
Modoc, its firstfruits, are too cold and abstract to be interesting; but the
notes by which they are accompanied are attractive in their wide and curious
learning. The Curse of Kehama is superior in structure to these poems, the conclusion
of it—suggested by Beckford’s VatheJe—being really dramatic, and the movement
of the verse at once stately and flexible. The style of Southey’s ballads is
marked by the homeliness and triviality which lower the character of too much
of Wordsworth’s poetry. Some of his characteristics as a poet are reflected in
the Gebir and Hellenica of his friend Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), who,
viewing all modem things through the medium of classical literature, failed to
inspire his poetry with the movement of actual life, and the coldness of whose
verse is emphasised by its striking contrast with the animation
710
Romantic revival. German influences.
of his
Imaginary Conversations, which show an admirable power of entering into the
thoughts and characters of the interlocutors.
Half a
generation passed away before the effects of Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s
theory and practice in the art of poetry became apparent. Their views had
little influence with the leaders of organised society. Living remote from the
centre of affairs, in secluded places like Nether Stowey or the English Lakes,
they could make their ideas felt only through enterprising publishers or in the
columns of newspapers. They were associated in the minds of the reading public
with an unpopular and unpatriotic party. Opposed to them were all the powers of
fashionable society, political interest, and literary culture. But, while
their voices seemed to be those of men crying in the wilderness, their cause
was being secretly aided by cosmopolitan forces which had long established a
base in the heart of society, and continued to exercise a dissolving influence
on the general fabric of opinion and belief. Prominent among these forces was
the reaction in favour of medievalism, which had made great progress since the
time of the two Wartons. Percy’s Reliques, Macpherson’s Ossian, Chatterton’s
Rowley forgeries, had all allied themselves with the sentimental appreciation
of the more primitive types of social emotion; and Horace Walpole’s experiments
in Gothic architecture had revived, in an external form, the taste for the
antique. The same dilettante critic had also with his Castle of Otranto opened
the flood-gates of supematuralism in fiction. In another direction, romantic
and sentimental ideas kept pouring in from Germany. The dramatic tastes
represented in some of the plays of Kotzebue and in The Robbers of Schiller
were received with much favour in the theatres; while German specialism,
illustrated in Burger’s famous ballad of Lenore, inspired a whole army of
English imitators, of whom the most successful was Matthew Gregory Lewis
(1775-1818), best known as author of The Monk. Most powerful of all, as
proceeding from the source of the highest genius, was the sentimental
theorising of Rousseau, which, falling in with the self- secluding,
semi-monastic instincts of the time, seemed to offer a philosophic
starting-point to all who chafed at the restraints of traditional law and
order. These varied influences, working together, combined to produce in
society an atmosphere of Romance, which inspired the national imagination with
the ideas outwardly embodied in the poetry of Byron and Shelley.
These poets
possessed all the qualifications that were wanting to Coleridge and Wordsworth
for promoting the cause of the Revolution from the interior of society. As the
representatives, immediate or prospective, of the noble and gentle families of
England, they could speak for the governing classes, and their poetry claimed a
hearing from the public which was denied to those who spoke merely from the
position of men of letters. Byron (1788-1824) in particular was possessed of
the
gifts and
station required to draw to himself the attention of his countrymen. The
descendant of a long line of noble ancestors, vigorous if lawless in character,
he succeeded when a boy to a great position and to an impoverished estate. His
own temperament, intensely morbid, was rendered more so by the injudicious
treatment of it by his mother, who, after her husband had wasted all her
fortune, was left a widow when her son was only three years old. At the age of
thirteen he was sent to Harrow, a school at that time largely recruited from
the sons of the Whig aristocracy, and noted for the lawlessness of its
scholars. Here he distinguished himself by his pugnacity, and was the leader in
two rebellions. In his eighteenth year he entered Trinity College, Cambridge,
where his habits were equally turbulent; though he qualified himself for his
M.A. degree in 1808. In 1807 he published his first volume of poems, with the
title Hours of Idleness. His verses, crude in feeling and workmanship, were
coloured with the romantic sentimentalism and introspection then fashionable.
But they showed a passionate sensibility, and were far from deserving the
contemptuous notice bestowed on them by the Edinburgh Review in March, 1808.
This criticism called into play the active and satiric side of Byron’s genius;
and his vigorous retaliation on'Jiis critics in English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers was received by the public with interest and favour. In 1809 he left
England to travel for two years on the Continent, during which time he wrote
the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. These be published with reluctance,
having himself but a poor opinion of them; and it was with real surprise that,
after their appearance, he awoke—to use his own words—one morning and found
himself famous. The glimpse of Childe Harold’s character given in the first
canto, combined with the poetic descriptions and meditative reflections
inspired by his wide wanderings, exactly hit the taste of an aristocratic
society, devoured by ennui, which recognised in the sentiment of the
self-banished Childe a lively image of its own suppressed opinions. The Giaour
and The Bride of Abydos published in 1813, and followed in 1814 by The Corsair
and Lara, added to the reputation Byron had already acquired as the orator of
romantic feeling.
But in 1816
the whole character of his genius was altered by his domestic misfortunes. He
had married in the previous year; and his daughter, Augusta Ada, had just been
born to him, when his wife resolved to leave him. The reason of her action has
never been fully explained, but it seems probable that her husband’s morbid
habits had caused her to believe him mad. On the other hand the malignant
scandal of society raised a public outcry against his character, which became
more virulent after the appearance of The Siege of Corinth and Pasrisina.
Perceiving himself to be regarded as a moral outcast, he left England in 1816
and never revisited it. The effect on his genius was twofold. When he became
famous his satiric passion had subsided, and his introspective
712
temper was
satisfied with reproducing its romanticism in forms such as the figure of Lara,
suggested by the fictions of Mrs Radcliffe. In the third canto of Childe
Harold, published in 1816, and in Manfred, which appeared in 1817, the
expression of his self-consciousness became doubly intense; but his satiric
genius was also roused to vengeance against the society which had expelled him;
and in Don Juan (1819) and The Vision of Judgment (1822), he turned upon his
moral censors with the same reckless energy he had displayed in his boyish
satire against his Scotch reviewers. His fiery and rebellious career was
brought to a manly conclusion at Missolonghi in 1824, as he was taking a
leading part in the war for the liberation of Greece.
The genius of
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) offers in many respects a striking contrast to
that of his friend and fellow-poet. Like Byron he was bom of an ancient family;
and the marks of race displayed themselves in his refined and patrician
features. But in him aristocratic distinction had developed into a singularity
which approached to madness. From an early age he devoured romances, and,
inspired by his love of chemical experiments and by the revolutionary theories
of the time, began to dream of the unlimited powers of human nature. At Eton
his peculiar tastes secluded him from the public life of the school; at Oxford
his wild political enthusiasm brought him under the notice of the authorities
of his college, and led to the severe measure of his expulsion. While the
imagination of Byron, nurtured in a social atmosphere of supernatural fiction,
and brooding over his own destiny, caused him to project his personality into a
hundred shapes, Shelley’s fancy was absorbed in the idealisation of the human
race. He had formed a conception of society founded on the theories put forward
by William Godwin (1756-1836) in his Political Justice; and his mind was
peopled with shadows evoked from the books he read, for which he was constantly
seeking anti-types in the world without him. Byron conceived his imaginary
actions in the deeds of various kinds of rebels and outlaws, suggested by his
own character and circumstances, and strongly coloured with sentiments familiar
to all his readers. Shelley created a visionary world, in which he himself was
always a leading actor, but the forms of which existed only in his own
consciousness. “You talk Utopian,” as he makes Byron say to him in Julian and
Maddalo. In his eagerness to propagate his political enthusiasms he resembled
Coleridge; but he was devoid of the humour which enabled the latter to realise
the causes of the failure of his journalistic schemes. Completely ignorant of
the nature of mankind, and passionately sincere in his own convictions, Shelley
was in the habit of investing his most common-place acquaintances with ideal
attributes, as in Epipsychidion, and of regarding them as demons when they came
short of his expectations. At the same time his consistent endeavours to put
his theories into practice brought him frequently into collision either with
the laws
Revolutionary character of Shelley's
poetry. 713
or the
customs of his country. This perpetual conflict with society exaggerated in his
mind the ideas of pessimism on which his philosophy rested. He imagined evil to
have gained the supreme power in the world, and held that the first duty of man
was to aid the suppressed principle of good to overthrow tyranny, by subverting
all existing authority and established opinion.
A character
so single-minded and quixotic was more fitted, with all its genius, to shock
than to convert society. Shelley’s opinions reacted on the style of his poetry.
He used epic and dramatic forms to embody his political ideas; but in his
representation of human affairs his readers found none of the conditions which
centuries of great poetical tradition had led them to expect. While their fancy
was dazzled with a succession of sublime images, a poem like The Revolt of
Islam presented them with no intelligible order of ideal action, and no
character whose motives and behaviour could win their sympathetic admiration.
They were forced to trust themselves entirely to the conduct of the poet’s
capricious imagination, and to accustom themselves to the company and
conversation of the disembodied spirits to whom he introduced them. Even in his
Prometheus Unbound, where the subject, with sound judgment, is associated with
ideas made familiar by a drama so famous as the Prometheus Vbictus, the
revolutionary idea, embodied in the person of Prometheus, fades after the first
act, and all distinctness of form and order dies away into vaporous landscapes
and mystical choruses. Landor’s graphic description of Coleridge’s poetical
style, “bright colours without form, sublimely void,” applies with equal or
greater justice to the style of Shelley. The excellence of his poetry is concentrated
in himself: it is essentially lyric. When he lighted on a subject which
connected him by human sympathy with his readers,—such as the ideal description
of himself in Prince Athcmase; or when he expressed in verse his own griefs,
hopes, aspirations, and despondencies,—as in Adonais, the Ode to the Skylark,
and To the West Wind, the Lines written among the Eugaman Hills, or those
composed In Dejection at Naples,—he touched chords of unique beauty; but he is,
as a rule, powerless to represent the objects required to arouse pity, terror,
or indignation. In the single exception, The Cenci, which is written with
admirable self-restraint, and the characters of which are distinctly conceived,
the poet himself says that he deliberately avoided poetical ornament,
concentrating his efforts on a vivid realisation of actual events; at the same
time the subject of the play was too horrible for representation on the stage.
The poetry
both of Byron and Shelley was revolutionary, but not in the same sense as that
of Wordsworth. The latter, like Coleridge, sympathised at the outset with the
principles of the French Revolution, because he did not foresee the effect they
would produce. He thought that they could be assimilated, without disturbing
the religious and moral basis of society, which, however, he hoped might be
reconstructed
on the lines
of his own imagination. Hence the analytic process which, with the approval of
Coleridge, he assigns to poetic imagination, placing its chief duty in
discovering to the world the nature of common objects in their true, that is,
their poetic, relations. In Byron and Shelley, on the other hand, imagination
performs its time-honoured creative functions in a new way. Byron creates
entirely out of his own individuality, Shelley out of his philosophical fancy;
both of them, like the old poets, carry the imagination of the reader into an
ideal world. In this respect at least they were conservative. Byron was never
tired of ridiculing the experiments of the Lake School from the traditional
point of view; and Shelley in Peter Bell the Third satirises Wordsworth’s
attempts at poetical creation by means of imaginative analysis.
In another
respect the poetical practice of Byron and Shelley was far more conservative
than Wordsworth’s theory of the art. Their diction was completely removed from
the language of prose, and in different degrees was founded on the metrical
example of their predecessors. The style of Byron in particular was essentially
an extension and amplification of the principles of Diyden and Pope; that is to
say, it was grounded upon the colloquial usage of educated society refined by
literary selection. Familiar with the conversation of men and women in the most
aristocratic walks of life, he employed all their idioms with fine audacity, in
various established metres, as his purpose required. He wrote with equal
facility in the heroic couplet, blank verse, Spenser stanza, and ottava rima.
His style, often careless, tawdry, obscure, is never affected; when he is
writing under the inspiration of strong feeling it is animated by a tremendous
force and directness, unapproached by any of his contemporaries, or indeed by
any other poet. Shelley’s style, less nervous, is far more spiritual and
refined. To him the lines of Drayton on Marlowe seem to apply with special
force, as one who,
Bathed in the
Thespian springs,
Had in him
the bright transl unary things That the first poets had; his raptures were All
air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine
madness still he did retain,
Which rightly
should possess a poet’s brain.
He moves in
his far-off sphere with all the swiftness and ease of a disembodied spirit.
Never attempting condensation and comparison, he builds his aerial imagery, as
it rises in his mind, out of an apparently boundless vocabulary, which seems to
adapt itself instinctively to all the windings of his thought. But he uses the
established metres of his country; and, in the larger part of his verse, iambic
or trochaic rhythms are adequate vehicles for the remotest flights of his
fancy. In two characteristic passages he has described his own aim in metrical
composition. In the preface to The Cenci, he says that he has written “without
an over-fastidious and learned choice of words. In this respect
I entirely
agree with those modem critics who assert that, in order to move men to true
sympathy, we must use the familiar language of men; and that our great
ancestors, the ancient English poets, are the writers a study of whom might
incite us to do that for our own age which they have done for theirs. But it
must be the real language of men in general, and not that of any particular
class to whose society the writer happens to belong.”
And again, in
the preface to The Revolt of Islam,, in which he has stamped his own
individuality on the Spenser stanza, he says: “I have sought to avoid the
imitation of any style of language or versification peculiar to the original
minds of which it is the character, designing that, even if what I have
produced be worthless, it should still be properly my own. I have simply
clothed my thoughts in what appeared to me the most obvious and appropriate
language. A person familiar with nature, and with the most celebrated
productions of the human mind, can scarcely err in following the instinct, with
respect to selection of language, produced by that familiarity.”
With the name
of Byron is naturally associated that of his biographer, Thomas Moore
(1779-1852). Moore stands to Byron and Shelley, in the group of
nineteenth-century Romantic poets, much in the same relation as Gay stood to
Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, in the Classic confederacy of the previous
century. With a poetical genius far inferior to that of his companions, he
possessed certain genial and popular qualities that endeared him to the society
with which the others were at war. He resembled Gay in the facility with which
he could adapt himself to the taste of the moment, and in the readiness with
which he subordinated the art of poetry to fashionable demands. The son of an
Irish grocer and wine-merchant, his sympathies were early enlisted in the cause
of Irish nationality; but he kept free from the entanglements of the conspiracy
in which his friend Emmet was involved. Like Gay, he understood the art of
music; and the foundation of his success as a poet was laid in the skill with
which he composed melodious and flowing lyrics for old Irish airs. These, being
often inspired by the nationalist movement, excited enthusiasm and admiration
in Ireland, and, falling in with the catchword of liberty employed by the
English Whigs, were welcomed by the leaders of the Opposition, in whose houses
Moore, a sweet singer of his own melodies, became a familiar and petted figure.
When the Whigs were estranged from the Prince Regent, Moore placed at the
disposal of the party his gift of easy, familiar verse; and his Twopenny
Post-hag reflected successfully the humours of the not very interesting
political intrigues in the period preceding the battle of Waterloo. In 1816 he
turned the public taste for Oriental romance to account in the most ambitious
of his poetical efforts, Lalla Rookh. He took great pains in accumulating
details of Eastern manners for the colouring of this poem, and contrived to
blend them very happily with a form of romance borrowed from
Beckford’s
Vathek and Mrs Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho. The versification of the poem
is a mixture of Byron’s style in Lara and The Giaour with the easy
mellifluousness of Moore’s own Irish Melodies. Its saccharine sweetness gave it
an immense popularity, which, ov 'ng to a want of nerves and sinews in the
diction, has proved fleeting. But there is excellent ingenuity in the prose
narrative employed as a framework for the series of poems; and the whole
design, including the parody of the solemn criticism of the Edinburgh and
Quarterly Remews in the character of Fadladeen, entitles Lalla Rookh to a
permanent place in the history of English poetry.
If, however,
poetry be regarded in the sphere of creative invention, rather than in that of
lyrical self-expression, no writer of the day can compare, in respect of
largeness of achievement, with Walter Scott (17711832). A Tory in politics, a
Conservative in literary taste, the amplitude of his humanity and his wide
sympathies enabled him to conquer a new world of imagination, which lay beyond
the range either of the Lake School philosophy or of revolutionary idealism. He
was the descendant of Scottish borderers; and, though his father, a Writer to
the Signet in Edinburgh, was a steady Hanoverian loyalist, of whose principles
he himself entirely approved, his own fancy was coloured with all the Jacobite
sympathies which had distinguished his remoter ancestors. Prom veiy early days
his mind was steeped in the traditions of feudalism, and he delighted in the
quaint medieval terms and customs of the Scotch law, of which he was for many
years a student. In literature he was an ardent admirer of the classical
principles of Dryden, Swift, Pope, and Johnson; at the same time his
imagination was stirred by the movement of German supematuralism; he naturally
sympathised with the reaction in favour of the old ballad poetry peculiar to
his own border-land; he felt the intellectual influence, though he dissented
from the poetical practice, of the Lake School; and his ear was caught with the
novelty of the rhythms embodied in Coleridge’s Christabel. Hence he had all the
imaginative qualities required to expand the taste of a nation resolved at once
to abide by the dearly-won experience of the past, and to surmount the barriers
of a mechanical tradition.
Scott’s
earliest exploration of the new world of romance was in verse. He joined
Matthew Lewis in the latter’s attempt to acclimatise the German “ spectral ”
school, and contributed to Tcdes of Wonder (1801) a translation of Burger’s
ballad Lenore. But he speedily diverged into the path to which he had been led
by his study of the ballads of his native country. In 1803 he inserted in the
third volume of his Border Minstrelsy the admirable ballad Cadyow Castle, in which
he first showed how the swiftness and energy of the old ballad style might be
combined with classical polish and selection in the use of metrical language.
The form of his first long poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), was to a
great extent the result of chance. Springing
out of a
promise to Laxly Dalkeith to emhody in verse a wild Border legend, the primal
idea was gradually augmented with the conception of the last of the minstrels,
the weird goblin atmosphere of the story being evidently imitated from the
style of Christabel. When these elements were pieced together, it was seen that
Scott had contrived to invent a new species of epic poem. While this lacked the
loftiness of the old epic, it possessed the swiftness of the Homeric narrative;
and every English reader was delighted to find himself in an ideal world, where
a very slight knowledge of history enabled him to sympathise with the feelings
and actions of fictitious personages. The octosyllabic verse of the poem,
though below the dignity of epic, was well adapted to the character of the
incidents related; and its over-facility was restrained by a judicious mixture
of rime couee. This experiment was extended and improved in Marmion (1808) and
The Lady of the Lake (1810), both of which abound in passages of animated
incident and description, the battle-pieces in each being of especial
excellence. Rokeby (1813) and The Lord of the Isles (1815) are products of a
period of declining inspiration.
More lasting
in its effects, because based on deeper and older foundations, was the
revolution in romantic fiction accomplished by Scott in the great series of the
Waverley Novels. The English novel, in the form under which we know it, sprang
into popularity towards the middle of the eighteenth century with Richardson’s
Pamela. It was the product of a long and varied history. The novel and the
romance had completely distinct origins, the former being the descendant of the
ancient fabliau, the latter of the roman, or history written in the Romance
tongue, as distinguished from history written in Latin. Hence from the earliest
times the essence of the novel (novella) consisted in the imitation of real
life and manners, while the romance was a record of wonderful events which were
believed to have actually happened in the remote past. But both types underwent
strange transformations. The fate of the fabliau, or short story of life and
manners, orally told, was to lose itself in the gradual development of the
drama, becoming, in its new form of existence, the groundwork of tragedy and
comedy. On the other hand the romance by degrees dropped its original character
of history, while retaining the accidental accompaniments of magic and marvel;
the structure of the Spanish romances, which descend from Amadis of Gaul, is
radically different from that of the old chivalrous romances of the trouveres,
represented in Malory’s History of King Arthur. Cervantes gave the first idea
of the manner in which the story of real life might be combined with the
wonders of romance, by his invention of the satiric narrative of Don Quixote.
But for a long time the types of the novel and the romance were kept entirely
distinct. The former, coloured with all the elements it had acquired from the
drama, moved, under various shapes, along the path marked out for it by Le Sage
in Gil Bias, as the exponent of everyday action and character; the latter,
aiming at the
serious and heroic, after the tradition of the Spanish romance-writers,;
attained what imaginative results it could by an alliance with Pastoralism, as
in the Arcadia of Sannazaro, or with Court allegory, as in the Ground Cyrus and
Clelie of Mile, de Scudery.
In England
during the eighteenth centrny the type of the novel prevailed decidedly over
that of the romance. The novel insensibly took the place of the decayed poetic
drama, presenting to the reader in a book the strongly-imagined actions and
passions which, in the time of Shakespeare, had been exhibited on the stage.
The situations almost always reflected the incidents of contemporary life; at
the same time the distinctly ethical character of thought in the eighteenth
century compelled the novelist to invest his stories with something of the
gravity peculiar to the romance, and to disown the trivial purposes of the old
fabliau. Richardson’s intentions in his novels are always directly moral;
Smollett, who in his novels of adventure follows the footsteps of Le Sage,
professes that his object is “to subject folly to ridicule and vice to
indignation”; while Fielding, a disciple of Cervantes, gives dignity to his
descriptions of real life by philosophical discourses and invocations of the
Muse.
Horace
Walpole was the first to employ romance in fiction for the mere purpose of
amusement. His aim in The Castle of Otranto (1764) was simply to beguile ennui
by the discovery of novel sensations, and for this purpose he sought to revive
the magic of the old Spanish romances in a modern form. His experiment opened
the door to German spectralism; and this again inspired a host of English imitators.
Mrs Radcliffe in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and many other stories,
Matthew Lewis in The Monk (1795), and Charles Maturin in The Fatal Revenge
(1807) and Mehnoth the Wanderer (1820), all based their romantic style on the
tragic horror aroused by the presence of the supernatural.
There was an
obvious limitation in the imaginative capacity both of the novel and the
romance, as they were each treated up to the close of the eighteenth century.
Both were lacking in the element of the universal, the ideal quality, from
whatever source derived, which makes a fictitious creation interesting at all
times, in all places, and to all persons. In so far as the novel treated of
human character and passion, it possessed this element, which was, however,
liable to be neutralised by an excessive minuteness in the description of
manners, since these, being in their essence accidental and transitory, tended
when obsolete to destroy the illusive life of the ideal creation. The
supernatural romance, on the contrary, depended for its interest entirely on
mystery: it aroused a feeling of wonder or terror by its description of
dreadful effects of which the cause was unexplained; its authors also sought to
trace the feeling of supernatural awe to psychological sources. Hence the
creations of the romance writers soon lost their vitality; the narrator might
divine accurately the means by which the readers of his own day could be
astonished or
frightened, but in his inventions he made no allowance for the advance of
science, nor ever conceived of the coming of a sceptical generation in which
children would turn with prosaic indifference from horrors which made the men
and women of his own time afraid to go to bed.
By the
exertion of sound judgment and a prodigious creative genius, Scott, blending
the two types, extended the horizons both of the novel and the romance in such
a manner as to suit the adventurous spirit of his age. He saw that in history,
the source out of which the romance originally sprang, he possessed the empire
of a region which enabled him at once to dispense with supernatural machinery
and to avail himself of all the interest arising out of the description of life
and manners. When they believe that something has happened, men, as Aristotle
says, are ready to believe in an imaginative account of how it happened; and,
by throwing back the time of his tales beyond ordinary memory, Scott
transported the fancy of his readers into what was for them almost a
supernatural world. At the same time his knowledge of living men, and his vast
acquaintance with details of manners and customs in earlier times, enabled him
to give the dramatis personae of his ideal action all the vivid colour of
reality. Consequently Carlyle’s attempt to lower the greatness of his genius
fails; and his well-known criticism of Scott—“we might say in a short word,
which covers a long matter, that your Shakespeare fashions his characters from
the heart outwards; your Scott fashions them from the skin inwards, never
getting near the heart of them : the one set become living men and women; the
other amount to little more than mechanical cases, deceptively-painted
automatons”—is radically unsound. It is true of course that Scott’s heroes and
heroines, because they are, as a rule, of another age, move in the midst of an
atmosphere and a “light that never was on sea and land”; it is equally true
that, in their dialogue, many of them do not use the ordinary idioms of men,
but speak an ideal tongue invented by their creator out of his study of the old
English dramatists. But that leaves untouched the truth and consistency of the
whole creation. Setting aside trifling historical inaccuracies, which do not
mar the reality of the general conception, and grammatical negligences, such
as, with Scott’s swift and vigorous habits of composition, are almost
inevitable, the total effect of the Waverley Novels is to leave on the
imagination of the reader, while he is under the spell of the magician, a
complete illusion of nature and probability. If the “ heroes ” of Scott’s
stories—the Henry Mortons and the Prank Osbaldistones—are perhaps of the nature
of “automatons,” that is because they are only required for the action of the
romance; their very unreality helps to set off the beings by whom they are
surrounded—the Cuddie Headriggs, the Bailie Nicol Jarvies, the Dandie Dinmonts,
and the Edie Ochiltrees—whose life and humour is the essence of the novel. So
complete a fusion of the ideal and the real is not to be found outside the
plays of Shakespeare.
Opposed at
all points to the poetical practice of Scott, was that of Keats (1795-1821),
who, in respect of his principle of poetical diction, stood apart from all the
leaders of the literary revolution, but whose work also shows the influence of
the various motives by which the others were inspired. He felt, like
Wordsworth, the movement in the unseen life of nature; like Southey and Landor,
he chose for his subjects themes of purely abstract interest, remote from the
active forces of living society; he sympathised with Shelley, in the efforts of
the latter for the emancipation of thought; and, with Coleridge, he devoted
the whole strength of a powerful fancy to vitalise isolated images raised in
his mind by what he found in books. In the case, however, of all these poets a
mixed literaiy and colloquial usage was, in one sense or another, the
groundwork of metrical style. If Wordsworth, in theory, recommended the idioms
of the peasantry as the true models of poetical diction, what he aimed at was
still the “ real language of men”; however remote were the subjects chosen by
Southey and Landor, however Utopian the lyrical flights of Shelley, the diction
in which each of them couched his thoughts was direct, simple, and conformable
to established models of English verse. Coleridge, no doubt, had given a
certain air of antiquity to The Ancient Mariner and Ckristabel; but that was
because of the dream-like, supernatural character of the story. Keats, on the
other hand, while making frequent mention of himself in his poems, and therefore
to that extent keeping the reader in a modem atmosphere, deliberately revived
in his stories the metrical style of the Elizabethan poets. His manner is
particularly emphatic in the use of decasyllabic iambic verse. Instead of
following the tendency, developed in this metre through many generations, of
marking the period of the sentence or clause by the second rhyme of the
couplet, Keats reverted to the looser method of Drayton and William Browne, in
which the limitation of the couplet itself counts for little or nothing in the
rhetoric of the verse.
In following
this course he obeyed partly an artistic theory, but, to a greater extent, his
own temperament. When he first began to write he was under the influence of
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), who, in his Story of Rimini, had initiated what he
regarded as an emancipating movement in the use of the couplet, by making the
narrative style “ familiar ”; in other words, by embodying in serious verse the
flippant conversational idioms of the metropolitan literary coteries in which
he was a presiding spirit. In Endymion there is a mixture of Hunt’s vulgarity
with the poetical naivety of the Elizabethan or Jacobean poets, whom Keats took
as his models. But, as his genius strengthened, he got rid of Hunt’s unfortunate
manner; and in Lamia, in many respects the finest of his narrative poems, there
is little in the diction discordant with the general effect of the ideal
atmosphere.
The
consequences of this experiment were remarkable, both in respect of what was
avoided and of what was aimed at. In the first place it
721
tended to
remove poetry from the action of contemporary life and society, the stimulus of
which was so strongly felt by poets like Scott and Byron. Keats repudiated in
poetry all connexion with history:
Hence,
pageant history ! hence, gilded cheat!
Swart planet
in the wilderness of deeds;
Wide sea that
one continuous murmur breeds Along the pebbled shore of memory 1
..... Juliet, leaning
Amid her
window flowers—sighing—weaning Tenderly her fancy from its maiden snow,
Doth
more avail than these: the silver flow
,
Of Hero’s
tears, the swoon of Imogen,
Fair
Pastorella in the bandits’ den,
Are things to
brood on with more ardency Than the death-day of Empires.
What he aimed
at in the production of poetry was the invention of permanent ideal forms, such
as are proper to the arts of sculpture and painting. His friendship with the
painter Haydon, and the growing aesthetic tendency in the public taste,
encouraged this inclination of his genius. His imagination dwelt more and more
on the unseen spiritual life revealed in the phenomena of external nature, as
suggested by the philosophy of Wordsworth; and, out of the images he derived
from these and from the stories of Greek mythology, he created for himself an
ideal world, the forms of which appeared to remain stable amidst the general
flux of things. To each separate image, as it rose in his fancy, he sought to
give life and colour by embodying it in appropriate words and rhythms. His success
was proportioned to the fitness of the metrical vehicles which he chose for the
presentation of his thoughts; and—as in the parallel case of Wordsworth—his
finest effects are produced in measures where some kind of definite limitation,
such as that of the sonnet, the ode, the Spenserian stanza, or ottava rima,
enables him to give to abstract images all the distinctness of vivid pictures.
His Odes To a Nightingale, On a Grecian Urn, and To Autumn, are unrivalled for
the richness of their word-painting: the same excellence reappears in the
sonnet On first looking into Chapman’s Homer, and in the stanzas in St Agnes'
Eve describing a winter night and a painted window. On the other hand, in
narrative poems of any length, which depend for their interest on the swiftness
of ideal action and the representation of character and passion, the pictorial
processes of poetic imagination appear insufficient for epic purposes. Endymion
is an invertebrate structure, being made up of a number of episodes—many of
them full of beauties in detail—the versification of which is correspondingly
wanting in nerves and sinews. Hyperion, which is masterly in rhythm and
diction, but is evidently incapable of being organised into an epic whole, was
deliberately left as a fragment by the poet, professedly because it seemed too
openly to challenge comparison with Paradise Lost. If we look to the conditions
justly postulated by
Tasso for the
construction of a modern epic, it is plain that the subject of Keats’ poem does
not contain the degree of human interest which the reader is entitled to expect
in a large composition.
Any historic
and comprehensive survey of the Romantic movement in English literature must
necessarily take into account its weakness as well as its strength, its social
no less than its artistic significance, its relation to the past equally with
its bearing on the future. Romanticism was, in its essence, a struggle for the
emancipation of individual liberty from all traditional restrictions, and it
acquired its power from the doctrines of the French Revolution. Alone among the
great literary group of that era in England, Scott was content to accept the
existing order, civil and religious, as the basis of his artistic creations.
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, no less than Byron and Shelley, sympathised
at the outset with the aims of the French Revolution; it was only when they
realised its destructive consequences, from the first foreseen by Burke, that
the Lake poets became as reactionary as the most unbending Tories. In the same
way the movement, begun by Wordsworth, for a reform of poetic diction ended
with Keats in a poetic reaction.
The strength
of the Romantic revolution lay in this, that the forms, whether political or
literary, which had grown out of the English Revolution of 1688, had exhausted
their vitality, and, becoming purely conventional, were no longer fitting
vehicles for the desires and feelings which, at the close of the eighteenth
century, were agitating the imagination of society. The restrictions of the
Test Acts, the narrow basis of parliamentary representation, and the low
standard of moral and religious life in the ruling classes of society, combined
to stimulate the passion for liberty in the reflective part of the English
nation. So also in poetry, the suppression, after the Revolution of 1688, of
the medieval elements that had provided so much food for the imagination in
earlier times, and the tendency, in the latter days of the Classical
Renaissance, to restrict poetic invention within ethical and didactic limits,
had reduced the art to a state of barren formalism, which naturally provoked a
rebellion on the part of individual genius. It was perhaps equally natural
that, in opposition to the impotent sticklers for traditional practice, the leaders
of the Romantic movement should have declared that poetiy required a completely
“ new departure,” insisting on their right to carry forward each his own
standard, whither inspiration prompted, without reference to the teaching of
histoiy.
Herein the
movement showed weakness; its pioneers saw the past in a wrong perspective. To
cite the opinions of the most extreme representative of their school, they
could see in the style of the eighteenth century only, as Keats says,
a schism
Nurtured by
foppery and barbarism.
Multiplicity of artistic aims.
723
They thought
of poets like Pope, and novelists like Fielding, as an
ill-fated,
impious race,
That
blasphemed the bright lyrist to his face,
And did not
know it.
Bred in the
exciting atmosphere of the French Revolutionary era, they turned with sympathy
to the writings of the great group of poets who flourished under Elizabeth and
her successor. But they made insufficient allowance for the interval of
historic change that had been transforming the manners and language of the
nation since the sixteenth century. The Elizabethans enjoyed the advantage of
great freedom of imagination, because in their time the modes of thought and
expression were still vague and unsettled; but they wrote consciously under the
influence of recognised social requirements, and their experiments in poetic
diction and versification produced certain definite results, which were made
emphatic by the practice of their successors.
The colder
writers of the age of Queen Anne and the first two Georges, appearing when the
course of events had brought the life and movement of the nation within
constitutional limits, had1 to take account of the social order
evolved out of a long period of conflict and civil war; and they no doubt
restricted excessively the liberties enjoyed by the imagination in more
primitive times. But, like their predecessors, they were inspired by common
ideals, and to describe them with Keats as
Holding a
poor decrepit standard out,
Marked with
most flimsy mottoes, and in large The name of one Boileau—
is to display
an entire ignorance of the historic development of the art of poetry in
England.
The great
poets of the Revolutionary era differed from the representative poets of both
the earlier epochs in the multiplicity of their artistic aims. Each of them,
under the influence of unquestionable inspiration, and of an original genius
affected by the atmosphere of the times, formed an individual conception of the
function of poetry, and pursued it along his own road. To Wordsworth poetry was
the channel for “ the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion,” roused in his
mind by the contemplation of nature in his Cumbrian lakes and hills; in poetry
Byron, stimulated by romantic supt (.naturalism, the study of Rousseau, and his
own passions, found a weapon of war against society* and Shelley a vehicle for
his Utopian ideas; while in the hands of Keats poetry became an art for
painting in words the abstract images with which his mind was peopled. In the
case of each the imaginative result achieved was characteristic and splendid,
and the artistic monuments such as will endure as long as the language itself.
But, in so far as their work was purely individual, and conceived apart from
the onward life and movement of the nation, it left no provision for the future
expansion
724 Effect upon Continental literature.
of the art.
Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Keats, cannot, being one of them, be said to
have prepared a way for the development of representative metrical language,
as Marlowe gave a lead to Shakespeare in the poetical drama, Milton to John
Philips, and through him to Thomson and Cowper, in blank verse composition, or
Drummond and Sir John Beaumont to Waller, and Waller to Dryden, Pope, and
Goldsmith, in the use of the heroic couplet.
In fiction
the case was different. As society advances in civil refinement, the
difficulty of overcoming the scepticism and captiousness of men, so far as to
create an illusion in the imagination, is felt to be ever on the increase; so
that there is an inevitable tendency to choose prose rather than verse as the
vehicle for fictitious narrative. Hence, in the eighteenth century, the more
poetic forms of epic fiction, and even the poetic drama, gave place, by what
seems to be a natural law, to the novel of manners or of modem adventure. On
the other hand, as life becomes more prosaic, the imagination seeks, with an
ever-growmg insistency, the satisfaction of its desires for the marvellous and
supernatural. In some form or another, therefore, there seems to be a need for
a combination of the principles of the fabliau and the roman; and this end was
first achieved by Scott in the Waverley Novels. It is a remarkable and
artistically instructive fact, that the one writer of the Romantic group who
stood completely apart from all revolutionary theories in politics, and who was
uncompromisingly conservative in his adherence to literary tradition, should
have been the greatest ideal creator of his age. Through his enterprise English
fiction has been enabled to explore a new world. No subsequent novelist has
indeed approached him in amplitude of creative power. But in different ways,
the best novels of Lord Lytton, Disraeli, Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot,
show that the secret of success in modem romance lies in the principle observed
by Scott—respect for historical continuity in the life of the nation.
There is
another aspect in which the movement of English Romanticism, proper to the
Revolutionary era, deserves consideration, namely, the influence it exercised
on Continental literature. From the early days of Sannazaro’s Arcadia onwards
the curiously international progress of modern romance is noteworthy. The
fashion passed westward from Italy to Spain, and from Spain northwards to
France and England; but, with reference to the present subject, the main point
for observation is the tidal interchange of romantic ideas between England and
France from about the middle of the seventeenth century. What France contributed
to romance was the element of the heroic and sentimental, such as it is
conceived to be in the Grand Cyrus and Clilie of Mile, de Scudery. Passing into
England, through the novels of the Earl of Orrery, the heroic fantasy gradually
reduced itself to modem form in the Sir Charles Gramdison of Richardson, and
furnished a starting-point for the
sentimental
and supernatural heroes who commended themselves to the English imagination
from the last quarter of the eighteenth century down to the time of Byron. But
the idea of primitive liberty, as opposed to the conventions of society,
appears to have originated in England. The earliest glimpse of it is perhaps
caught in the “ noble savage” of Dryden’s Conquest of Granada, who becomes
incarnate in Mrs Behn’s Oroonoko, and is then dissolved into sentiment and philosophy
by Rousseau. Collected again in the vaporous form of sentimental philosophy,
romantic ideas recrossed the Channel into England, to constitute the
intellectual atmosphere in which the poets of the Lake School began to
reconstruct the general conception of their art.
Wordsworth’s
philosophical poetry was of far too abstract and local a character to arrest
the imagination of men who were strangers to his language; Coleridge’s most
characteristic poems, such as The Ancient Mariner and Christahel, were too
essentially dependent on subtleties of rhythm and diction to produce an effect
abroad. The same may be said of the poems of Keats; nor does it seem that,
during the age of revolution, the works of any one of the poets just named were
translated into foreign languages. It might have been expected that verse so
directly inspired as Shelley’s by the dreams of the pioneers of the French
Revolution would have been eagerly read on the Continent. But this was not the
case; and perhaps the generation that followed Condorcet was too thoroughly
disenchanted to be any longer charmed with the visions of his disciples.
Whatever the cause may be, there was no attempt to reproduce Shelley’s works in
French, German, or Italian, during the generation after the battle of Waterloo,
In that age,
however, France, Germany, and Italy, were all interested in a Romantic movement
of their own; and the character of this was largely determined by the poetry of
Byron and the novels of Sir Walter Scott. The vast influence of Byron on the
Continental imagination is readily intelligible. In his Laras, his Conrads, and
his Childe Harolds, men found ideal creations in which the sentimentalism of
Rousseau and other writers of the Continent was combined with the
supernaturalism of Horace Walpole’s and Mrs Radcliffe’s English fictions. The
whole atmosphere in which these heroes moved was lyrical, and stimulated
emotions which were shared by all who were discontented with an order of
society dominated by the absolutist ideas of the Holy Alliance. Hence, when the
literary revolt against Legitimism of every kind began in France after the
restoration of the Bourbons, Byron was the model to which the Romanticists
naturally turned. His influence is equally visible in the types of character
created for the Romantic drama by the elder Dumas and Alfred de Vigny, and in
the introspective lyrics of Lamartine. In Italy the type of Byronic
Romanticism, though disparaged by Leopardi, was propagated by Ugo Foscolo and
others; while in Germany Byron’s cynical turn of thought was characteristically
appropriated and transmuted
by Heine. The
universality of his influence is seen in the polyglot translations of his
works: Childe Harold and even Don Juan have been reproduced in French, German,
Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Hungarian, Bohemian, Swedish, and Danish.
The influence
of Scott, on the contrary, was that of an ideal creator; it was his function to
enlarge on the Continent, as in England, the domain of imagination. Through the
eighteenth century the area of romance had been confined within the limits of
sentimentalism; but, when society .ettled into a new order after the downfall
of Napoleon, it became necessary to satisfy the general craving for an ampler
range of thought and action. Scott’s introduction of history into the sphere of
fiction gave the first signal for the exploration of a new world of ideas; and
in every nation in which historic tradition was vivid men began to revive the
memories of the past. In France, particularly, the example given by the
Waverley Novels stimulated the efforts of the rising Romantic School: Alfred de
Vigny’s Cinq Mars and Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris clearly derive their
origin from tales like Quentin Durward and Peveril of the Peak; and the elder
Dumas is indebted to Scott for the suggestion of those famous cycles of
historical fiction with which he has illustrated French history.
It is
noticeable however that, in all these instances, what the French historical
novelists borrow from Scott is not his method of uniting the romance and the
novel, but simply his extended framework of romance. There is nothing in the
tales of Dumas, for example, at all resembling ■those characteristic
representations of peasant or bourgeois life and character with which Scott
brings into relief the romantic course of his main action. The ethical element
contributed by the novel is absent from Dumas’ representations; the whole
strength of his invention is thrown into his romance. It is his aim, not so
much to carry back the imagination into a past age, still intimately connected
with the life and conduct of the present, as to procure a stage with a
picturesque background which, in combination with the reader’s want of
knowledge, may enable the author to create a momentary illusion of reality. The
flow of the narrative never pauses over episodes and characters, like those of
Jeanie Deans and the Laird of Dumbiedikes, Nanty Ewart, the Baron of
Bradwardine, or the Mucklebackits; the force, the wit, the brilliancy of the
stoiy-teller, filling his romantic personages with his own vitality, hurry the
reader along without giving him time to apply to the imaginary action the tests
of probability. Compared with the Waverley Novels, the French historic romance
gains on the side of amusement; it loses on the side of ideal truth. The
difference in the treatment of historic fiction doubtless reflects the
difference in the character and history of the two nations. Feudalism, in the
French historic novel, is the reflexion of a shadow, the substance of which has
vanished from society; in the tales of Sir Walter Scott it is the image of a
still living spirit.
ECONOMIC
CHANGE.
During the generation that followed the great wars no
region of Europe remained altogether unaffected by that long series of economic
developments which has changed the face and profoundly affected the structure
of modem society. It was no mere industrial revolution; its story is not a list
of inventions or a biography of inventors. Nor is it simply the story of
capital and capitalistic production; nor yet that of the freeing of commerce,
industry, and agriculture from customary or legal restrictions. Side by side
with mechanical invention, the rising power of capital, the extension of
economic freedom, and the expansion of international trade, went an astonishing
growth of population and— more important still—a partial introduction of the
methods and results of exact science into economic affairs. The distinctive
mark of European economic history in the latter part of the eighteenth and the
earlier part of the nineteenth century is to be found, not in any single change
or group of changes, but rather in the coincidence of many types of change and
the rapidity with which some of these types developed. Everywhere there was
movement; but the causes of movement were infinitely varied. At one point, some
carefully considered scheme of constructive economic reform was carried through
by the State. At another, the State merely removed old barriers or sanctioned
the enterprises of private citizens. Here a series of changes might be traced
to the application of the discoveries of the chemist to manufactures or agriculture.
There change was due simply to a forward step of rather unusual significance in
the long, slow evolution of the mechanic arts. Other sets of forces were
brought into play by decisive discoveries of the class that attract almost
disproportionate attention—machinery for spinning or an effective steam-engine.
The rise of new nations and the political reform of old ones carried with them
readjustments in the balance of economic power; while war and conquest
temporarily deprived many an old seat of trade or industry of its ability to
further or share in a movement which, under other circumstances, it might have
led. The narrative of these things cannot be fitted into the mould of any
generalisation. It must above all things be varied, if it is even to indicate
the truth.
The whole
eighteenth century, down to the outbreak of the French Revolution, had been an
age of steady industrial development and of great commercial activity
throughout western Europe. In spite of dynastic and colonial wars, intercourse
among the nations became more frequent and more free than ever before. The more
or less scientific and comparative study of national resources, that in England
had taken the form of political arithmetic, was now no uncommon thing.
Imitation of superior foreign methods in agriculture, commerce, and the arts,
was zealously advocated and keenly pursued. Where spontaneous economic development
failed, enlightened princes and reforming ministers sought to generate it with
a zeal not always according to knowledge. There was an accelerating
accumulation of capital in most western countries. Investment had assumed in
England, and to some extent in France and in the German North Sea ports, the
modern forms already familiar in Holland in the seventeenth century and in
Italy still earlier. Banking, the necessary prerequisite to investment and the
organ of highly developed commerce, had made conspicuous progress, mainly,
however, in Great Britain. That British banking alone had been increasingly
successful is significant. Towards the close of the eighteenth century London
had definitively superseded Amsterdam as the chief seat of finance—and of
commerce—in the West.
Trade was
cutting its own channels, wherever Governments would permit. In the more
advanced countries it had refused, long before the middle of the eighteenth
century, to confine itself to fairs and markets, after the medieval fashion. It
had become an everyday matter, had ceased to be a thing of times and seasons.
Yet in France the decline of the fairs only became marked in the two
generations which the year 1700 divided; while in inland Germany they were
still growing in importance long after 1789. Over-sea trade, though still
jealously guarded and directed, needed and received less supervision than had
once been held essential. Even in Spain many of the old restrictions connected
with the colonial trade—the fixed times and places for traffic, the Cadiz
monopoly, the prohibition of intercolonial commerce—had been abandoned by 1774
with very satisfactory results; while the American rebellion shook the colonial
system of England. The great privileged cran'ng companies, formed for the most
part during the seventeenth century, were no longer the pioneers and directors
of distant enterprise. Some had fallen, others—like the English East India
Company—maintained a vigorous though limited and menaced authority.
A widespread
care for the improvement of internal means of communication, combined with an
ever-growing international trade, had quickened the pulse of economic life.
This care was not everywhere a new thing. The Dutch had been canal-makers from
the beginning. Their made roads were of old standing. In parts of northern
Italy also the art of civil engineering had never died out; and its progress
had
been a matter
of concern to most intelligent statesmen in Europe since the days of Louis XIV,
or even of Henry IV. In spite of bankruptcy and misrule, France, when Louis XVI
came to the throne, possessed some ten or twelve well-situated inland canals
and a few incomparable highways. In Great Britain the task of improving river
navigation, reconstructing roads, and cutting navigable canals, fell for the
most part into the hands of associated landowners and traders. This work was in
full swing in the seventies and eighties; but most of the long water-routes
were unfinished, and many districts—especially in the north—were still provided
only with pack-horse tracks or wretched highways in 1789. Government enterprise
in the United Kingdom was confined to the strategic roads of the Highlands and
to the assistance of Scotch and Irish canal-building.
In Austria
under Maria Teresa and Joseph, in Spain under Charles III, in Tuscany under the
Grand Duke Leopold, road-making found a place in the general work of reform.
Nor was it neglected in Prussia and the other States of the modern German
Empire. But central and northern Germany had no Roman foundations to build on
and often lacked satisfactory material to work with, especially in the plains
of the north-east, where the roads resembled the impracticable tracks of Poland
and Russia. The first scientifically constructed chaussee on Prussian territory
dates from 1788, the first within the bounds of modem Germany from 1753. In
canal-building Prussia had made satisfactory progress, for her rulers had
interested themselves in it ever since the Thirty Years’ War. Yet, taken as a
whole, the German-speaking lands, together with all eastern Europe, were still
cut up into small self- sufficing areas, save in so far as natural waterways
supplied the lack of artificial means of communication.
Throughout
Europe the use of both natural and artificial routes was hampered by an excess
of tolls and taxes. The free Rhenish towns laid heavy burdens on the river
trade; the navigation of the Seine was very far from free; and these things
were not exceptional. Each little State in Germany and Italy, almost every
province in Austria and France and Spain, had its custom-houses, possibly its
prohibited exports and imports. Turgot’s efforts had not freed the internal
traffic of France by 1789; and elsewhere such efforts had hardly become
possible. Britain alone of the greater nations was in a position to make full
use of the work of the road and canal builders. Tolls levied by the State were
well-nigh extinct; there remained only the commercial tolls levied by canal
companies and turnpike trustees. National unity was bearing its economic fruit.
England in
the eighteenth century exemplified the close connexion which must always exist
between improvement in the means of travel and transport, the concentration of
population, and a progressive agriculture. Where the cultivator works only to
supply his own needs, those of his lord—if he has a lord—or those of his
immediate neighbourhood, he rarely escapes from the crushing compulsion of
traditional
730
methods. The
demand of the town and the roads which make it possible to meet that demand are
essential if there is to be rapid movement on the land. In England the growth
of London furnished a main driving force, although the influence of other towns
became considerable as the century drew to a close. Most of the new roads led
to London; and the most successful agricultural development was usually to be
found in the counties that helped to feed London. So also in France the
influence of Paris was felt over a wide area and directly stimulated
agricultural reform. And those regions of Europe which for generations, even
for centuries, had been famous for high farming, for the variety and ingenious
rotation of their crops, the scientific feeding and care of their cattle, the
skilful use of manure and the absence of wasteful fallows, were all old seats
of town life well provided with routes and highways. Such were Flanders—both
Austrian and French—Provence, parts of Holland and of northern Italy, lands
which had long served as models for the rest of Europe.
These model
lands had for the most part long enjoyed tolerably free systems of land tenure
and of agriculture which gave scope for enterprise and improvement, whereas
progress was hindered throughout a great part of Europe by the survival of
systems which did not. In England, in the Teutonic lands generally, in northern
and eastern France, and in parts at least of northern Italy, the prevalent
system had once been that of the village with its open, common, arable fields,
in which the land of the cultivators—on whatever tenure it was held—lay
scattered in detached strips and was worked after a traditional routine binding
upon all. The outstanding features of the routine were the prominence of com
crops, the practice of letting all land lie fallow one year in two or three, and
the right of occupiers to feed their beasts on the stubble fields, as well as
on the common village pastures that lay beyond them. Kindred systems
characterised the Slavonic lands. Servile and semi-servile tenures had almost
everywhere associated themselves with the common field agriculture. Where both
survived intact in 1789, change was excluded. Things stood thus, for instance,
in Russia and in most of eastern Germany. In western Germany tenures were
freer; but the common field agriculture, in one or other of its forms, was
still prevalent. In France true servile tenures were rare; compact farms had
long existed in many districts; and there had been no small amount of enclosure
both of common fields and—more frequently—of waste land, between 1766 and 1789.
In England servile tenures were extinct, and the English common fields had been
disappearing for centuries. Rapid enclosure had set in towards the middle of
the eighteenth century; but it is probable that at least a third of the arable
land remained unenclosed in 1789.
Decline in
common field husbandry was associated in Great Britain, as it had always been,
with imitation of the free and rational methods of the model lands or with
spontaneous agricultural progress. By 1789
root crops
and green crops were at least known to the ordinary farmer or yeoman, though by
no means always used by him, in most parts of the country. Their introduction
allowed of a more scientific rotation and had transformed many a barren
district, especially in the eastern counties. The roots and the fodder crops
also assisted the [revolution in cattle- breeding and cattle-tending, which is
associated with the names of Bakewell and his imitators. Much of the land
recently enclosed—in Leicester and Derby for instance—had been laid down in
permanent pasture to feed the new flocks and herds, which themselves fed London
and the towns. In France, since the middle of the century, better rotations,
reduction in the quantity of fallow, and the use of clover and sainfoin, had
been spreading in various provinces hitherto subject to tradition; the potato
had been introduced, and the breeds of cattle and sheep had been improved. But
the frequently injudicious control of agriculture by Government, the prevalence
of absenteeism and subletting, and the poverty and ignorance of the mass of the
peasantry, were not favourable to progress. Outside France there is even less
change to register. Clearing of wood and waste, together with better rotations
of crops, was beginning in Hainault, Brabant, and the other backward provinces
of the Netherlands. Experiments with the new field-crops were being made in
western Germany, mainly, however, in Westphalia, where the common tillage was
rare; while in the east the large landowners, the natural leaders of agricultural
reform, could do little so long as their domain lands lay—as they still very
generally did—in scattered fragments among those of their peasants in the great
open fields.
The mere
absence of common field husbandry was in itself no guarantee of progress. Great
parts of south-western France and of Spain, regions where the true common field
seems never to have existed, were being tilled on the eve of the French
Revolution as they had been tilled in Roman times, only with less skill and
success—com following fallow and fallow com, year in year out. There, as in
many parts of Italy, freedom or economic stimulus, or both, failed; and the
peasant remained standing in the old ways. Even in England enclosure did not
necessarily bring with it better rotations and methods, though it generally
increased the productivity and rentable value of the land. On the other hand,
in Germany, throughout the thickly-peopled districts of the south and west, and
elsewhere near the towns, the continued existence of common field corn-growing
had not prevented the early establishment and steady progress of that type of
small-scale cultivation which is more akin to gardening than to husbandry; for
the towns required it.
The familiar
series of revolutionary inventions, which towards the end of the eighteenth
century so greatly extended the use of capital in industry, fell on prepared
soil. In all the western nations there existed some mining and manufacturing on
a large scale, and many trades in
which the
hand-workers, though not grouped into great establishments, were to a
considerable extent dependent on the capitalist employer or merchant, for whom
they usually worked and from whom they received their materials. These things
were most common in England, Belgium, and Holland; but even in England the
amount of capital invested and the number of hands employed under one
management, in those industr * s which could show the largest individual
business undertakings, were as a rule insignificant, if judged by
nineteenth-century standards; while in most parts of Europe there was something
abnormal and exceptional about both the economic and the legal status of
factory trades. They were still the nurslings of the State; they had often to
face the steady opposition of master-craftsmen’s guilds or to submit to the
excessive supervision of the Governments, their creators. In France, for
instance, where since the early seventeenth century the Crown had encouraged
them and had checked the restrictive tendencies of the guilds, few large
factories or works came into being which did not receive some special
privilege, exemption from taxes, local monopoly, or actual financial support
from Government, and therewith the supervision which such favours implied. A
royal charter was essential to their existence; and, although in the later days
of Louis XV and under his successor privileges were granted less freely than
had once been customary, the old system of Crown support and patronage
survived. When a foundry and glassworks were set up at Creusot in 1782, the
chief shareholder in the former was Louis XVI, and in the latter
Marie-Antoinette.
Similar
methods for encouraging both large and small industrial enterprises were
universally employed on the Continent; but in very few cases had they led to
the establishment of large single businesses, outside France and the Low
Countries. In Prussia, Saxony, Austria—as well as in more backward countries
like Russia and Spain;—Government had set up some considerable works, such as
Frederick the Great’s foundry at Berlin; but most of the industries which the
enlightened princes fostered and regulated were carried on by small
master-craftsmen with very modest capitals. The linen manufacture of Silesia,
the woollen manufacture of Berlin, the silk manufacture of Crefeld, were of
this type. In Prussia, as in England, the raw material for such manufactures
was sometimes supplied by capitalist merchants to the domestic workers; but
this dependence on the owners of capital was an exceptional feature of trades
which were themselves exceptionally situated and abnormally progressive, when
judged by German standards. What progress in organisation they had made before
the last quarter of the eighteenth century was due in part to royal
encouragement, but mainly to the fact that they worked for export and so were
brought under the influence of a commercial system already, and of necessity,
organised on capitalistic lines. As a whole, the industrial activity of Germany
and of all inner Europe was both insignificant in quantity and primitive in
character.
A right
instinct has selected the invention of spinning-machinery and the perfection of
the steam-engine in England as the chief industrial events of the later
eighteenth century. The first led to the reorganisation of what had long been the
greatest group of industries ; the second furnished motive power for both new
and old mechanical processes. But they were only the most important links in a
long chain of improvements which freer industry, increasing skill and capital,
expanding commerce, and a more scientific handling of technical problems,
introduced into various branches of manufacture, not only in England but
throughout Europe. During the earlier decades of the century England was still
a borrower in matters of industry. She had learnt many things from the Huguenot
craftsmen who left France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Shortly
after 1700 the swivel-loom, a complex piece of mechanism for weaving many
narrow ribbons at once, seems to have come from Holland into the Manchester
small-ware trade. Rather earlier the art of tinning iron plates had been
introduced from Saxony, though it was apparently perfected in South Wales.
Lombe’s water-driven silk-throwing mill, which has been claimed as the first
English factory, was built in 1719 from Italian models. Until about 1730 there
was, in all probability, hardly a single branch of manufacture in this country
that had not still something to learn in technique from the Continent;
although, unaided, England had applied the primitive steam-engine to the work
of freeing her mines from water. But from that time onwards she began to take
the lead, until, on the eve of the French Revolution, although her skill in
some of the more artistic crafts was inferior to that of France and perhaps to
that of the Netherlands, her supremacy as a manufacturing power was beyond
question. For in almost all the main branches of industry she had already
evolved and applied fresh methods of production.
The need for
fresh methods had been most keenly felt in the metal trades, for the decline in
England’s stock of timber threatened the smelting industry. About 1740 smelting
with coal or coke instead of charcoal, a process that had been tried
experimentally almost a century earlier, was finally started. For thirty years
it made small progress; then it was adopted almost universally within a
generation. This delay followed by rapid movement was no accident. The movement
coincided with the perfection of the steam-engine by Watt. Steam was applied to
the blast-furnaces; and the building of steam-engines in its turn created a new
demand for iron and steel. In the eighties came Cort’s improved method of
producing wrought iron in the puddling furnace and iron bars and sheets by
means of rollers—the latter a device known in England half a century earlier,
but little practised until the age of steam. Since the work of Huntsman, about
the middle of the century, the making of cast steel had progressed rapidly in
Sheffield. So the demand was met. Cast iron began to be used for structural
purposes as
734 Iron industry.—Machine manufacture.
[1740-1834
soon as the
increased output was secure; and already in 1815 the growth of that output
might have served as a gauge of economic progress. Thirteen years later (1828)
the application of the hot-air blast to smelting concluded the first cycle of
great inventions that dealt with the production of the raw iron. In 1740 the
annual output of iron in Great Britain had been some 17,000 to 18,000 tons. It
was 150,000 in 1800, and nearly 1,400,000 in 1840.
Of greater
significance for the general progress of manufacture and commerce than the mere
increased production of raw iron was the establishment in England, during the
first forty years of the nineteenth century, of mechanical engineering as the
organised capitalistic industry, upon which all other industries were beginning
to depend. From one point of view that industry may be said to have been bom
between 1770 and 1785 at Boulton and Watt’s Soho works, when some of the
skilled workmen in what was already probably the greatest manufacturing
establishment in the country turned from the making of buttons and buckles and
watch-chains to the building of steam-engines. Even before Watt joined him,
Boulton had employed water-power to drive his simple metal lathes. Power,
numbers, and capital, were thus brought together in Soho; but something more
had to be added before modem engineering could come into existence. That
want—the automatic principle by which machines make one another—was gradually satisfied
during the nineteenth century; and great businesses grew up, though slowly, to
apply the principle on a large scale. Patents for wood-working lathes in which
the cutting tool was held by a slide-block instead of by hand were taken out
between 1790 and 1800. Henry Maudslay made his first screw-cutting lathe about
1800; and, during the thirty years that followed, his firm successfully
applied the automatic principle to other branches of metal-working. The
planing-machine is attributed to Bramah, Maudslay’s master. Both
planing-machine and screw-lathe, together with the slide-lathe for general
engineering work, were utilised and improved by Richard Roberts at Manchester
between 1816 and 1830. In 1833 Joseph Whitworth, “tool-maker from London,” and in
1834 James Nasmyth—who had at the time a capital of i?63—set up their modest
businesses, also in Manchester. They had both worked under Maudslay, and they
both worked on, building up great businesses and perfecting machine tools. Yet
the change in industrial organisation, whereby the engineering firm, employing
a crowd of men and working entirely in metal with the aid of steam, has
supplanted both the millwright, who with his few journeymen constructed the
simple and for the most part wood-built machinery of the days of water-power,
and his successor, the small engineer and tool-maker, was far from complete in
the early forties of the nineteenth century.
It was the
making of textile machinery and of the engines which drove it that attracted
the engineers to Manchester. The changes in
the cotton
trade had coincided almost exactly in point of time with those in iron-working
and machine-building; and the two series of changes had become very intimately
associated with each other. From 1730 onwards, experiments in
spinning-machinery had been almost continuous. The principle that was to make
Arkwright’s fortune—the drawing out of the fibre to be spun by two pairs of
rollers revolving at different speeds— was in operation twenty years before he
secured his patent in 1769. By that time the stimulus to spinning invention had
become irresistible. Cotton yam of the finer sorts was largely imported. The
difficulty of spinning suitable warp threads on the old wheels was so great
that most English cottons were really half linen. The improvements in the common
loom, due to John Kay and his son Robert, began to tell on the output of cotton
cloth after 1760. New methods for producing yam were essential, and they were
found. In 1767 Hargreaves, the weaver, built his jenny, a simple hand-driven
appliance by which he or his wife could spin upwards of eight threads at once.
Arkwrighi coordinated the various processes preliminary to spinning, adopted
water as a motive power, and created the mill. By 1788 there were over a hundred
and forty such mills in Great Britain. Two years later, at Lanark, waterpower
was applied to Crompton’s mule, invented in 1779, a machine fitted to spin
finer and softer yams than Arkwright’s frame could furnish. The spinners had
already seized on Watt’s engines, especially in those districts where
water-power was scarce, such as Manchester itself. Between 1801 and 1804 the
use of steam in the cotton trade became general. Spinning-machinery was still
rough and imperfect. But with the progress of engineering it slowly gained the
precision necessary for the finest work. Richard Roberts built the first
complete self-acting mule in 1825. Gradually the self-actor won its way; and
gradually the defects of the early “ mill-yam ” were remedied.
The cotton
trade was young; in the eighteenth century its various parts had been but
imperfectly organised; and it was consequently adaptable. The wool-working
trades on the contrary were old, highly organised, and in certain districts
most conservative. It is in no way surprising therefore that machinery and
steam were more slowly introduced in them than in the cotton trade. One old
seat of these industries, East Anglia, lacked both water-power and coal;
another, Devon, had at least no coal—facts which help to explain the delay. But
sea-borne coal can never have been exorbitantly dear at Norwich; so that the
fact that spinning by power was not even attempted in that neighbourhood until
after 1830 must be credited to the conservatism of those who directed the
industry rather than to any geographical necessity. Even in Yorkshire the new
method did not appear in either the woollen or the worsted trade until after
1790. It made steady progress—especially in the worsted trade—during the wars;
yet, two generations after Waterloo, the hand-worked jenny was still to be
found in many woollen-weavers’
cottages.
Steam-mills began with the new century, almost as early as the water-mills, and
slowly absorbed first the carding processes, preparatory to spinning, then the
spinning itself. In the case of flax— which proved specially intractable to the
machine—the introduction of power-spinning was later, its progress even slower.
Wool and flax
and cotton spinning on the wheel died as the machine gained ground. Cotton, an
exotic, had never been spun extensively outside the actual manufacturing
districts. As a result of this, the work passed swiftly into the hands of the
weavers’ families and into the mills. In wool and flax spinning the change was
far slower. Yet by 1820 wool spinning as a by-employment was only to be found
in out of the way comers of Britain. Those slow-moving districts which retained
their weaving trade soon leamt to import yam from the factory towns, as East
"Anglia began to do from Bradford very shortly after 1800. There was soon
no place for the non-professional spinner.
The story of
factory-weaving presents a sharp contrast to that of factory-spinning. The
power-loom had only been used for the plainest cotton-weaving before 1815, and
that not on an extensive scale. It did not appear in the worsted trade until
after 1820; it had made no great progress in the woollen trade, even in
Yorkshire, in 1840. The desperate plight of the hand-loom cotton and worsted
weavers in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign was not shared by the
woollen-weavers. They and the small master-clothiers for whom, and with whom,
they often worked were threatened by the mills but not destroyed; and, although
the clothiers were, to a certain extent, dependent on the capitalist merchants,
as indeed they had always been, it was still possible, in 1845, for a French
visitor to describe the woollen manufacture of the West Riding as an “
altogether democratic exception to the devouring progress of the factory
system.”
Few trades in
England remained untouched by the general advance in technique and the movement
towards a more capitalistic organisation during the years between 1789 and
1840. To the steady improvement of manufacturing processes, which had marked
the eighteenth century, were added the new and expensive motive power, better
and more complex machines, and the new knowledge of the natural sciences, in
the nineteenth. The production of chemicals in extensive works employing many
hands and much capital began. Another new industry was called into existence by
the general adoption of gas-lighting between 1815 and
1840, an industry that was of necessity
organised on a large scale from the first. Trades ancillary to those of
spinning and weaving, such as calico-printing, bleaching, and dyeing, were refashioned.
Machinery and chemistry began to influence the ancient and conservative crafts
of tanning and leather-working. Pottery-mak: ~g, refounded in the eighteenth
centuiy by Wedgwood, was concentrated. In printing, in milling, in brewing, in
glass-making, and in a score of other industries,
1792-1845]
Survival of domestic industries.
737
methods were
revised and the scale of operations for the individual firm extended. The
power-driven machine took hold even of simple crafts like carpentry and
shoemaking. In coal-mining the combined effects of the new power, the new
needs, and the new knowledge, were conspicuous. It was in the mines that steam
had first been used for pumping; its use was extended to winding and other
operations. Geology came to the aid of the mining engineer; chemistry supplied
the analysis of coals and of pit gases. The annual output of coal in Great
Britain was more than tripled between 1800 and 1845; while the size of the
average mining undertaking greatly increased.
Yet all these
things were but beginnings, even small beginnings as compared with the
developments of the later nineteenth century. England in the early forties had
still numerous and extensive domestic industries, although in almost all of
them an employer or merchant— not to mention retail-dealers.—came between the
workman and the consumer. Silk-weaving, ribbon-weaving, and hosiery-knitting,
were in the hands of domestic workers or of very small masters. So, though to a
less extent, were linen and woollen, and, to a stil1 less extent,
worsted and cotton weaving. A few of the old “customer” weavers, who worked up
the farmer’s homespun, were to be found in certain agricultural counties of
England; while in Scotland they were by no means rare. Wool-combing had not as
yet become a machine trade, though the inventions that have transformed it were
on foot. The Birmingham metal trades seem at this particular time to have been
tending away from production on a large scale rather than towards it. It was
said that the town contained in 1843 four thousand small masters, who each
employed a handful of journeymen and hired power when they wanted it, besides
the garret men who worked with two or three apprentices. Lock and key and chain
making and the other innumerable branches of the hardware trade in the Black
Country were in a still more primitive condition. In all these trades capital
was generally to be found in the hands of middlemen rather than of the
manufacturers. These are but samples, taken from leading industries. Even where
large scale production had made most progress, much that was small and rude
survived, as the condition of coal-mining shows. Deep workings were uncommon. A
great part of the coal used was still raised near the outcrop from many small
pits. One of these is figured in the appendix to the Report on children’s work
in the mines, issued in 1842. It represents a type; and the picture shows an
old woman who is hoisting two children from the shaft by turning a winch.
When the
Revolutionary wars began, the system of internal communications that preceded
the railways was very far from complete. Tumpike-roads were numerous, but they
were often ill-laid and ill-graded. The new canals in many districts were
unfinished. Quick road-traffic
738 Roads-Canals.-Harbours.-Steam transport.
[1793-1850
was a thing
of recent growth, even near London. In the remoter parts of England and in most
parts of Scotland and Wales it was unknown. But the wars hardly checked the
work of improvement. The rapidity and success with which it was carried through
by a nation burdened with taxes and debt is perhaps the most striking witness
to the economic vitality of Great Britain. Year by year the road-makers gained
experience, and the methods of construction were improved. The revolution in
the iron industry allowed of the partial substitution of iron for stone in
bridge-building—a change which may be said to have come with the new century,
although a few iron bridges were built before 1800. Canal engineering became
bolder, and waterways were completed across the backbone of England. The
lamentable years of political unrest and economic distress from 1815 to 1825
saw the completion of Telford’s Highland roads and of his great Holyhead
highway, the construction of the Waterloo and Menai Bridges, and the adoption
on many main routes of the method of road-building which is named, perhaps
wrongly, after Macadam. No great country could equal England, so far as the
quantity and average quality of her roads and canals were concerned; though it
is probable that the best of the French highways were still superior to
anything that the English engineers had built.
Work on
harbours and estuaries and docks was undertaken concurrently with that on the
roads and the canals. Here war acted as a direct stimulus, so that this
development of the accessories of sea-power is far less remarkable than the
inland works. For the trade of all the world was being shepherded into British
ports; and they must needs be fitted to receive it. There were but few docks in
the country when England went to war in 1793. During the next thirteen years,
on the Thames alone, the East India Docks, the West India Docks, and the London
Docks, were begun and finished. The Mersey, the Humber, and the Clyde, kept
pace with the Thames ; and the work begun during the war was carried on, though
intermittently, during the peace.
The wars
witnessed the beginnings, the peace the utilisation, of steam transport both on
sea and land. It was in the year of Waterloo that a steamer first made the
passage from London to Glasgow. Six years later steam was tried on the Calais
packets. Shortly after 1830 the building of steamers and of marine engines
became distinct trades. By that time iron was being used, though not yet
freely, as a structural material both for steam vessels and sailing ships.
Before 1840 the Atlantic had been crossed by steamers of a few hundred
horse-power, and the screw was coming into use. Yet in that year, out of a
total British tonnage of two and three-quarter millions, the steamers claimed less
than ninety thousand tons; and the steam tonnage had not risen to a hundred and
fifty thousand in 1850. In short, the second quarter of the century was not
really an age of steam navigation. The steamers
that existed
were essentially packet-boats. They carried only passengers and the most
valuable and least bulky cargoes; for in the then existing state of marine
engineering they had trouble enough to find room for their own bunker-coal.
On land a
more real and rapid revolution had occurred; but it remained incomplete in the
early forties. The railways found the reform of the old means of transport
still unfinished. Telford was at work on the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction
Canal, and was just completing his plans for a new and better Great North Road;
the English mail-coach—the wonder and envy of foreign travellers—had barely
reached perfection, when the railway age began. Telford’s plans were laid
aside; and only retrospective and literary persons admired the mail- coach.
Together with Telford’s schemes, the series of experiments with locomotive
steam-driven road-carriages, that had lasted for almost two generations, was
suspended. The Stockton and Darlington Railway was completed in 1825, the year
after the surveys for the new North Road began; and in that same year twenty
bubble railway companies were set afloat. The success of the Manchester and
Liverpool line in 1830 gave the call to serious work. Short lengths of railway
were rapidly constructed. By 1837 work was in progress on the London and Birmingham,
the North Midland, the Manchester and Leeds, and the Great Western. Endless
schemes and surveys were on foot elsewhere; and the sketch plan of the modem
railway system was being filled in. There was a slackening of projection and
construction in the early forties; but by 1843 the country possessed over
eighteen hundred miles of finished line; and unbroken travel from London to
Lancaster in the north-west, to Darlington in the north-east, and almost to
Exeter in the west, was already possible. The full economic significance of the
new system was, however, not as yet apparent. Goods traffic was to a great
extent subordinated to passenger traffic at the outset. The electric telegraph,
which has joined with the railway to create the modem market, had hardly passed
its experimental stage; and the short-sighted critics who could treat the
railway as a mere nuisance or a novel luxury had but recently been silenced.
In spite of
the success with which agricultural reform had been pursued in England
throughout the eighteenth century, very much remained to be done when the new
century began. New-modelled waggons and ploughs, novel implements, and fresh
crops, had been introduced; they had yet to be generally adopted. So late as
1811 turnips were almost unknown in Wiltshire. Not many years earlier, crops
were still regularly led in Devon on horses’ backs; a three-horse team was
reckoned necessary to draw a wretched shallow waggon, seven feet long and three
and a half broad, in parts of Yorkshire; and in Scotland there was not
uncommonly found the ancient cart “of a size not larger than a good
740
Enclosure Acts. Large farming.
[1760-1835
wheelbarrow,”
with its solid, wooden, unshod wheels. The enclosure of the open arable fields
was very far from complete; while the amount of waste land—even in the near
neighbourhood of London—was an offence to the rural reformer. In the remoter
shires it was even more abundant. Scores of thousands of acres in the fens were
undrained or ill-drained. Lincoln Heath was still a vast sandy waste, many
miles in extent. In all the northern counties immense tracts of moorland and
not a little of the lower country were most imperfectly used. There was almost
everywhere a superfluity of heath and boggy lowland. In Wales agricultural
reform had made little way; while in Scotland as in England there was still
work enough to do, although the Scots had made astonishingly rapid and
much-needed progress between 1760 and 1800.
Every
external circumstance, in the years round about the turn of the century,
contributed to accelerate change. England had recently ceased to have a surplus
of corn after her own needs had been met; her population was growing abnormally
fast; and she was engaged in the wars. The Board of Agriculture and the
Smithfield Club had just been founded; the country was covered with landowners’
and farmers’ societies; and agricultural surveys of all the counties were being
carried out. The progress of enclosure gauges the acceleration. From 1790 to
1800 Parliament passed on an average fifty private enclosure Bills a year;
between 1800 and 1810 the average was over eighty, and over eighty it remained
until 1820. For the most part the enclosed land was required for corn-growing,
not for the creation of new permanent pasture. Indeed old pasture land,
including some of the finest natural pasture of the northern counties, was not
uncommonly broken up for wheat. Com- growing ruled; and the number of enclosure
Bills varied roughly with the price of wheat. The land enclosed was often old
open field, more often still old common pasture or waste, sandy heath,
moorland, or fen reclaimed with the aid of the engineer and the steam-pump.
Enclosure was usually accompanied or followed by a decline in the number of
yeomen, small farmers, and more or less independent cottagers, together with an
increase in the size of farms, and in the numbers and importance of the class
of large farmers, who could secure the control of considerable capital and of
bodies of landless labourers.
The history
of British agriculture in the earlier half of the nineteenth century was
chequered by the extraordinary fluctuations in prices, profits, and rents, that
war, peace, changing corn-laws, currency troubles, and the cycles of the
seasons, brought with them. After the eager search for corn lands during the
wars, and the extensive cultivation that went with it, came some twenty years
during which, on the heavier soils at any rate, there was little progress and
some retrogression in the methods of agriculture. Landlords had sunk much
capital in the new
I800-42] Steady agricultural progress.
741
farm-buildings
which the extension of arable land necessitated; estates were crippled by
mortgages and charges piled on them during the days of the war rentals; the
vicissitudes in prices had rained many farmers. These things, together with
social unrest, riotings, heavy poor-rates, heavy taxes, were not favourable to
progress. But movement did not cease, though it was slow, intermittent, and
unequal. The work of the eighteenth century had not been wasted. Scientific
rotations were no longer confined to specially progressive estates and
districts, but became matters of general knowledge; and the medieval rotation
with its bare fellows gradually died out. Marling and claying of light soils to
fit them for wheat became commoner. A more intelligent use was made of natural
manures; and the value of artificial manures, such as bone dust, nitrate of
soda, and guano, began to be appreciated. The new and improved breeds of cattle
and sheep were established; and their feeding and fattening were better
understood. English farmers could, it is true, no longer supply manufacturers
with the finer wools that they required; but that was in part because breeding
had improved the size of the fine-woolled South Downs and kindred stocks at the
expense of the fleece. The use of the new-modelled ploughs and other implements
known in the previous century became general; and their construction benefited
greatly from the progress of metal-working and machine- building. The
threshing-machine, in its early form, that had been reinvented by Andrew Meikle
shortly before the year 1800, came rapidly into use, the flail disappearing
before it and therewith much valuable winter work for the labourer. Even during
the disastrous years from 1815 to 1833, when parliamentary committees on
agricultural depression sat again and again, the agriculture of whole
counties—such as Lincoln and Northumberland—was being remodelled. During the
thirties also a new aid was given to farming on those heavy clay lands that had
felt the worst of the depression, through the improvements made by Smith of
Deanston in the methods of field drainage.;
There was
little of novelty in the work done on the land before the forties. It consisted
for the most part in the application of principles already established. But
greater things were in preparation. Agricultural chemistry came into existence
with the nineteenth century, and made public its first claims and promises in
England when Davy delivered a famous series of lectures before the Board of
Agriculture in 1812. Seven years later the Board came to an end; and during the
difficult years that followed the wars the chemist’s voice was a vox clamantis
in deserto. Nor was his work ripe. The earlier discoveries needed to be
supplemented by those of Liebig and his successors; and Liebig’s results were
not accessible until 1840. Two years earlier the Royal Agricultural Society had
been founded; two years later the Agricultural Chemistry Association followed.
A scientific knowledge of agriculture and organisations for spreading it were
being built up.
But
agriculture had not become scientific—that is a development which takes time.
It has been
said that before 1789 London was already the commercial and financial capital of
the West. The industrial changes and the wars raised her higher still. London
alone of the great European cities had never seen a hostile army. Instead of
the invader came the foreign capitalists and merchants—of whom Nathan
Rothschild was chief—who found London the most secure and convenient
headquarters. London was now not only the centre of European finance and
banking, but also, and naturally, the centre of marine insurance. Lloyd’s had
taken an organised form between 1770 and 1780, and had subsequently become
essential for the commerce of England and the world; for its work was not
confined to British shipping. Foreign vessels were freely and profitably
insured against capture by English cruisers; and intelligence was collected for
all. Everything favoured the accumulation in London of that wealth over which,
it is said, Bliicher smacked eager lips when the signs of it lay spread before
him around the dome of St Paul’s. It was the greatest city of Europe in 1801,
and its population doubled in the next forty years, crowding both into the new
western quarters and the undrained, crowded, and pestilential districts to the
east and south. There were other things than wealth visible from the dome of St
Paul’s.
To Cobbett’s
mind, in 1821, the “ swelling out of London ” seemed due to the growth of the
funded national debt, and the inhabitants of its comfortable quarters were for
the most part “ tax-eaters.” He was pointing towards two economic facts that he
only vaguely understood— the greatly increased opportunities for investing free
capital (not in the English funds only) which political, industrial, and
commercial changes had brought with them, and the position that London had
secured as a market for investment. The field for investment had long been
widening and the organisation for dealing in securities becoming more perfect.
By 1773 the more reputable stockbrokers were grouping themselves into a society
distinct from the crowd of lottery jobbers, gamblers in insurance, and
miscellaneous sharpers who had given Change Alley its evil name. Dealings in
Government stock, the shares of the East India and other trading companies,
those of the older insurance and water companies, and the like, were the staple
business of the eighteenth century stock exchange. When it established itself
in Capel Court, in 1802, the great increase in the public debt and the creation
of the canals had added considerably to its work. After the wars investment on
a large scale in foreign loans began. Such investment had been known since first
Marlborough raised a loan for the Emperor; but constant wars and an Act of 1730
had checked its development. The nations now borrowed mainly in England, as
they had once borrowed mainly in Holland. Amsterdam still took a share in the
lending, as did
1775-1848] Foreign wars.—Joint-stock enterprise.
743
Frankfort;
but the trade and finance of Amsterdam never recovered from the shock of the
French occupation and the temporary loss of the Dutch colonial empire.
The subsidies
paid by England to the Allies during the wars had prepared the way for the
later loans; and the great financial houses, notably the Rothschilds,
controlled an international organisation fitted for handling them. Every nation
came to borrow in London during the years of Europe’s convalescence—France,
Prussia, Austria, Russia, and the rest. The Americans borrowed too—the mushroom
republics of the South very freely after 1820. Over ten millions were lent, and
lost, in South America alone between 1822 and 1826. The loans were negotiated
with the financiers, who passed them on to the English public, which was
attracted by the guarantee of a fixed rate of interest in pounds sterling, a
device invented by Nathan Rothschild and forced upon the needy borrowing
nations. The process was profitable to the great firms, at times remarkably so.
In 1817, for instance, the Barings and the Hopes of Amsterdam took up a French
5 per cent, loan at 57. Next year it stood at 85, and before the revolution of
1830 it had risen to upwards of 109. When that loan was issued, there was no
single Parisian banking firm strong enough to share in it. Four years later,
two or three French houses began to take a subordinate part in the work; but,
down to and after 1848, the London financiers and the great international
Jewish houses that were half domiciled in London ruled the loan market.
Meanwhile in
England the growth of joint-stock companies further widened the field of
investment. With each period of trade expansion attempts were made to bring
some new type of economic activity within the scope of the principle of
associated capital. Early in the centuiy there was a great increase in canal
and water companies. Gas manufacture became a company business from the start.
Mining companies first appeared in considerable numbers in connexion with the
wild schemes for the development of South America in 1825. Industry was as yet
rarely carried on under the joint-stock principle; for the shameless fraud
connected with many of the ventures of this period made the business world
reluctant to employ the company form except in the greatest undertakings.
Banking, the branch of commerce that most needed to employ that form and was
best suited for it, was long kept from adopting it in this country owing to the
jealously guarded monopoly of the Bank of England. During the fifty years from
1775 to 1825 the history of English banking is full of the rise and fall of
innumerable private banks, that were bom as trade expanded and died wholesale
as it contracted. Free joint-stock banking was not sanctioned by Parliament
until, in 1825, for the fourth or fifth time, some scores of these flimsy
note-issuing private banks stopped payment in a single year. Even then a circle
with a sixty-five mile radius was drawn about London, within
which
joint-stock banking remained unknown until 1833. The Scottish banks have,
however, an entirely different history. An uncommonly strong and flexible
system of joint-stock banking had been created in Scotland in the eighteenth
century, to which not a little of the swift progress of the country in
commerce, industry, and agriculture dining the first generation after 1800 may
be attributed.
Thus merit
and circumstance had united to make Great Britain the leader in economic
change. She was praised, envied, and imitated; her ideas, her implements, and
her men were borrowed as well as her accumulated wealth; though the British
Government for years did its utmost to keep the skilled men and the machines at
home. The early history of change on the Continent is full of English
names—Richards, who began to build simple pumping-engines in Saxony before the
great wars; Douglas, a maker of textile machines, whom Count Chaptal
established in Paris on the Isle of Swans during the Consulate; Cockerill, of
Seraing, who helped to found the machine industry of Belgium; CockerilTs sons,
who in 1815 were invited by the Prussian Government to Berlin, a nameless Irish
prisoner of war, who, having worked at muslin-weaving in Glasgow, greatly
improved the looms of Tarare; the men from Nottingham, who shortly after
Waterloo introduced the bobbin lace machine at Douai and St Pierre les Calais;
Manby, Wilson, and Company, who started English methods at Creusot between 1826
and 1834; and so forth. The modem period in German agriculture is dated from
the publication of Thaer’s account of English farming in 1798. Telford was the
adviser of the Austrian and Russian Governments; and his pupil, Tierney Clark,
began the great suspension bridge at Budapest in 1839. English capital was
responsible for the first serious railway- building by private enterprise in
Belgium in the forties; and a few years later English contractors and English
navvies went all over Europe.
The wars had
both helped and hindered on the Continent that development of the means of
communication without which there can be no swift economic progress. From this
point of view the Napoleonic age was a time of restoration and advance for all
countries that at any time formed part of the Empire, of arrested development
for those that did not. In road and bridge and canal building, France, Belgium,
and northern Italy had nothing, or almost nothing, to leam from England, except
the use of iron bridges; even that, in the first instance, seems to have been a
French invention. A sound economic instinct, as well as the desire to transport
cannon across the Simplon, impelled Napoleon to the work of improving
communications. It suited his genius to a marvel; and the amcien regime had set
up a good tradition in civil engineering. New canals were planned and started;
rivers were improved and canalised; and thousands of miles of main road were
cut or reconstructed. The Bourbons carried on the task with creditable
determination. Nearly a
thousand
kilometres of canal were opened for traffic between 1815 and 1830; and the
King’s highways—many of which had fallen out of repair during the disastrous
years after Moscow—were again taken in hand, repaired, and extended. The July
monarchy was equally zealous. The total length of royal roads in good repair
was nearly doubled between 1830 and 1848; and, though the local roads, both
departmental and communal, were not all that they might have been, though the
canal system at the beginning of the railway age was far less complete than
that of England, France had no cause to be ashamed of her achievement. It was
entirely the work of the public authorities, for there was no tradition of
private enterprise in such matters, and private capital was lacking.
Belgium and
Holland resumed work on their already well-developed road and canal systems as
soon as the peace permitted. The great sea- canal from Amsterdam to the Helder,
undertaken to revive if possible the trade of the Dutch capital, was opened in
1825; while in Belgium fresh road-making was undertaken by Government,
canal-building by private capitalists. But over all the German-speaking lands
progress was slow. The Prussian Government had begun to build solid main roads
in 1788. By 1816 it was maintaining about nineteen hundred English miles of
highway; but the greater part of these roads were in Westphalia and the Rhine
Province. There was no appreciable quickening in the rate of construction down
to 1844. The eastern provinces remained ill-furnished with satisfactory means
of communication, Prussia proper containing only six hundred and fifty miles of
chaussee in
1841. The rest of the highways were of the old
eighteenth century type, full of ruts and pits and morasses. Yet Prussia was
counted a well-administered State. Austria was by this time stirring again; and
even Russia had joined in the work. The Polish road from Warsaw to the
frontier, built from Telford’s plans in the twenties, was the first
satisfactory long highway in the Russian Empire. Austria had inherited a number
of good routes from her eighteenth century monarchs, and her Italian provinces
had formed part of the French Empire, so that she suffered less than some of
her neighbours from the slow movement of the years that followed the fall of
Napoleon. In southern Italy and in Spain much change was not to be expected.
Belgium is
the single continental country where the railway age can be said to have begun
before the later forties. A new economic life was rising on the foundation of
her old industrial and commercial aptitudes; and, after the separation from
Holland in 1830, her Government had the wit to appreciate the advantage which a
policy of railway-building, combined with the development of the trade of the
now opened Scheldt, would bring to a country so favourably situated between
England and the ocean on the one hand and the mass of Europe on the other. Work
on the State system of railways began in 1834. With Malines as centre, the
lines struck north to Antwerp, south through Brussels towards
746 Railways and banking on the Continent.
[i79i-i846
France, west
to Ghent and Bruges, and east through Liege and Venders towards Rhenish
Prussia. By 1838 about a hundred and sixty miles of rail were opened—a
considerable quantity for so small a country as Belgium; and by 1844 the main
lines of the scheme were completed, though at a cost far greater than had at
first been anticipated. France dealt deliberately with the railway problem. Her
first lines, like those of most countries, were short and scattered, built by
private enterprise to meet local needs. From three to four hundred miles of
such lines had been constructed by 1842, the year in which the railway policy
of Louis-Philippe’s Parliament took form; but they by no means constituted a
railway system, nor did they all make use of steam locomotion. In the German
States the bureaucracy remained suspicious and hostile. The earlier lines were
mainly of an experimental and suburban sort— Nurnberg to Fiirth, Brunswick to
Wolfenbiittel, Berlin to Potsdam—and the only long continuous stretch of
railway in existence in 1842 began and ended in the heart of Germany. It ran
from Magdeburg through Leipzig to Dresden. The distrust of the Governments was
overcome during the forties; but, while it lasted, progress was necessarily
slow, for no great public works could be quickly completed on the Continent in
these early years without assistance from the exchequer.
That this was
so is in part to be explained by the defects of the European banking system,
defects both of immaturity and of decay. Already in the eighteenth century the
old-fashioned deposit banks of the great commercial cities, banks that gave no
credit and issued no notes, were declining. The Bank of Amsterdam collapsed
ignominiously in 1791, although the Bank of Hamburg—an institution of a similar
type—prolonged its life until it was merged in the Imperial Bank of the new
German Empire. Note-issuing banks of a half-public character, modelled on the
Bank of England, had been created dining the eighteenth century in almost every
State of Europe. But they fell into bad ways, became issuers of inconvertible
paper-money at the order of Government, and succumbed or lost prestige and
efficiency during the years of revolution and war. The reorganisation of these
decayed official banks was slow and difficult. The Royal Bank of Prussia, for
example—which was rather a department of the Prussian Treasury than a true
bank— entangled itself in extensive and unfortunate mortgage operations during
the wars, was carried on for years with a secret deficit, and was finally remodelled
in 1846. The Bank of Vienna had an equally inglorious history. Much more
successful was the Dutch Bank, established in 1814 to replace the defunct Bank
of Amsterdam; but, effective and successful as it was, it needed time to grow.
More successful still, and by far the most distinguished continental public
bank of the early nineteenth century, was the Bank of France, built by
Napoleon upon older foundations. In many small States, such as Bavaria, Saxony,
and Switzerland, public chartered banks were first created between 1830
and 1840.
That decade also saw the establishment of independent public banks or branches
of the national bank in the chief commercial centres of France, a system which
had been started at an earlier date.
Private
banking also was at once decadent and immature. The shifting of political and
commercial landmarks had taken from some cities much of their old importance as
banking centres. Such were Geneva and Basel. Everywhere old-established firms
had to recover from the shocks of the wars. How slow that recovery was is shown
by the prominence of the English and Anglo-Jewish houses in the work of
negotiating public loans. And even when recoveiy was complete, the greater part
of the Continent remained far behind England in the extent and in the
utilisation of banking facilities. The cheque and the bankers’ clearing-house
were unknown outside Great Britain. The regular use of banking accounts was
rare, save in the greater commercial towns of Europe. In some parts of Germany
the chief business of the banks was to exchange the bewildering currencies of
the various sovereign States. In other parts there was no room as yet for true
banking. Their condition resembled that of eastern Europe, where the simplest
forms of credit were often unknown, where the rare buyings and sellings took
place at markets and fairs and were invariably settled in cash.
Parallel to
the relatively slow growth of banking was the slow advance in the use of the
joint-stock company, either in commerce or industry, especially in the inner
parts of Europe. In France, although the provisions of the code of commerce
were not favourable to the free foundation of true joint-stock companies
(societes anonymes), the joint- stock form spread with some rapidity between
1820 and 1830, as the need for associated capital showed itself with the
progress of transport and the new industries; and under Louis-Philippe there
was an outburst of company promotion. Seeing that the law subjected the sociMe
anonyme to a troublesome supervision, an ingenious modification of the old
sleeping partnership (societe en commandite) was adopted, the capital of the
sleeping partners being cut up into small shares which could pass from hand to
hand among the public. The device led to much fraud; but it also served a need.
In Belgium, as in France, companies were freely created in the later thirties,
whereas before the separation from Holland the country had contained barely a
dozen true joint-stock undertakings. Speculative enterprise was encouraged by
the new national Government; and, although collapse often followed hard on
creation, the joint-stock system began to take a firm hold of mining, the
metallurgical industries, and railway construction: Holland, the mother of
companies in the West, had for the time being lost her vitality. The Hanse
Towns followed slowly in the wake of France, whose legal forms they had
adopted. On Prussian territory a beginning had hardly been made in 1825. Even
insurance against fire, in all countries one of the first branches of commerce
to rely on associated
capital, was
not represented by a single company at Berlin in 1812; and it was not until
nearly 1840 that the establishment of a few railway companies and of steam
navigation companies on the Rhine familiarised Prussian subjects with the new
method for the organisation of great undertakings. By that time free capital
was beginning to accumulate and'the investment habit to grow.
The history
of the Paris Stock Exchange affords a fair indication of the character and
progress of investment on the Continent. Beaten down by the Revolution—the
declared foe of stock-jobbing—the Bourse painfully struggled back into life.
Under the Restoration France did not even hold her own debt; therefore it is in
no way surprising that only three classes of foreign funds were quoted on the
official list in 1830. Only three others had been added by 1848, though it is
true that the official lists do not adequately reflect the actual dealings.
Domestic investment was no doubt growing with the growth of companies; but,
just as industry still often retained a local character, so investment was
barely emerging from the national stage, even in France. Foreign funds were
sparingly purchased, foreign commercial and in-’ dustrial securities seldom, if
ever. It was only in England that “my Dutch stock and my Spanish stock,” as
well as “ my five and three per cents.,” formed a normal investment for the
savings of a private person, only in England that share capital for foreign
railways and other commercial undertakings was likely to be subscribed.
Most
instructed statesmen, in the later eighteenth century, had been conscious of
the economic defects of the existing traditional methods of land tenure and
cultivation, and had worked for their reform. The Revolution swept away the old
tenures in and about France and prepared the way for a freer use of the land.
It also transferred much additional land into the hands of the commercial and
industrial middle class, a class that regarded it more habitually as a form of
capital which must yield an adequate return than had some of the older
land-owning families. The representatives of the old owners, who under the
Restoration so frequently recovered their family estates in whole or in part,
seem to have been awakened to the duty and the profit of developing them. In
Prussia, and in some other German States outside the sphere of direct French
influence, the reform of old tenures and of old methods of dividing up and
using the land was taken in hand with new vigour during or shortly after the
Napoleonic age. Some of the lesser German Governments, however, together with
those of Austria and Russia, undertook no general plan of reform until after
the forties. Everywhere the purely economic effects of changed tenures and
partially rearranged fields were slow to appear; partly because the changes
themselves were very slowly carried out—except in the case of the tenures
destroyed by the Revolution—partly because the mer^
right to make
free use of his land could not readily change the ways of the peasant until new
incentives to revise old methods of cultivation, or new chances of gain from
sale and migration, were forthcoming. In many a French Department, five years
of the railway produced more tangible, though it may be not more important,
results than fifty years of emancipation from feudal dues. In eastern Germany,
the rising English demand for wheat and fine wool in the early years of the new
century influenced agriculture more swiftly and for a time more powerfully
than did the edicts of emancipation.
Not that the
changes made of set purpose were without economic effects. There were definite
results in every case; but those results followed the reforms gradually and
unequally, and in many cases not till after the first five-and-forty years of
the nineteenth century. They were more pronounced in Prussia, where the
abolition of serfdom in all its various grades and of the half-free tenures
corresponding roughly to English copyhold was definitely linked, so far as
might be, with a rearrangement of the great common fields and a partial
division of the common pasture and waste, than in France and Belgium, where the
Revolution dealt with tenures rather than with the use of land. There was not
in France any systematic attempt to rearrange the village fields in those
districts where the system of scattered strips prevailed, although a process of
consolidating the peasant properties by purchase and private arrangement had
been in progress for many generations. In both France and Belgium the common
pastures, woodlands, and wastes—which were more general than the open arable
fields—were handed over absolutely to the communes at the Revolution. The
Belgian commons remained for the most part undivided and unimproved until a law
of 1847 authorised and encouraged division or sale. Great stretches of similar
land in north-eastern Holland have only been brought into use since the middle
of the nineteenth century. Many commons in northern France, and some in other
parts of the country, were voluntarily cut up or sold by the villagers; but all
through the period of the July monarchy immense tracts of improvable and
unimproved common remained in almost all the Departments, over and above the
woodlands and the high mountain pastures of the east, centre, and south. Even
in Prussia, where the curtailment and reclaiming of the extensive commons had
begun in the eighteenth century, the work, like that of enclosing the open
fields, went on most slowly. The three great, open plough-fields of Berlin
itself, the Pankow field, the Lichtenberg field, and the Midfield, were first
rearranged, and their separate sections first cultivated independently by their
owners, between 1819 and 1827. The town meadows were used in common until 1855.
The reform of
the French land law and village economy had undoubtedly increased the comfort
of the whole peasantry, widened its outlook, and prepared it to profit by
further economic change. In
eastern
Germany the reorganisation of rural life on the great Junker estates was
building up, or, it might almost be said, was creating, the class of free,
landless labourers. Still, there was no revolution in agricultural method,
although the work of the eighteenth century continued and was accompanied by
some exceptional innovations. The traditional triple course of husbandry
remained unaltered, or but slightly altered, in many parts of Germany. In
Hainault and Brabant modifications in the triple course were equally rare and
slight; in the Ardennes country it is doubtful whether any change had occurred.
Boot crops were little used in Normandy, and hardly at all in Champagne, in the
forties. In southwestern France com followed fallow and fallow corn as before,
and agricultural implements retained their primitive simplicity. It was still a
matter for congratulation in the year 1861 that the flail was nearly extinct in
a progressive French province. Deep ploughing was unknown in the greater part
of Germany before 1800; and for many years the old-fashioned furrow, three or
four inches in depth, survived. In 1827 the Prussian Government is found
solemnly ordering that no waggons in the future shall have axles less than four
feet four inches in length. At the same time it is clear that, in the west,
agricultural improvement was continuous, if slow. Dead fallow was becoming less
and less common, especially in northern France and western Germany. The use of
clover, root crops, and artificial grasses, was spreading. The potato was everywhere
known and used. The steady growth of cities was telling on the agriculture of
the surrounding countiy-side. France was breeding cattle with increased
success, experimenting with English stock, and exporting dairy produce, fruit,
and eggs to England; for her northern provinces were now within the sphere of
attraction of the London market. Holland also was building up her pastoral
industry; while Flanders and the other old seats of high farming further
perfected their methods.
The
exceptional innovations in continental agriculture in these years were all
connected with the new industrial activity. Of these innovations the most
remarkable was the introduction of improved breeds of sheep. Spanish merinos
had been imported into France, Prussia, and Saxony as well as into England
before 1789. The royal herd at Rambouillet was created in 1785; and Napoleon
strengthened it by fresh importations. Shortly after 1800 the Prussian
Government again turned its attention to the flocks; and during the next
generation the spread of the fine- woolled sheep—merinos and half-merinos—in
France, Prussia, and Saxony was astonishingly rapid. Royal houses and great
landowners were the natural pioneers—among others La Fayette during his
retirement at La Grange—but, in Saxony and Silesia at least, the improved
breeds were to be found on peasants’ land before 1840. The steadily growing
demand for the finer wools offered a prospect of great profits from the flocks.
For nearly thirty years “ electoral ” wool, nominally from Saxony, was used by
all the English fine-cloth manufacturers. But its decline as a
1789-1848] Sugar-beet.—Potato spirit.—The guilds.
751
staple German
export was almost as swift as its rise; and that decline had begun already in
1840. The quality of the German wool was deteriorating, owing to careless
breeding, while an effective substitute came in yearly increasing quantities
from Australia.
The spread of
the cultivation of the sugar-beet was as remarkable as the revolution in
sheep-breeding. Beet-growing was first undertaken on a large scale during the
wars. When war was over, great and small, Prussian squires and Flemish
peasants, joined in the work. The cultivation of the new root led directly to
the introduction of deep ploughing, drilling, and better implements generally,
in central and eastern Germany. Between 1835 and 1837 there was an eruption of
sugar factories in Saxony and Silesia. The movement was swift, for it was due
to two of the great driving forces of the new age, industrial chemistry and
large scale manufacture. Similar in character to the beet-sugar industry,
though less extensive, was the new trade of distillation from the potato.
Together with the extended growth of corn and oil seeds for export, these new
branches of agriculture were beginning to exercise a powerful influence on the
rural life of Germany. The Prussian squire, freed from some of the cumbrous
routine of the old agrarian system, enabled to replace the inefficient
customary service of his peasants by hired labour, came to regard his estate
commercially and to watch home and foreign markets in a new fashion. He founded
agricultural societies, exhibited at cattle-shows, and imitated the English
landowners of an earlier generation.
The
resistance offered to agricultural innovations on the Continent in the
eighteenth century by antiquated land laws and a half-medieval village economy
has something in common with the obstacles which guilds and ubiquitous
Government control placed in the way of industrial change. But the importance
of these obstacles may easily be exaggerated. In most, if not all, western
countries the guild had long ceased to be a really independent, self-governing
association of master-craftsmen. It was rather a police instrument in the hands
of the State; and the State looked with favour on new industries, new
processes, and large scale production, even when it subjected them to somewhat
excessive inspection. With the Revolution and the French conquests guilds
vanished from a large part of Europe. Industrial freedom was established in
Prussia during the period of reconstruction after Jena. In many German States,
however, the full guild-system with its regular hierarchy, its “ Wander-
jahre'" and “masterpiece,” and the accompanying State interference with
the exercise of skilled crafts in rural districts, survived 1848. Here and
there, as for instance in Bavaria, it certainly tended to delay change. But the
industries most susceptible of change in the early days of the industrial
revolution on the Continent were seldom organised after the complete guild
pattern; and, when the time came for revolution in the
handicrafts,
guilds were no longer alive. Again, the paternal supervision exercised
throughout the German-speaking lands by a conservative bureaucratic Government
delayed, among other things, the construction of railways and the reform of
mining methods. On the other hand such supervision often accelerated economic
movements. The royal Gewerbe- imtitut founded at Berlin in 1821 stimulated
industries—such, for instance, as engineering—whose “ natural ” rate of growth
would undoubtedly have been slow, as also did the attention which Napoleon,
his councillors, and his prefects, gave to industrial affairs. Delay in the
adoption of new processes and of the new power in Europe is to be traced far
oftener to the absence of economic stimulus, and the consequent survival of
simple methods of manufacture, than to the deliberate acts of Governments.
It is
probable, moreover, that the high customs-tariffs, which most countries
retained or adopted as a means of commercial defence against England during the
peace, did in some cases hasten the transition from the old order to the new.
When the natural protection created by a state of war ceased, threatened groups
of producers made successful appeals to Governments, which in but few cases had
abandoned the traditions of the eighteenth century. Mercantile communities that
lay across the world’s trade-routes, such as the Dutch and the seaboard city
States of Germany, were naturally in favour of greater freedom; but such cases
were exceptional. France quickly constructed a powerful protective system, with
heavy duties both on manufactures and agricultural produce, and abundant
prohibitions. Inadequate duties on manufactures formed one of the grievances of
Belgium during the fifteen years of forced partnership with Holland. The
separation of 1830 was followed by a tariff more satisfactory to the
manufacturing interest and also by an outburst of industrial activity. The
scientific and liberal Prussian tariff of 1818, although it was on the whole an
important step towards freer trade, yet recognised the claims of the industrial
classes; and, after the Zollverein came into being, the duties on manufactures
were gradually raised, with results that seem to have been beneficial to the
growth of the infant industries of Germany. In the most backward countries, in
Russia, for instance, it is not possible to trace any such benefits; for, where
new processes had not gained a footing, such exaggerations of prohibition and
tariff as Russia practised were likely to perpetuate outworn methods of
production. Nor was there any demonstrable gain to England, the leader of
Europe, from the continuance of protection in its most extreme and irrational
forms until after 1820, and in a form less irrational but still pronounced and
ill-regulated until the forties. That continuance merely intensified the evils
attendant on economic change, encouraged similar policies among England’s
neighbours, and hindered the expansion of her trade.
In almost
every European country the industry that first felt the
1789-1846] Mechanical industry on the Continent.
753
infection
from England was that of cotton. On the Continent, as in Great Britain, it was
relatively young and adaptable; and, although in many districts it was both
older and less adaptable than in Great Britain, yet its practice—unlike that of
the linen and woollen industries —had never become associated with the
tenacious routine of peasant life. Everywhere a professional trade, not a
by-employment, those who followed it did so for gain. Very early indeed, in
some cases several years before 1789, the hand-worked spinning-jenny and other
English machines began to appear in France, the Low Countries, Switzerland, and
Germany. By 1801 the jenny had driven out the wheel in the French Department of
the North. During the Continental Blockade little spinning-mills began to
spring up everywhere—near Lille, in Alsace, on the Rhine and on the Ruhr, in
Bavaria and Saxony and Flanders. The machinery for preparing and spinning
cotton could now be successfully made outside England. But steam was hardly
known in the textile mills of Europe during the Napoleonic period. The first
engine in Alsace—it was of 10 horse-power—was set up in 1812. The next year
Cockerill, of Seraing, built the first in Belgium. After Waterloo there was
rapid motion, the districts of Lille and Miilhausen taking the lead. In
weaving, the flying-shuttle was well established, thanks largely to the
influence of Napoleon; and so early as 1823 the power-loom was tried
experimentally in Alsace. Twenty years later there were as many power-looms as
hand-looms in the Alsatian trade. This is perhaps the most rapid conquest made
by weaving-machinery in any section of the cotton industry. At Lille also the
factory system was fully established in the forties, with all its ugly social
accompaniments. True, progress was not uniform throughout France; Normandy, for
example, lagged far behind Alsace and the North. Yet the trade as a whole was
fast becoming a real factory industry in the later years of Louis-Philippe.
Belgium kept
pace with France. Belgian manufacturers had been among the first in Europe to
import English machinery; the progress of Belgian mining and iron-working
encouraged further effort. Steam came rapidly into use between 1820 and 1840,
and the dose commercial relations with England, together with the economic
activity of the new national Government after 1830, assisted large-scale
production and the factory system. In the German States the cotton industry,
owing to its exotic character, had always adopted a more or less capitalistic
organisation and so was ready for change. Yet mechanical progress was slow.
Before 1840 steam was hardly used at all in this or any other industry on
Prussian soil. The total horse-power recorded in Prussia was rather over 9000
in 1837, and less than 22,000 in 1846. At this latter date in Saxony, counted a
most progressive land, less than 2500 horse-power in all was available. Of
these small quantities only a small portion fell to the cotton trade, for steam
was used chiefly in mining and metallurgy. The spinning-mills that were again
springing
C.
M. H. X, CH. XX1U. AO
754 Wool, linen, and silk on the Continent.
[isoo-46
up rapidly
during the thirties in Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony were invariably
water-driven and generally small. Weaving by power was unknown. Even in 1846
not four per cent, of the cotton-] ooms in Prussia were automatic; and there
was no such thing as a power-loom in Saxony. '
The older and
more rigid textile trades—wool, linen, and silk—were not easily bent by the new
forces. In France none of them had adopted the power-loom in 1840; and, even in
advanced cloth-manufacturing centres like Sedan and Reims, spinning-mills were
rare. Decline in the spinning of wool by hand had, however, begun years before,
whereas in the case of flax and hemp a decline was hardly yet perceptible.
Cloth- shearing, which had long been taken over by machinery in England, was
still carried on with the gigantic old hand-shears in the thirties. Hand-
combing was of course universal; and the only branches of the trade— other than
spinning—upon which the new methods had fastened were dyeing and finishing. In
remote districts, such as the cloth-working valleys of the Cevennes, no change
of importance occurred for almost another generation. Nowhere was there a true
factory system, though the trade contained many considerable capitalists and
fair-sized single establishments. In the silk industry, one notable invention
was made at Lyons in 1804—the Jacquard-loom for weaving complex patterns
without the intricate “harness” and endless labour of the old looms. As an
invention it ranks with the greatest of those made in England, but it brought
no change in the industrial organisation of the Lyons trade. The capitalist
maitre jubricant, more a merchant than a manufacturer, directed the course of
business as in the eighteenth century, giving out designs and material to the
subordinate maitre ouvrier and his journeymen.
In Belgium
the woollen trade at least had been considerably modified before 1840; but in
Germany most primitive conditions prevailed. There were a few large
spinning-mills about Aachen and in Silesia; but, as the Prussian “spinneries”
contained on an average only 107 spindles each in 1840, the bulk of them could
hardly be termed factories. Every peasant family still spun its wool and its
flax; most owned and worked a linen-loom; some wove their own wool. So late as
184S, not a third of the looms in Prussia were owned by professional weavers.
Such weavers as there were almost all worked at home. There were three
linen-weaving businesses in Berlin in 1846. They employed fourteen hands, all
told. Its four cloth factories and its numerous silk factories each employed
some five-and-twenty men; its three establishments for spinning wool by
machinery each between five-and-twenty and thirty. In England the hardest
social problem of the textile trades was that of the hand-weavers; in Germany
it was that of the hand-spinners of flax. Flax-spinning was not a by-employment
only; it was also a separate industry, an industry that had come into existence
to meet
the needs of
the great domestic linen manufacture in Silesia and elsewhere and to supply
the export trade in linen and linen-yarn during the eighteenth century. Princes
had set their soldiers and the occupants of their prisons spinning; spinning
colonies had been created; distressed peasants had often turned spinners; and
the easy trade was overcrowded with low-grade labour. Flax-spinning machinery
had hardly appeared in Germany; but the competition of English mill yams and
fabrics, together with the deterioration in the quality of most of the German
yam, crippled the export trade and produced long-drawn misery in the thirties
and forties. While Germany was thus experiencing some of the first effects of
widespread industrial change, and while the remodelling of the textile
industries was in progress also in Switzerland, southern and eastern Europe
remained almost untouched.
Not all the
industrial changes of the peace were the result of English initiative, as the
case of Jacquard’s loom shows. Most of the early and decisive mechanical
inventions came from England, though flax-spinning machinery is claimed for the
Frenchman Girard and the tubular boiler for Seguin. From England also came the
modem factory system and industrial organisation. But there remained arts and
crafts in which she was still backward. In the textile industries her vast
superiority of mere producing power was accompanied by a grade of beauty and
design that was often woefully low. Here France was her mistress, and parts of
Germany at least her equals. In scientific methods of metallurgy she was in
some ways inferior to Germany; and in many branches of applied science she
could not claim supremacy. The foundations of industrial chemistry were largely
laid by Frenchmen, from Lavoisier and Leblanc onwards; and the French
Governments, Napoleon’s Government above all, encouraged the work with zeal. So
also in smaller matters of a scientific sort. The first tolerable oil-lamps are
connected with two French names, while later came Daguerre and his
sun-pictures. It is not possible to trace the long series of the scientific
inventions. Many of them had produced no great effects on industry in the
forties; but the leading continental nations were taking their full share in
the work of discovery and dissemination. Already their activity was a matter of
concern to England; and John Bowring wrote anxiously of the German Customs’
Union in 1840, that “chemical knowledge, in all its various branches, is
further advanced than with us.”
That this
advance in scientific knowledge did not as yet carry with it a corresponding
advance in practice is shown by the position of the fundamental industries of
mining and metallurgy on the Continent. The nearest approach to English
conditions had been made in Belgium, thanks partly to the new railway system.
The coal and iron industries were of old standing in the Low Countries. The
pits of southern Hainault had been worked to a depth of over five hundred feet
in the eighteenth century. Liege practised to perfection all known branches
756
Coal-mining.—The iron industry.
[i782-i850
of iron and
steel working. War gave employment to her foundries and her forges; but the new
processes only came with the peace—coke- smelting, the puddling-fumace, and the
rolling-mill, crossing from England between 1820 and 1830. Even during the wars
iron tramways and steam winding-engines were being introduced in the Hainault
collieries. With the thirties came a great extension of mining and a rapid
transformation of the iron industry. Between 1830 and 1835 some thirty thousand
men were employed in the Belgian coal-mines, which at that time had a greater
output than those of either France or Prussia. Steam was rapidly adopted and new
industries sprang up fast on the coal-fields of the south.
French
coal-mining developed slowly; and the small, old, charcoal- smelting furnaces,
each giving work for a mere handful of men, that were scattered over the wooded
highlands of the east and south were only gradually displaced by large
coke-fumaces employing the steam- blast. One of Watt’s engines came to Creusot
in 1782. Experiments with coke were made there a few years later and again in
the early years of the Empire; but at the time of the July Revolution there
were still less than thirty coke-fumaces at work in France, as compared with
nearly four hundred of the old type. The number of charcoal-fumaces grew for
another nine years; and in 1846 more than half the French pig-iron was still charcoal-made.
When the railway age began, the French industry was not in a position to supply
the needs of the companies, which at times were forced to import from England,
in spite of heavy tariffs, at times to make advances to equip furnaces out of
their own funds. Until after 1840 the consumption of coal in France grew
slowly, though persistently. The full extent of the northern coalfield was as
yet unknown; and the greater part of the output came from the comparatively
inaccessible fields of the upper Loire.
Outside
Belgium and France there was little rapid movement before 1850. The ancient
Swedish iron industry went forward steadily. It fed Sheffield and felt the
effects of English industrial activity. The Styrian mines on the contrary,
which in the third quarter of the eighteenth century had yielded almost as much
iron as all England, were now utterly distanced. The new processes were not
really established in Germany. In 1846 barely fourteen per cent, of the
furnaces in Prussia had adopted coke as fuel; and six years later it was
estimated that the output of iron from an average English furnace compared with
that from an average German furnace was as ten to one. There were a few great
smelting and iron-working establishments in Westphalia and Silesia in the
forties; but they were all young. As a whole the German iron industry was still
a half-rural, a woodland, trade. The old water- driven tilt-hammers,
nail-mills, and wire-mills were thickly strewn over the iron district of
Siegerland. Smelting in that country was commonly in the hands of small groups
of peasants who “ managed to divide their
time between
the mine, the forest, the furnace, and their land,” and wore the fumace-man’s
leather apron when haymaking, as an English traveller reported in 1846. Nine
years earlier the average Prussian iron-mine gave employment to less than ten
men; and the working force even in the copper, lead, and silver mines was
usually but thirty or forty. Belgium alone produced more iron than the whole
Zollverein in the early forties, just as she produced more coal than Prussia.
Coal-mining on a large scale had begun in Westphalia, on the Boer, and in
Silesia; but its growth waited on that of the iron industry and the railway.
Where the
manufacture of pig-iron was still undeveloped, the engineering trades—and with
them the fibres of the new industrial economy —were of necessity weak. This was
the situation in Germany in 1840. The stimulus given to most branches of
manufacture by the creation of the Zollverein was only just beginning to make
itself felt. The use of steam-engines had hardly begun. Though various classes
of machines were being successfully built in Saxony, at Berlin, and in
Westphalia, and though joint-stock engineering businesses had recently been
founded, all was experimental and somewhat raw. In France and Belgium this was
not the case. There the new metal-working appliances—rollers, lathes,
planing-machines, slotting-machines—were known and used in the thirties. But
England’s superiority remained indisputable. Cockerill, of Seraing, was
probably the best of continental machine-builders. Yet his textile machinery
was conspicuously inferior to that of English makers in 1837; almost all his
models, in every branch of the industiy, were English; and from England came all
his best machine tools. The next decade no doubt saw great advances in Germany,
as well as in Belgium and France; but England also was in motion, and the
relative positions of the industrial nations were little aiFected.
The social
and political effects of industrial change had touched almost every part of
Great Britain in the early forties. Town growth was in headlong and unwholesome
progress. That capitalism would triumph in all fields seemed certain.
Economists could assume with no very glaring inaccuracy that both capital and
labour were mobile between trade and trade. The manufacturers were a power in
Parliament. Reform of the evils characteristic of life in mill and mine had
begun. The multitudes of wage-workers in the new and new-modelled trades were
struggling for freedom to organise, and feeling after those forms of
organisation for self-defence and self-advancement which already existed in
some of the older crafts. Collectivist thought was taking forms consonant with
the principles of the new industrial systems. Friedrich Engels was following
earlier English thinkers in examination and criticism of the tendencies of the
new age, as manifested in Great Britain. Before 1850 Karl Marx settled in
England. There was a fresh bitterness of class strife, threatening industrial
as well as political
758
Primitive conditions in Germany.
[1754-I849
revolution.
In France and Belgium the outward signs and the social effects of the new age
were less marked and less general. They were concentrated, it might be in
Alsace, or about Lille, at St Etienne, or at Roubaix. It could be plausibly
maintained in 1849 that la grande Industrie was an unnatural, as well as an
unwholesome, growth in France —a growth due to slavish imitation of England
joined to a protective tariff, and that small-scale, and not capitalistic,
industry was and must remain the true French system. The bourgeois following of
the bourgeois King was not a class of great manufacturers, though it contained
such. Collectivist thought was not completely dominated by the new movements;
it retained something of the classical flavour of eighteenth centuiy social
speculation. This was but natural; for the economic conditions under which the
majority of Frenchmen lived, above all in the villages and country towns, had
changed surprisingly little since Louis XVI met the States General at
Versailles.
Germany
furnishes a most complete picture of primitive social and economic conditions
as yet untouched. Mills and furnaces might be rising, agricultural methods
changing, the flax-spinners suffering; still, in innumerable trades and towns
apprentice and journeyman lived with the master after the old fashion. The
peasant was often enough his own miller; and, where the miller existed, he
usually took his pay in kind. The village smith, in many districts, was an
official paid by the commune and bound to work for small customary fees. Even
in such industries as tanning and dyeing the small craftsman, working at home,
generally held his own. During three generations—from 1754 to 1847— the number
of master-craftsmen as compared with the population of Berlin hardly varied.
The capitalist manufacturing class—the employers of modem economic
theory—existed only as isolated individuals, not as a distinguishable grade of
society. Industry had been freed over a great part of Germany; but it retained
most of its old habits and moved slowly along the new ways.; while in more than
one State access to those ways was still hindered by the law.
In trading as
in industry, inland Germany, and with it all eastern Europe, retained methods
which in England and other parts of the west had long been disappearing. Trade
was medieval in its simplicity. Peasant and townsman everywhere dealt directly
with each other in the weekly markets. No intermediary came, as a rule, between
the working craftsman and the consumer. The man who wanted a new town-house
himself bought the materials and directed the workmen. In the country the
peasant often built for himself with the aid of his neighbours. Local supplies of
food for the most part satisfied all local needs. Even in Berlin the bulk of
the flour consumed was ground at the neighbouring mills. Outside the greatest
towns the pure shopkeeping class hardly existed. Pedlars and travelling dealers
took its place, from whom both small townsman and peasant bought any
implements, utensils,
1800-50] Oceanic trade. The English markets. 759
articles of
clothing, or luxuries, that could not be made on the spot. Fairs, such as those
of Leipzig and Frankfort on the Oder, were the centres of a more wholesale
commerce and attracted to themselves the greater merchants and the staples of
international trade. The Frankfort fair was still growing in importance in
1850; for economic conditions in eastern Germany somewhat resembled those of
Russia, where the decline of the fairs only began with the last quarter of the
nineteenth century.
Not even in
the west had that revolution been accomplished which has brought into some
branches of retail trade organisation on the largest scale and, latterly, the
joint-stock company form. In Paris itself, in the forties, almost all the
retail business firms remained small and peddling, short of capital and of
organisation. The position of the London tradesman was little better. It was
noticed as a new thing, in 1825, that the prosperous shopkeeper was leaving the
house over his shop for the suburbs; and such evidence of growing wealth evoked
comment. As an institution the shop would seem to have been generally
established some time before 1800, even in remote English villages; but in 1840
it was still an institution economically akin rather to the domestic system of
manufacture than to the complex factory organism.
Meanwhile
there had developed in the ports of the west wholesale dealings of uncommon magnitude.
Forms and methods had not greatly changed since the eighteenth century; there
had been no appreciable quickening in the rate of ocean transport or in the
dissemination of market news; but the scope of commerce had been extended to
meet new needs and make use of new opportunities. The long distance trades in
food-stuffs and raw materials took a fresh aspect, as population thickened in
the industrial lands, as manufactures using tropical or subtropical materials
developed, and as the produce of the southern temperate zone for the first time
crossed to the northern. England was the centre of the new activity. The
slave-grown cotton of America, that had been sparely used before 1800, came to
Liverpool in greater quantity year by year during the generation that followed
the wars. Cotton was also shipped to Havre, to Hamburg, to Antwerp, and elsewhere;
but Liverpool remained the central European market where Frenchmen, Belgians,
and others, did much of their buying. Gradually there was constructed at Liverpool
a commercial mechanism adapted to the work in hand and modelled, to some
extent, on that of the London Stock Exchange. The foundation of the Cotton
Brokers’ Association in 1841 may be taken to mark the beginning of this new
type of highly organised and regulated wholesale dealings, a type which was to
develop in other markets and affect other commodities. In the wool trade it had
not developed, though there also great changes were in progress. Between 1820
and 1840 considerable supplies of wool began to reach Europe from Australia,
Cape Colony, and the river Plate. With the arrival of the colonial wools a new
international market was created in
760
The wheat-trade.—Eastern trade.
[1790-1851
London, a
market through which for almost half a century well-nigh every bale of
Australian or South African wool passed.
On all hands
tarifls checked the free development of the international trade in grain; but
it also was growing and changing notably. England was as yet the only country
that depended on import for any appreciable quantity of her com in ordinary
years. Even in years of scarcity^ however, her imports had probably never
exceeded one-fifteenth or one- sixteenth of her total consumption of wheat
before 1840. There was a rapid growth in the next decade; yet it was possible
in 1851 to treat the notion that she might ever draw the greater part of her
bread from abroad as a grotesque absurdity. Nevertheless this limitation of
independence was a new and significant thing. Supplies of grain from fresh and
remote sources were waiting admission at the doors of the industrial nations.
Until the close of the wars the occasional needs of western Europe were met by
the surplus produce shipped from the southern Baltic ports, from Sicily, and
from the North African coast. The United States and Canada had contributed, but
on no great scale, though American com had often found its way to French ports
and had been welcomed by the agents of the Revolutionary Government during the
Terror. Before the eighteenth century ended, the colonisation of the Black Sea
steppes by Russia and the opening of the Dardanelles to commerce prepared a new
field of supply and a way to it. Odessa, a mere cluster of houses in 1790, was
a town of fifty thousand inhabitants in 1825, whence grain was being shipped to
the Mediterranean and the west. The cheap Russian wheat had reached France and
England immediately after the Peace of Vienna. Its advent had encouraged both
countries in their new policy of rigid exclusion. However, it speedily drove the
Baltic wheat from such markets—they were mainly in the south of Europe—as it
was permitted to enter. The wheat-growing capacity of America was still
comparatively small; but there was a steady increase in the surplus available
for export both in British North America and in the United States.
Other long
distance trades of old standing had recovered from the disturbance of war; and
their swift growth provoked incessant change in British and continental ports.
England of set purpose discouraged the easy timber trade with the Baltic, and,
by a substantial tariff preference, stimulated that with New Brunswick and the
other North American provinces. British dealings with India and the Far East
grew with the abolition of the Company’s monopoly in 1813 and the transference
of all trading powers from the Company to the private merchants in 1833. But
the seas east of Singapore were still little frequented by English shipping;
and direct trade with China was of no great importance until after 1840.
Between 1830 and 1840 only twenty-three British ships cleared for China yearly;
and only forty-four ships of all nationalities entered British ports directly
from that country.
Meanwhile the
old Dutch commerce with the Malay islands had revived. The spice trade of the
Moluccas dwindled into insignificance; but its place was more than filled by
the rapid growth of the new trade in coffee and other tropical produce from
Java. Capable governors organised there a curiously artificial system of forced
labour and strict monopoly, which, whatever its merits as a method of
government, clearly gave new economic strength to the Dutch colonial empire,
and to Amsterdam and Rotterdam something of their ancient activity.
Comparable to
the development of Java, and of greater importance for international commerce
as a whole, was the new phase in the history of the West Indies that began with
the freeing of Cuban trade by Spain in 1809. After the ruin of San Domingo,
Jamaica for a time held the first place among the sugar-colonies. But the stopping
of the slave- trade in 1812, followed by the abolition of slavery itself twenty
years later, helped to throw back the English islands and free the way for the
rise of Cuba and Porto Rico. The land of Cuba was still virgin; English capital
was offered abundantly to bring it into use; the population of the island
nearly trebled in a generation; the tobacco industry was created; and by 1830
Cuba alone was supplying almost a fifth of the sugar consumed in Europe. The
story of Brazil is not unlike that of Cuba. There, owing to English influence,
trade was thrown open when the Portuguese royal family crossed the Atlantic in
1807. The tutelage which Great Britain had exercised over Portugal was extended
to the new dominion, and carried with it the advantages of commercial connexion
with the world’s greatest market and a supply of British capital for the
extension of coffee-planting, cotton-growing, and other less certain
undertakings. In both Brazil and Cuba, as in the United States, the demand of
Europe for tropical produce directly encouraged the consolidation and extension
of a society based on slavery, with its evil economic and social consequences.
Towards the
end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century the insurgent Spanish
colonies of the North and South American mainland were also opened to European
trade. Here too was England’s opportunity and for a time she had few
competitors. By gradually easing the bonds of the old colonial system and
relaxing the Navigation Acts she also encouraged, though grudgingly, the
natural intercourse between the new nations of America and her own American
dependencies. As the New World took shape and gained strength, political and
economic, it began to exercise trade influence on Europe greater than had been
known since its precious metals deranged prices and perplexed statesmen in the
sixteenth century. The young republics borrowed as freely as they sold and
bought. Already in 1825 speculative trading with America had thrown the
commerce of England out of gear; while before 1840 all the markets of Europe
had felt, and for the first time, the effects of American manipulation of the
cotton
supplies and
the discomforts of that world-wide division of labour whereby one continent
grows what another works.
Among the immediate
results of the whole course of economic, legal, and political change in Europe
and out of Europe, none was of greater significance or more intricately
connected with all the complex forces that ruled the new age than the great
flow of men outward from Europe that set in as the great wars ceased. It was an
emigration such as the modem world had not before known. Population, held down
in many countries by war, showed astonishing recuperative and expansive power.
In the United Kingdom even war had done little to check its growth. The ties of
law or custom that held the peasantry of Europe to the soil were falling away.
Restrictions on emigration failed or were swept aside. The barriers round the
old Spanish dominions fell. Even Africa began to open. Travel became easier
year by year; and the unoccupied lands and the young trades of four continents
gave room for industry and skill.
For the first
fifteen years of the peace the movement of the population was, in the main, a
movement from Great Britain to North America. In Britain employment was
insufficient and wages low, both in the cities and on the land; trades and
towns and classes were in the grip of the great changes ; and political
discontent came to aid the economic forces that were driving the people from
home. According to the official figures, which however are undoubtedly too low,
the average annual emigration from the United Kingdom for the five years 1820-4
was just over twelve thousand; for the years 1830-4 it was sixty-five thousand.
The continental emigration was also mainly directed towards America; but it
began late and gradually, and it is hard to measure. It is known that some
fifteen thousand Germans landed yearly at United States’ ports between 1830 and
1840; but in the earlier years of that decade the numbers were small. Of the
Germans who went to other countries—and they were many—there are no adequate
records. From the United Kingdom the movement was accelerating in the thirties.
Schemes for systematic colonisation were on foot; but their numerical results
were inconsiderable. North America retained its vast attractive power; it was
not until 1838 that more than five thousand British emigrants turned elsewhere
in any one year. From France and Belgium, Holland and Scandinavia, Spain, Italy,
and eastern Europe, emigration was slow before 1840. It gathered speed from
Switzerland and Scandinavia in the forties; and in the early fifties even lands
with but a small natural increase of population contributed to the stream. From
the United Kingdom it was reaching full flood, for the Irish exodus had begun
and the new gold of the west and south was drawing men away over seas.
THE BRITISH
ECONOMISTS.
The Wealth of Nations was
published in 1776. The work was based on lectures which formed part of Adam
Smith’s course of Moral Philosophy when Professor in the University of Glasgow
(1752-63). After resigning his Chair, Smith travelled on the Continent for
three years as tutor of the Duke of Buccleuch. A considerable part of the time
was spent in Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Quesnay, the founder of
the Physiocratic system, which Smith described as “with all its imperfections
perhaps the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon
the subject of political economy.” On returning to Scotland, Smith settled at
Kirkcaldy, and for the next ten years devoted himself entirely to the
composition of his great work. It ran through several editions during his
lifetime; but, although he made many small alterations, he introduced no
substantial changes and only added one new chapter.
The social
conditions and institutions of his time (1723-90) which chiefly affected, or
modified the proportions of, “ the wealth of nations,” were, first and
foremost, the survivals of medieval regulations and ideas in the governmental
management of home industries and the predominance of the Mercantile System in
foreign trade and colonial policy. In consequence, a large part of the work of
Adam Smith was critical and destructive. “ Laws frequently continue in force
long after the circumstances which first gave occasion to them, and which
could alone render them reasonable, are no more.” Large estates, supported by
primogeniture and entails, might have been necessary under the insecurity of
the feudal system; but in the actual state of Europe the proprietor of a single
acre was as secure as the proprietor of 100,000. The survivals of feudal
institutions checked the improvement of agriculture. “After small proprietors,
rich and great farmers are in every country the great improvers.” Feudal
survivals checked the subdivision of land and the establishment of peasant
proprietors and yeomen, and checked also the investment by large tenant farmers
of capital in land. Smith allowed that the land system in England was less
hurtful than that prevailing in most parts of
764
Adam Smith’s
Wealth of Nations.
[i776
Europe; but
he is hardly just to the “spirited landowners” of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centimes. The reform of the land laws has, however, proceeded in
England on the lines laid down by Adam Smith; freedom of transfer has been
promoted, settlements have been restricted, and the security of the tenant’s
capital has been increased. Cobden declared that in the reform of the English
land laws he would rely entirely on the teaching of Adam Smith. Labour, like
land, in Adam Smith’s opinion, remained in fetters or in leading-strings no
longer required. The Statute of Apprenticeship (or Artificers), 5 Eliz. cap. 4,
and the customs which enforced the same ideas, imposed restrictions on the
advancement of labour; and the “ ill-contrived ” laws of settlement limited its
mobility. Combinations of masters were tacitly if not openly permitted, while
those of labour were suppressed. Adam Smith advocated free trade in labour as
in land.
With regard
to capital, although he held strongly that, from the national stand-point,
there were differences in the relative advantages of employing capital in
different ways, he still considered that the direction of private people as to
the employment of their capital could be “ safely trusted not only to no single
person but to no council or senate whatever.” His view that the State should
not attempt to direct the employment of capital is the more remarkable because
he did not think profit, by which individuals are guided, was the measure of
national advantage. On the contrary he maintained that, with equal or nearly
equal profits, there might be great differences in national advantages. The
most remarkable illustration of this doctrine is the argument that the monopoly
of the colonial trade had, by raising the general rate of profit, affected
adversely the national interests, and even the separate interests of the three
great classes which make up the nation—labourers, capitalists, and landlords.
Of all employments of capital, that in agriculture was by him considered the
most advantageous to a nation; but “ those systems which, preferring
agriculture to all other employments, in order to promote it impose restraints
on manufactures and foreign trade, act contrary to the very end which they
propose and indirectly discourage that very species of industry which they mean
to promote.” Adam Smith condemned equally the laws intended to prevent
speculation and those designed to regulate the inland trade in com; he
condemned alike the bounties intended to encourage the export Of com and the
extension of the area under cultivation, and the restraints on the importation
of foreign com.
The main
part, however, of Adam Smith’s criticism was directed against the regulations
framed for the management and direction of foreign and colonial trade, which
are generally summarised under the title of the Mercantile System. In his
Fourth Book he examined the foundations of this system, especially from the
point of view of the encouragement alleged to be given to home labour and the
promotion of native industries. He attacked the general theory of the balance
of
1776] The Mercantile System.—Colonial policy. 765
trade, and
then examined in detail, with an abundance of historical and statistical
illustrations, the various expedients by which it was sought to attain a
favourable balance: restraints on imports, encouragements to exports,
commercial treaties, and the exploitation of colonies. It has been well said by
Adolf Held that anyone who reads the Book carefully will find in it a
wonderful picture of the whole social relations and of the state of the
economic and financial legislation of England about the middle of the
eighteenth century—and he might have said, not only of England, but of the
whole world. On surveying mankind from China to Peru, Adam Smith discovered an
enormous mass of what he considered useless or harmful regulations, not merely,
as is so often supposed, from what List calls the cosmo-political point of
view, but from that of the various nations concerned. He set himself to cut
away these growths and give free play to the natural economic forces. And the
conclusion of the Fourth Book is that, “ all systems either of restraint or preference
being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural
liberty establishes itself of its own accord.”
This passage,
divorced from its context, has often been quoted to show that Adam Smith was
the founder and supporter of the most extreme form of laisser faire. But,
before examining this popular error, it is desirable to recall briefly other
historical conditions and events by which his work was naturally influenced.
While he was living the life of a recluse at Kirkcaldy, on one side of the
world the British Colonies were being driven to rebellion, and on the other the
races of India were being brought under British dominion. Naturally some of the
longest and best chapters in the Wealth of Nations deal with British policy as
regards the Colonies and India. No part of his work is better calculated to
show that Adam Smith did not consider it the duty of British statesmen simply
to let India and the Colonies look to themselves. On the contrary, as a basis
of colonial policy, he expounded a most elaborate and far-reaching scheme of
imperial federation involving imperial taxation with imperial representation;
and, as regards India, he maintained strongly that a company of merchants was
unfitted to exercise the functions of government. With respect to European
policy, the most noticeable feature of Adam Smith’s position is Ids advocacy of
better trade relations with France. Until his time the commercial relations of
the two countries had been marked by animosity and distrust, evidenced by heavy
duties and prohibitions. The treaty negotiated by Eden (1786) was the direct
outcome of Pitt’s approval of Adam Smith’s teaching, though the wars which
ensued from political causes did not permit the fruits to be seen. Adam Smith
also strongly approved of a union with Ireland on the lines of the union with
Scotland. “By a union with Great Britain, Ireland would gain, besides the
freedom of trade, other advantages much more important, and which would much
more than compensate any increase of taxes that might accompany that union.”
Attention has
been directed in the first place to the critical or negative side of Adam
Smith’s work, because by that he is best known popularly, and because this side
of his teaching has possibly had the greatest influence on practical policy.
But on the positive or constructive side the Wealth of Nations has had very
great influence in the development of economic science and in the enunciation
of ideas of far-reaching effect.
In the
positive as in the negative part of his work Adam Smith made equal use of the
two methods or rather kinds of methods on the relative merits of which a great
controversy was raging a century later. Adam Smith’s treatment was on the one
side abstract, deductive, hypothetical, a priori, and on the other it was
positive, inductive, historical, comparative; but in his mind there was no
opposition between the two methods, and they are always complementary. We find
abstract theories on land and labour so strongly expressed that they have been
taken as the basis of the most extreme forms of socialism; but, with Adam Smith
himself, the constant reference to history and experience makes them the “
promoters ” not of sudden and violent revolutions but of gradual and peaceful
reforms. Two illustrations may be offered: one general, the other particular.
After bestowing on Quesnay the eulogy already quoted he goes on to say in
effect: Quesnay, who was himself a physician, and a very speculative physician,
seems to have imagined that the political body (like the human body) would only
thrive under a certain precise regimen, the exact regimen of perfect liberty
and perfect justice. But if, Adam Smith objects, a nation could not prosper
without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in
the world a nation which could ever have prospered. Adam Smith maintains that
in the body political as in the body natural a considerable margin of variation
from standards of perfection is compatible with health. In particular he
considered that to expect the perfect establishment of free trade in Britain
was utopian; and of the system of the Com Law of his day he remarked that with
all its imperfections we might say of it what was said of the laws of Solon,
namely, that, though not the best in itself, it is the best which the interest,
prejudices, and temper of the times would admit.
Adam Smith’s
contributions to abstract theory were in fact so great that a leading
representative of the mathematical method has asserted that his chief work was
the application of the idea of measurement to economic motives, and that he
used history and experience simply for illustrations of his theories. It may be
shown, however, that alike in its general plan and in the treatment of
particular topics, the Wealth of Nations is dominated by the historical method.
No merely abstract treatment could reveal the meaning and the importance of the
change from a natural to a money economy, which may be said to be the economic
counterpart of the formula of “ progress from status to
1776]
767
contract.” No
mere theory of capital would have sufficed to show the increasing predominance
of capital as compared with land in the distribution of economic power.
Paradoxical as it may seem, the constant reference to history widened rather
than restricted the application of economic theory. Adam Smith applies his
theories to churches, to Courts of justice, to navies and armies, to education
in the most extended sense of the term, and to the development of all kinds of
social institutions in which economic or money considerations are of
importance. His account of the fall of the medieval Church is in remarkable
conformity with the latest historical judgment. The main cause was that the
Church had ceased to give value for the money received. Rome had made a
monopoly of religion and applied the principles of monopoly to the distribution
of her services.
Adam Smith
often speaks of labour, and of the price of labour, as if labour were a
commodity like other commodities; but, taking his treatment as a whole, owing
to historical influences he is more humane than any of his immediate
successors. In opposition to the prevalent ideas of the time, he insisted on
the “economy of high wages,” and warned masters and men of the dangers of
over-pressure. In his survey of political economy considered as a practical
science, he places first the provision of a plentiful revenue for the masses of
the people. He was the author, except in name, of the theory of the unearned
increment, and argued that, wherever they could be got at, the gains of
monopolists should be subject to differential taxation. The most decisive test
of the prosperity of a nation is the advance in the numbers of the people; and
the reason is not any admiration for mere numbers, but because, to use the
modern phrase, with increasing population the law of increasing return comes
into play, and with an increase of numbers there is an increase of general
prosperity. There are indeed constant references to the dictates of common
humanity. Education should be universal and compulsory, not because it would
add to the economic efficiency of labour, but because it would add to the
dignity and worth of mankind. It is the duty of the Government to encourage the
military virtues of the people, not simply for defence, but also on account of
the improvement in their manhood; “ cowardice is as loathsome a disease as
leprosy,” and should be as effectively guarded against.
This broad
humanity of Adam Smith might, perhaps, be suggested by philosophy; but it was
made a living thing by history. In the same way his treatment of capital was
dominated by the historical method. He realised the growing importance of
capital in economic progress; but he realised also the growing danger of its
abuse. His attitude of distrust towards the capitalist as the adviser of the
legislator is in marked contrast to that of his immediate successors. “ The
interest of the dealers in any particular branch of trade or manufactures is
always in some respects different from and even opposite to that of the
public....The
768
Land.—Labour.—
Wages.—Profits. [i776
proposal of
any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order of men ought
always to be listened to with the greatest precaution, and ought never to be
adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the
most scrupulous but with the most suspicious attention." He is much more
favourable to the landowners and capitalist farmers: “they are, to their
honour, of all people the least subject to the wretched spirit of
monopoly." And yet in his analysis of rent he says it is naturally at a
monopoly price. It is not proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out
on the land, but to what the farmer can afford to give. The landlord exacts
rent from land that is incapable of improvement; he exacts it even from the
sea. With regard to property in land we have the often-quoted expression on
entails, that they are founded on the most absurd of all suppositions, the
supposition that successive generations of men have not an equal right to the
earth and to all that it possesses.
In accounting
for the prosperity of colonies we are told that in the old countries rent and
profit eat up wages, and the expenses or the extortions of governments are
heavy, while in new countries wages are high. Here we have the application of
the more general proposition that forms the introduction to the treatment of
wages. “ 'Ihe produce of labour constitutes the natural recompense or wages of
labour.” In the original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation
of land and the accumulation of capital, “ the whole produce of labour belongs
to the labourer; he has neither landlord nor master to share it with him."
Then, again, Adam Smith adopts with emphasis the labour foundation of property.
“The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original
foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and
inviolable." He avoided, however, the extravagances to which later socialistic
writers pushed these doctrines, partly because his analysis though less formal
is more thorough, and partly because he always tested his philosophy by
history. “ The original state of things was at an end long before the most
considerable improvements were made in the productive powers of labour; and it
would be to no purpose to trace further what might have been its effects upon
the recompense or wages of labour." Rent and profit very soon began to eat
up wages. With Adam Smith, moreover, it must be remembered, in connexion with
the development of socialistic doctrines, that he always used the term “labour”
in the widest sense. It was applied to the highest offices and professions; and
perhaps the only notable exception is that in the analysis of profits the
element of wages of management is reduced to much less importance than is the
case with other economists. In fact, we are told that wages and profits are
altogether different; and, conversely, that the reward of the capitalist or
employer is not due mainly to his labour.
The Fifth
Book of the Wealth of Nations is entitled: “Of the revenue
of the
sovereign or commonwealth”; but in reality it treats of the economic functions
of the State and forms the necessary complement to the obvious and simple system
of natural liberty which is erroneously interpreted to mean unqualified laisser
faire. In this Book, it is true, we also find a destructive criticism of many
existing financial and legislative expedients; but in it the foundations are
laid of a reformed system which certainly cannot be described as the “
individualistic minimum.” In forming an accurate idea of Adam Smith’s attitude
towards the general doctrine of laisser faire it must also be borne in mind
that the Wealth of Nations forms only a part of his whole system. He had
published previously the Theory of Moral Sentiments, the foundation of which is
sympathy; and he tells us in the preface to the latest edition that he had
drawn up the plan of a separate work on the philosophy of law and government.
It is usual to regard Adam Smith as the founder of political economy in the
modern sense of the term, because he was the first to make a definite study of
the wealth of nations apart from other objects of social or political union. It
does not follow that in his view wealth is to be considered as of fundamental
importance, to the exclusion of these other objects; and the contrary may be
easily shown from many noticeable obiter dicta in the Wealth of Nations itself.
“Defence is of more importance than opulence”; and the recommendation of the
simple and obvious system of natural liberty is conditioned by the reservation
that every man should be left perfectly free to pursue his own interest in his
own way, both as regards industry and capital, only so long as “ he does not
violate the laws of justice.” The ideas of justice and humanity are, with Adam
Smith, always of greater cogency than the ideas of opulence or property.
The Wealth of
Nations has given rise to a voluminous literature both critical and expository.
Probably no work of importance in economics has since been written which has
not been directly or indirectly influenced by it. And yet the freshness of the
original has survived like that of a work of nature; it is, in short, one of
the rare great creative works of genius. It still stands unrivalled as the
foundation of economic science; though improvements have been made in every
part taken in isolation, it still holds the field as the best general survey,
especially for the student of history. Much labour has been devoted to showing
that Adam Smith was not original, that all his doctrines are to be found in
earlier writers. Even in the narrow literal sense this charge of want of
originality can hardly be maintained. The discovery and publication of the
notes of his lectures in the University of Glasgow show that he had already
given to his students the ideas he was supposed to have taken from Quesnay and
the Physiocrats during his stay in France some years later. It is no doubt true
that many of his criticisms of the mercantilist position had been anticipated
so early as the seventeenth century; and that even the benefits of free trade
and
the
advantages of division of labour had been observed and described. Nicolas
Barbon in his work A Discourse of Trade (1690) had insisted that imports must
of necessity be paid for by exports; and Sir Dudley North in his Discourses
upon Trade (1691) had argued that money was distributed amongst the nations
according to their economic needs for it through the adjustment of prices, and
had maintained that the classes in any nation, and also the different nations
constituting the commercial world, were bound together by a solidarity of
interests, and that absolute free trade was the best means to the acquisition
of wealth. The general argument for free trade was still more emphatically
stated by the French economist, Marquis d’Argenson, in an essay published in
the Journal Oeconomique (1751). To him is ascribed the first statement of the
rule “ ne pas trop gouverner ” and of the still more famous “ laisser
Jaire." The movement of trade should be as free as that of the air; all
Europe should be organised as one market; public security should be maintained;
and then “laissezfaire, morbleu, laissez faire?
In the same
way, before Adam Smith there was a vast literature— Urgely, it is true, in
pamphlets and fugitive writings—on every important topic treated in the Wealth
of Nations: eg. the nature of usury and interest in the modem sense, the canons
of taxation, the foundations of banking and credit, public debts, population,
etc. And although Adam Smith is very sparing in quotations of the names of
authors, he had read everything bearing on his subject and worked up all that
he considered of value into his own argument. Apart from these special studies
of economic problems, there had been before Adam Smith expositions of political
economy as a science, notably by Richard Cantillon, whose work written 1730-4
(Essay on the Nature of Commerce at large), and first published in 1755, is
pronounced by Jevons to be the first systematic treatise of political economy.
Cantillon’s work had been handed about in manuscript, and had largely
influenced Mirabeau and the Physiocrats; and he is one of the few writers whom
Adam Smith quotes by name. Turgot separated economics from jurisprudence in his
Refections (published 1769) on the formation and distribution of wealth, a work
of which a too partial biographer has said that it contains in a short compass
all that is of value in the Wealth of Nations “without its tedious prolixity.”
Quesnay had died two years before the publication of Adam Smith’s work, which
it is recorded it was the intention of the Scotchman to dedicate to the
Frenchman; and Quesnay’s first article had appeared in 1755. David Hume, whose
Political Discourses were published in 1752, was Adam Smith’s most intimate
friend. He treated of some of the most general problems of economics; and his
writings are to a great extent in accord with those of Adam Smith, though they
differ in details. Sir James Steuart’s Inquiry into the Principles of Political
Oecmomy (1767) attained a considerable reputation in England at the time; and
in recent years attempts have been made to reestablish
Originality and influence of Adam
Smith. 771
his reputation.
He is generally described as a moderate mercantilist, though in many points he
emphasises as clearly as Adam Smith the benefits of individualism.
Enough has
been said to illustrate the position now accepted that neither in its general
scope nor in the details of the work was the Wealth of Nations entirely due to
the inventive genius of one man. Even the breadth of view by which Adam Smith
compares so favourably with his successors must be ascribed largely to the
training he had received in philosophy and jurisprudence. And yet, when all
allowances have been made for the materials and the influences of other
sources, the Wealth of Nations must be considered one of the greatest of
original works, epoch-making and path-breaking in the fullest sense of the terms.
If Adam Smith knew how to absorb and assimilate, he knew also, what is
infinitely harder, how to reject and cast aside. He accepted nothing on
authority ; whatever its origin or suggestion, every opinion became part of his
own living thought. This is no doubt one reason why he makes so few references
to other writers by name. His reading had been absorbed in his thinking. If any
of Adam Smith’s predecessors have had any influence either on the practical
economic policy or on the economic theory of the nineteenth century, it is
chiefly in so far as their work became part and parcel of the Wealth of
Nations. Adam Smith is quoted more than all previous authorities put together.
The success
of the Wealth of Nations was immediate, and, considering the nature of the
work, unprecedented. Smith, it must be remembered, had already made a European
reputation by his Theory of Moral Sentiments ; and besides he was in touch
with the greatest men of the time in letters, thought, and politics. The stoiy
is well known of the dinner of celebrities to which Adam Smith came late, and
was received by the whole company rising and with the greeting by Pitt, “ We
will stand till you are seated, for we are all your scholars.” Had it not been
for the continued and exhausting wars into which the country was plunged, there
is no doubt that Pitt would have inaugurated the era of free trade. The popular
idea that free trade is to be ascribed entirely to the influence of Cobden and
the Anti-Com Law League is quite erroneous. The ideas of Adam Smith were
beginning to dominate political thought on economic affairs in the early years
of the nineteenth century. Two documents are of special interest in this
connexion. There is, first, the protest against the Com Law of 1815 drawn up by
Lord Granville and subscribed by ten peers and entered in the Journals of the
House of Lords. Here is one phrase: “Because we think that the great practical
rule of leaving all commerce unfettered applies more peculiarly and on still
stronger grounds of justice as well as of policy to the com trade than to any
other.” There is, secondly, the petition of the London merchants drawn up by
Thomas Tooke, the celebrated author of the History of Prices. This document,
inter alia, “ showeth, that freedom
from restraint
is calculated to give the utmost extension to foreign trade and the best
direction to the capital and industry of the country.” The petition was
presented to the House of Commons in May, 1820.
In the early
part of the nineteenth century, however, it was mainly through his influence on
Ricardo that Adam Smith affected the commercial and economic policy of
England. It has so long been the custom to look upon Ricardo as the originator
of the abstract deductive method in political economy and the propounder of
certain unpopular theories which have been pushed to an extreme by other
writers, that his influence on the practical politics of England and thus on
English history has been underrated and almost forgotten. His theories were
popularised by John Stuart Mill, who in any conflict of opinion between Adam
Smith and Ricardo always preferred the latter. Mill, however, unfortunately had
neither the historical knowledge of Adam Smith nor the practical acquaintance
with business of Ricardo, so that he was inclined to pay too little attention
to the modifications expressed by Adam Smith and implied by Ricardo. To
understand the historical influence of Ricardo, it is necessary to pass over
the popular adaptation by Mill of his doctrines and to take account of the personality
and conduct of the man. David Ricardo was the son of a Jew who early in life
had migrated from Holland and settled in this country. He was educated partly
in England and partly in Holland; and, as his friend and biographer McCulloch
states, classical learning formed no part of his early instruction. In fact he
was trained solely for business, and began to be confidentially employed by his
father in the business of the Stock Exchange when he was only fourteen years
old. From his youth up Ricardo was a fearless and independent thinker. In spite
of his personal affection for his father, much against his father’s will he
abandoned the Jewish faith, and about the age of twenty-one married and began
business on the Stock Exchange on his own account. In a few years he had made a
fortune. His success at the time was unequalled; and, long before he was known
to the public, he was regarded as one of the ablest men of business of his
time. He first read Adam Smith in 1799, when he was twenty-seven years of age.
Ten years later he wrote the letters on currency which were afterwards
republished in pamphlet form with the title, The High Price of Bullion a Proof
of the Depreciation of Bank Notes. It was this tract which was the principal
cause of the appointment of the Bullion Committee; and the celebrated report of
that body is based almost entirely on the opinions of Ricardo. His reputation
was much raised by his controversy with Charles Bosanquet on the theory of
currency and of the exchanges (1810-1); and about this time he became intimate
with James Mill and Malthus.
James Mill
began the process of over-emphasising the abstract character of Ricardo’s
principles in the lessons he gave to his much- enduring son, so that Ricardo
was impressed on the younger Mill from
the beginning
of his economic training. For the present, however, we are concerned with the
practical influence of the real Ricardo. In 1816 he published his Proposals for
an Economical and Secure Currency, with Observations on the Profits of the Bank
of England. The idea was to issue notes not against sovereigns, but bars of
standard gold bullion. The plan was approved by Robert Peel and was actually
carried out. It broke down on the allegation that the one-pound notes were
extensively forged. In the meantime Ricardo had begun to write on the price of
com and the Com Laws. Dining the discussions on the Com Law Bill of 1815, he
argued in favour of giving greater freedom to the com trade, as against
Malthus, who advocated greater restrictions. Ricardo’s views on the Com Laws
found their final expression in the tract entitled Protection to Agriculture.
He proposed that the duty should be gradually reduced until it reached ten
shillings a quarter, which he thought was justifiable by way of compensation to
the English landed interest for the public burdens imposed on land. The
Principles of Political Economy and Taxation was published in 1817; and in 1819
he entered the House of Commons. His first speech, made in response to loud
calls from all parts of the House, was on Peel’s resolutions on the resumption
of cash payments. From this time till his death (1823) his opinion on economic
or financial questions was considered of the greatest weight; and he exercised
on these questions great political influence.
McCulloch has
recorded that Ricardo was much more effective in conversation than in writing,
and that his speeches were greatly superior to his publications. “ His style of
speaking was easy, fluent, and agreeable.” “Nothing could exceed the ease and
felicity with which [in speaking] he illustrated and explained the most
difficult questions in political economy.” This evidence is important because
there is little doubt that, just as Adam Smith had influenced Pitt, so Ricardo
influenced Peel. The practical difference was that, owing to the circumstances
of the time, Peel was better able to carry into effect the ideas of his master
in economics. To Ricardo, then, may be ascribed directly or indirectly the
principles which were adopted by Peel as the foundation of his reforms in
currency and banking as well as in financial policy, though the Bank Charter
Act was only passed in 1844, and the Com Laws were repealed in 1846. The harsh
and crabbed style of Ricardo’s writings, his excessive condensation, his habit
of purely abstract reasoning, his avoidance of illustrations except those of
hypothetical arithmetic, his frequent transitions without notice from one set
of assumptions to another—these characteristics, with his want of literary
education, make his writings extremely difficult even to a trained economist.
His clearness of thought is unsurpassed, but so also is the infelicity of his
mode of expression.
Although
Ricardo was the greatest exponent of Adam Smith’s theories, and was the
connecting link between Adam Smith and Peel,
774
Ricardo's contribution to economic
theory.
his name is
now more often associated with the dogmas which, by a natural reaction, gave
rise to Socialism. His abstract principles being taken without the
qualifications always expressed or implied, he was credited with the “iron law
of wages” on the one side and the theories of the continuous growth of rent and
the unearned increment on the other. If in the natural progress of society
wages were to tend constantly towards the bare minimum of subsistence, the cost
of labour to increase by the increase in the cost of food, and profits were
thereby to fall, while the resort to inferior soils only benefited the
landlord, the case for a revolution in a society so constituted seemed not
only plausible but reasonable. Even in pure economic theory, in which the
disturbing element of social sentiment was not present, the difficulty of
Ricardo’s style led to misunderstanding, as was long afterwards evidenced by
the onslaught of Jevons; and the rehabilitation of Ricardo has hardly yet been
effected to the extent demanded by his real contributions to economic science.
His analyses of cost of production, of the incidence of various taxes, of the
determination of international values, all suffered from the style in which
they were presented; and in McCulloch and Mill, his principal translators into
common thought, he found admirers too indiscriminate in their judgment.
Fortunately it was Peel who translated into practice his ideas on currency,
taxation, and free trade; and it is through Peel that Ricardo’s political
economy became dominant in these departments of the national policy.
The influence
of Ricardo may be traced in the stress laid by the so-called Manchester School
on the importance of capital, and in the neglect of the wider humanitarian
ideas of Adam Smith on labour; though personally Ricardo was the most
charitable of men. Much of the original thought of Ricardo is of interest
mainly in connexion with the development of economic theory, and not as bearing
on the history of the nation. He was, for example, the originator of the
quantity theory of money; and, if he did not originate the theory of economic
rent, he placed it in such a new light that it is generally known by his name.
His explanation of the distribution of the precious metals throughout the
commercial world, and his theory of international values, are among the best
examples of the classical political economy. His works will always be read by
the serious student of economic theory, not only for their place in the history
of thought, but for their energising and stimulating qualities. Of all
economists, Ricardo is the most notable “ agitator mentis.'1'
The Ricardian
theory of rent, resting as it does on the law of diminishing return to land, is
closely connected with the Malthusian theory of population. The father of
Malthus was a correspondent of Rousseau, and a great believer with Condorcet in
infinite progress, and with Godwin in the perfectibility of mankind. At an
early age young Malthus took up the opposite side; and in 1798 he published
anonymously
An
Essay an the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of
Society. The leading idea was that all schemes for the promotion of equality
break down through neglect of the tendency of population to outstrip the means
of subsistence. In the essay in this first form the argument was mainly
theoretical and was pushed to the extreme of pessi™’ sm. But, under the
influence of personal observations in several of the countries of Europe and a
more extensive reading on the subject, he entirely recast the essay; and the
new edition appeared with his name in 1803, under the title, An Essay on the
Principle of Population or a View of its Past and Present Effects on Human
Happiness. The change in the title, with the substitution of past aud present
for future, is significant of the change from the deductive and abstract to the
inductive and historical method. The sixth edition, revised by the author,
appeared in 1826, three years after the death of Ricardo.
Malthus has,
perhaps, suffered more than any great writer from popular misunderstanding. His
wide inductions have been forgotten; and his principles have been perverted
beyond recognition. Malthus had been influenced from the first, not only by the
ideas of his time, but by the actual conditions that prevailed in England. The
old Poor Law was accumulating its evils from year to year; and, owing to a
variety of causes—war, bad seasons, Corn Laws, expansion of manufactures, and
the increase of the towns—a large part of the population was always on the
verge of famine. The pressure of population on the means of subsistence seemed
a natural deduction from the law of diminishing returns. And it was this easy
deduction that under the conditions of the time seized the popular imagination.
The theory of Malthus had much the same reception as later the theory of
Darwin, of which, indeed, it suggested the leading idea. But, although Malthus
was reviled, his work made a durable impression on the understandings of those
most interested, namely the economists and the philanthropists. The effect is
best seen in that extraordinary combination of the two, Thomas Chalmers. His
treatise on Political Economy in connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects
of Society, published in 1832, is dominated by the Malthusian theory. In an
Appendix dealing with the Com Laws, Chalmers approves of their abolition, but
argues in effect that the cheapness of food would be of no benefit to the
working classes unless, under the influence of moral restraint, they adopted
prudential habits regarding the increase of population. Chalmers, like Malthus,
relied on education and religion; and, again like Malthus, he relied for the
relief of the poor on voluntary effort, and in his parish in Glasgow applied
his principles in one of the most remarkable and successful social experiments
of the century.
On the whole,
however, the doctrines of Malthus had more influence on speculative thought
than on practical politics. It is true that he set himself to prove that the
Poor Law had done more harm than good;
and the essay
directly controverted the old idea that people who had enriched their country
with a number of children should receive relief as a matter of right and
honour. But the evils of the indiscriminate relief of the old Poor Law were not
confined to the grant of bounties on the production of children, even if
illegitimate; and the general argument of the essay in its final form was of
far wider range. It cannot be said that the Report of the Commission which led
to the Poor Law Amendment Act was governed by the influence and ideas of
Malthus as the Bullion Report had been governed by Ricardo. Malthus proposed
the gradual abolition of the Poor Law; but the Act simply cut away the abuses
that had grown up under lax administration and what may be termed accidental
legislation, and really made the application of the old Elizabethan principles
more effective. The speculative influence of the essay, however, was enormous.
John Stuart Mill, who, without making any original contribution to economic
science, coordinated and restated the old theories in such a way as to make
them seem almost new, made the theory of Malthus a principal part of his
system, and carried the practical applications far beyond the widest
interpretation of his master’s teaching. Mill, indeed, set himself to prove,
that in general it was immoral to have a large family, and that the example of
the clergy was specially to be condemned.
In this way
the application of the abstract method to the principles of Ricardo and
Malthus, without regard to the circumstances in which they were propounded, and
the qualifications with which they were openly or implicitly guarded, converted
political economy, according to the popular interpretation, into a truly
“dismal” science. The humanity of the real Adam Smith was forgotten or
neglected; and his name was attached to the purblind dogmas and narrow maxims
which passed for economic principles. In this way the authority of political
economy was used to oppose the factory legislation, under the idea that it was
contrary to the system of natural liberty; it was supposed to be proved by the
same authority that Trade Unions could have no beneficial effects on wages, or
rather, by checking the accumulation of capital, tended to lower them; almost
every kind of industrial or commercial reform was opposed by some interest or
other as contrary to the laws of political economy. McCulloch, who in most
matters out-Ricardo’d Ricardo, proved on economic principles that absenteeism
from Ireland did no harm to that country, and that it was a matter of
indifference where the Irish rents were expended.
And yet, in
one department, the orthodox political economy in its most extreme form had
achieved a triumph so great that the reflected glory, for the time being, made
the authority of the science respected by the masses. The battle of Free Trade
was won by the insistence on certain broad principles, and by the exposure of
certain crude fallacies regarding the nature and advantages of foreign trade:
the
Economic dogma and Free Trade.
777
arguments in
both cases being derived from the economists. It was of course necessary, in
order to give the economic ideas sufficient driving force, to free them from the
clogging effects of hypotheses and exceptions. And, as it happened, the
circumstances of the times in England were such that what was required for
practical purposes was insistence on the general rule, and not the ingenious
application of suitable exceptions. England, it was urged, had nothing to fear
and everything to gain from the freest importation. Distance, it was supposed,
gave a sufficient natural protection to agriculture; and the competition of
foreign manufactures in the home market was negligible. The manufacturers
hoped that the free importation of food would lower the cost of labour; and on
the Ricardian theory this meant a rise in profits. The labourers were told, and
in time began to believe, that wages would rise by the expansion of trade and
the greater accumulation of capital, while food would fall in price, or at any
rate be kept below the level which it would otherwise have reached.
This popular
interpretation of Ricardian principles was most effective. It was proved that
the only class who could benefit by the import duties on com were the
landlords; and the landlords already were gaining a continuous rise in rents,
while they slept, from the general progress of society. The interests of the
country were set against the interests of the towns; the country was identified
with the landlord, and the towns with the masses of the people. A line was
drawn from Inverness to London; and the agricultural east was pitted against
the manufacturing west. During the Great War, the tariff had become so
intricate and complex, so all-embracing and burdensome, that almost any kind of
reduction was sure to do immediate good; and the movement for reduction and
simplification began five-and-twenty years before the repeal of the Com Laws.
As a matter of fact, in nearly every case, every reduction of the tariff was
followed by an expansion of trade; and Peel had intended to repeal or largely
reduce the com duties as part of his general policy of tariff reform. It is
beyond the range of the present chapter to consider the political forces which
led to the adoption in its extreme and simple form of the doctrine of Free
Trade, or to judge the part played by the statesmen of opposing parties. The
point of present importance is that in popular estimation the battle of Free
Trade was won with the weapons taken from the economists. Cobden was never
tired of appealing to Adam Smith; and probably the influence of Ricardo had
been unconsciously working in Peel long before his actual reforms. Peel, as was
well said, had emphatically the politico- economic mind; and his first great
instructor had been Ricardo.
Ricardo did
not devote much attention to those parts of political economy which lie on the
borders of moral and political philosophy, although he wrote in favour of an
extension of the suffrage and of election by ballot. In these more purely
political questions he was
778 Individualism. —Socialism.—Godwin.
content to
follow Bentham, who had been the intimate friend of James Mill, and is said to
have called himself the spiritual father of Mill, and Mill the spiritual father
of Ricardo. Ricardo emphasised with Bentham the importance of security and of
private property, and took for granted his analysis of society into a mass of
individuals actuated by self-interest. Accordingly, the corner-stone of the
orthodox or Ricardian political economy came to be extreme laisser Juire, and
the ideal, the minimum of governmental interference. Freedom of competition
and the pursuit of self-interest began to be regarded not only as the necessary
postulates of the deductive political economy, but as the necessary conditions
of national well-being. And, although Ricardo is generally spoken of as if he
were dealing professedly with abstractions and hypotheses, there is no doubt
that he considered the economic forces, of which he examined the actions and
interactions, to be the great forces by which the wheels of society were
actually driven. He considered that the main problem of political economy was
to discover the laws which determine the division of the produce of industry
amongst the classes which concur in its formation; and these laws he deduced
from the economic bases of individualism, competition, self-interest, and
private property. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as a consequence
of the industrial revolution, the old social organisations were broken up; and
the assumptions of individualism were nearly realised in the world with which
Ricardo was familiar. In this world money-power and capitalism were supreme.
The so-called
orthodox political economy was so generally adopted by the educated classes
after the repeal of the Com Laws that John Mill’s favourable attitude (in
theory) towards socialism came to many as a revelation of some quite new thing
in social philosophy. Godwin’s Political Justice (1793) was indeed known by
repute, find Robert Owen had been celebrated both for his ideas and his social
experiments; but it has been only recently recognised, largely owing to the
researches of Foxwell and Menger, that from the first there had been in England
a reaction against the anarchy of individualism and a movement towards
constructive socialism. Karl Marx indeed is shown to have derived the leading
ideas of Das Kapital from the early English socialists who had been forgotten.
Of this school Godwin may be considered the father; and it is worthy of note
that the youthful Malthus had directed his first Essay against the reasonings
of Political Justice. Godwin considered the established system of property as
the root of all social evil; he desired to substitute some system of equality,
and to make the distribution of wealth depend upon the wants or capacities of
individuals. Godwin, however, was an idealist who imagined that people could be
educated to realise that their true interest, after their animal wants were
satisfied, was to be found in the knowledge of truth and the practice of
virtue. He had extraordinary notions of the perfectibility
of the human
race even as regards the prolongation of life; his intellectual optimism made
his anarchical communism quite harmless; but his ideas stimulated thought, and
he has been described by Foxwell as the Adam Smith of socialistic speculation.
But Godwin’s socialism was the exact opposite of the modem state socialism. He
was, in truth, an anarchist, and looked to the dissolution of government and
constituted authority sis the goal of all efforts at political reform.
Robert Owen
(1771-1858) is perhaps the best example both of the strength and the weakness
of modem socialism. The son of a shopkeeper, he began life in the retail trade;
but, before he was twenty years of age (1790), he became manager of a
cotton-mill in Manchester, and in this capacity was the first to introduce an
important change in cotton spinning. Four years later he started a cotton-twist
factory on his own account, and in 1797 acquired for himself and partners the
manufacturing business of D. Dale at New Lanark at a cost of £60,000. He
entered on the government of this business on January 1, 1800, and at once began
to put his ideas of social reform into practice. During the whole period of his
management of New Lanark he conducted the business so as to obtain large
profits; and he must he considered as a successful capitalist employer. He
showed, however, by his own practice that it was possible to earn large
profits, and yet at the same time to introduce great improvements in the
conditions of the employment of labour. For more than a quarter of a century
public attention was directed to Owen’s work at New Lanark; and in this way he
contributed greatly to the initiation and development of factory legislation
and generally to the better education and upbringing of children. His ruling
idea was that “ circumstances formed character,” and accordingly that the education
of children and healthy conditions of employment were the first requisites of
the efficiency of labour, as of moral well-being. He established
infant-schools, in the literal sense: providing for children of two years and
later even for infants of one year at their mothers’ request. These
infant-schools were the first of their kind in the United Kingdom; and the
example was largely followed. Owen endeavoured to make the instruction mutual
and recreative; the pupils were to make one another happy; drill was provided
for the boys, domestic economy for the girls, and dancing and singing for both.
As regards the adult workers, he imposed checks on drunkenness, uncleanliness,
and immorality; the fines imposed were paid into the “ support ” fund, which
was used for the benefit of the sick and aged and those injured by accidents,
and was also contributed to by the workers out of their wages. He established a
common store, for which the goods were bought at wholesale prices and, though
of much better quality, were sold at 25 per cent, less than the usual rates and
still yielded a profit. The effects of these arrangements were seen in the
absence of convictions for crime, the
780
Charles Hall.— William Thompson.
[1805-58
disappearance
of dram-shops, and the encouragement of thrift. As regards religion, Owen,
considering his own speculative views, showed a large toleration; he maintained
a clergyman on the establishment at his own expense, and allowed Bible-reading
and Sunday-schools.
The project
of a new institute for the formation of character led to the break-up of the
old partnership; and eventually, in 1814, he bought New Lanark for himself and
another set of partners for the sum of <£114,000. Of these partners the most
noteworthy was Bentham; but several were Quakers, and it was the opposition of
his Quaker partners that, in 1828, led to his retirement from the firm. The
ideas applied by Robert Owen at New Lanark were all shown by subsequent
experience to be of great practical value; and he must be always ranked as one
of the greatest pioneers in the industrial reformation of the nineteenth
century. His later schemes proved impracticable, and he spent large sums on
projects of what may be called “ domestic ” socialism, as contrasted with
modem ideas of state socialism—the most famous being the community at New
Harmony in Pennsylvania. These more extreme ideas and projects, in spite of
their failure, had considerable influence on the growth of socialistic opinion,
and in this way served as the basis of the attack on the Ricardian economics.
Charles Hall,
in his profession as physician, was impressed by the misery of the masses and
the inequality in the distribution of wealth. He published in 1805 a work On
the Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States. The leading idea
is that in the course of progress the rich become richer and the poor poorer,
which is also the leading idea in modem so-called evolutionary socialism.
Hall’s remedy was what would now be termed nationalisation of the land; and the
method which he proposed, in its essential features, resembled the Russian
village community. Hall’s work had considerable influence on the leaders of the
Owenite societies, though it never attained any widespread popularity. In the
development of socialistic ideas, William Thompson, though long overlooked, is
now considered to be the most eminent founder of scientific socialism; and St
Simon, Proudhon, Rodbertus, and Marx, are all indebted to his works for their
leading economic opinions. Thompson was a pupil of Bentham, who regarded
himself as the spiritual begetter of Ricardo; and his argument rests on the
basis of utility and is presented with formal enumerations and elaborate
classifications in the style of his master. But, while Bentham never advanced
beyond the stage of philosophical radicalism and was specially opposed to
systems of equality, Thompson was a supporter of Robert Owen’s communistic
schemes.
In Thompson
the socialistic reaction against the Ricardian political economy is strongly
marked. He accepted the Ricardian analysis of actual social conditions; and,
even as regards the distribution of wealth, he insisted on the freedom of
labour and the freedom of the exchange of the products of labour as natural
laws, as fully as the most extreme
1824-5]
781
supporter of
laisser faire. In fact, like Godwin, he showed a strong preference for
voluntary methods of reform and relied much on the possibilities of education.
But, instead of taking it for granted, as Ricardo does, that the present system
of private property and competition must continue, he makes the deduction that
it ought to be ended. Under the present system all wealth is the creation of
labour; things are valuable in proportion to the quantity of labour required
for their production; and therefore labour has a natural right to the whole
product of labour. But, owing to the iniquity of present social arrangements
and institutions, labour obtains a decreasing share; and more and more of the
increasing wealth of society is taken by the owners of land and other
privileged classes. On this view capital ought to obtain only what may be
termed a bare subsistence minimum, instead of labour obtaining only a bare
subsistence wage. The voluntary exchange of the whole products of labour by
their producers was vitiated by capitalism and competition. In this analysis we
have all the ideas of modem socialism; but Thompson looked to much simpler
remedies. He had no conception of state socialism, even in the municipal form,
but relied on cooperation and communism on the Owenite models. His most
important work is entitled An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution
of Wealth most conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the newly proposed
System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth. It appeared in 1824, when the
reputation of Ricardo's principles was firmly established. The title indicates
the influence of Bentham and Owen.
John Gray was
the author of a Lecture on Human Happiness (1825), which was ostensibly a
defence of Owen’s schemes. Later in iife he abandoned his socialistic ideas and
sought for social salvation in the avoidance of dislocations in industry and
the better adjustment of supply to demand; and his practical remedy was to be
found in a peculiar scheme of paper currency. Thomas Hodgskin wrote Labour
defended against the Claims of Capital; or the Unproductiveness of Capital
proved with reference to the Present Combinations amongst Journeymen (1825).
The occasion of this book was the attempt to reenact the Laws against Combination
repealed in 1824. In one notable sentence we have the germ of List’s main
argument: “All the effects usually attributed to the accumulation and storing
up of circulating capital are derived from the accumulation and storing up of
skilled labour.” In another we have the root-idea of the modem produce theory
of wages directed against the popular idea of the time that wages are paid out
of preaccumulated capital. “ As far as food, drink, and clothing are concerned,
it is quite plain that no species of labourer depends on any previously
prepared stock, for in fact no such stock exists; but every species of labourer
does constantly and at all times depend for his supplies on the coexisting
labour of some other labourers.” Hodgskin was an ardent admirer of Adam Smith,
and pointed out that in many ways his successors had
narrowed his
fundamental ideas. John Francis Bray was the author of Labour's Wrongs and
Labour's Remedies (1839), a work in which the analysis of profits given by Marx
in Das Kapital is clearly anticipated. His social remedy was a system of labour
exchanges based on a number of Joint-Stock Companies: such com pat ies
consisting of 100 to 1000 men and confined to one trade.
This brief
survey of the early English socialists shows clearly that, while Ricardo and
his followers were developing, in an extreme form, some of the doctrines of the
Wealth of Nations, another school of thinkers in England were pushing to an
extreme the ideas of Adam Smith which were overlooked by the Ricardians. There
can be little doubt that these humanitarian ideas had considerable effect in
promoting social legislation, and in leading to the abandonment of laisser
faire as regards the conditions of employment. For the time, no doubt, in
economic literature and in journalism the Ricardian political economy was
predominant; but the history of labour legislation and of Trade Unions shows
that in practice there was from the beginning a reaction against the
capitalistic abuses consequent on the Industrial Revolution; and the raison
d'etre of this reaction was disclosed in the writings of the socialists.
The criticism
most generally directed against the Ricardian school of economists is that they
have overlooked altogether or at any rate failed to appreciate the value of the
historical method; and it is generally supposed that the Germans of a later
generation discovered this weakness of the Ricardians and also supplied the
remedy. It is no doubt true that neither Ricardo, nor any of the systematic
writers who developed his system, had the appreciation of history shown by Adam
Smith; but, just as there were English socialists in the early nineteenth
century, so also there were English historical economists. And in fact, from
Adam Smith onwards, we have the historical side of economics represented by
works of the first rank. Sir Frederick Morton Eden (1766-1809) published in
1797 his celebrated work, The State of the Poor, rightly described by McCulloch
as the grand storehouse of information respecting the labouring classes of
England. In this work, and the large appendix, a mass of facts bearing on the
history of labour from the Conquest to the time of writing is brought together;
and in the preface the author insists on the importance of historical facts as
a foundation of theory. He attacked the “ ingenious but unsolid speculations of
merely theoretic reasoners,” and declared that he never wasted time in
polishing a sentence which he thought he could better employ in ascertaining a
fact. No writer has illustrated more forcibly the value of induction, and
especially of induction based on history.
Arthur Young
(1741-1820) began to write in 1767 (The Farmer's Letters); and for nearly forty
years he devoted himself to publications on the economics of agriculture. His
best works are based on his
1767-1858] Arthur Young.—Macpherson.—Tooike.
783
travels in
France and his tours in England and Ireland. Although he was attracted by the
natural theories of Rousseau, he condemned natural right as unhistorical, and
he traced many economic evils to political causes. He considered the misery of
the French to be due almost entirely to their government, and often expressed
and illustrated the doctrines of laisserfavre, e.g. by showing that the Irish
measures, meant to encourage the silk and woollen trades, had the contrary
effect, and that the French measures, meant to avert, actually created, famine.
At the same time, however, he resisted with Malthus the movement towards free
trade in com advocated by Ricardo. Young’s chief merit is as an observer and
recorder of economic facts, though some of his general obiter dicta have become
classical, e.g., “the magic of property turns sands into gold.”
David
Macpherson (1746-1816) published in 1805 his large work in four quarto volumes,
The Annals of Commerce, Fisheries, and Navigation, partly based on the earlier
work of Anderson. The method adopted, of recording year by year the events,
treaties, regulations, etc., of commercial interest all the world over, does
not lend itself to the discovery of principles by the historical method; but
the work is still largely used as the basis of English economic history. Thomas
Tooke (1774-1858) was bom in St Petersburg, and at an early age had the
management of a large Russian house in London. He was also actively engaged in
the promotion of various industrial schemes in connexion with docks, railways,
insurance companies, and, like Ricardo, was regarded as a leading practical
authority in all questions connected with commerce and banking. As already
stated, he drew up in 1820 the celebrated petition of the London merchants in
favour of free trade. He wrote several monographs on the com trade and on the
connexion between currency and prices, and used the materials collected as the
basis of his principal work, A History of Prices and of the State of the
Circulation during the years 1793-1856, which was completed by William
Newmarch, his collaborator. This work is still the standard history of its
subject. On the main point of theory Tooke was opposed to the principle of the
Bank Act of 1844, chiefly on the ground of the want of elasticity in the note
issues from the banking point of view.
Richard Jones
(1790-1855) definitely attacked the hypothetical character of Ricardo’s work,
and insisted on the importance of the appeal to experience and the danger of
hasty generalisation. He projected a great work, based on the application of
the historical method, on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of
Taxation and in 1831 published the First Book, on Rent; but the undertaking was
never carried further. He has been termed “the founder of the English
historical school.”
George
Richardson Porter (1792-1855) married a sister of Ricardo. On the formation of
a statistical department of the Board of Trade, Porter
784
[1834—64
was placed at
the head, and became one of the founders of the Statistical Society. His
principal work is The Progress of the Nation m its Social and Commercial
Relations from the beginning of the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day. The first
two parts appeared in 1836, and it was completed in 1843; new editions,
bringing the figures down to date, appeared in 1846 and 1851. Porter was one of
the strongest advocates of Free Trade, and published a translation of Bastiat’s
Popular Fallacies. His own work, however, is written in the most impartial
style, and is a classic in economic history.
There is
probably no branch of economic enquiry in which English writers did not follow
the example of Adam Smith in testing theory by the appeal to history. Even
McCulloch, who is generally quoted as an extreme Ricardian, devoted his best
energies to economic history, and especially to economic literature. And apart
from the works of individual writers, in any survey of the influence of
English economists account must be taken of the invaluable series of
governmental reports— as for example the celebrated documents, often
republished, which led to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. William Nassau
Senior (1790-1864) was one of the most active of the Commissioners who drew up
this Report. He is often regarded as an extreme representative of the
hypothetical or abstract school. It appears, however, that Senior based his
opposition to Trade Unions, not on any abstract theory of wages, but on the
abuses which had been associated with their early history; and in the same way
his statement, in the Letters on the Factory Act, that “ the whole net profit
in cotton-factories was derived from the last hour,” was founded on the
analysis of actual returns and was not a deduction from pure theory. And,
generally, it may be said that Senior’s support of laisser favre was based on
the evils which had resulted from the interference of the State, especially in
the management of the poor, and in the attempts to encourage agriculture by
protective duties.
The appeal to
the actual literature of Political Economy during this period proves not only
that the British economists, from the time of Adam Smith, made popular certain
fundamental ideas on the benefits of freedom of competition, or more generally
of the system of natural liberty, but also that they showed the necessity of
testing ideas by experience. Hence their influence on practical legislation and
policy was always real and considerable: the so-called abstract ideas were themselves
modified by circumstances of the times in which they were propounded.
I. GENERAL HISTORY OF EUROPE.
Alison,
Sir A. History of Europe, 1815-52. 9 vols. London. 1852-9.
Andrews,
C. M° L. Hist, development of Europe. Vol. I. 2 vols. New York.
1896-8.
Annual
Register, the. London. 1815-41.
Bourgeois,
E. Manuel hist, de politique etrangere. Vol. ii.
3 vols. Paris. 1905. Bredow, G. G. Chronik des xixten Jahrhunderts. Cont. by G. Venturini. 20 vols. Altona. 1809-28.
Flathe, T. Das Zeitalter der Restauration und Revolution. (Allgemeine
Gesch. in Einzeldarstellungen.) Berlin. 1883.
Fyffe,
C. H. A History of Modern Europe. Vol. ii. 3 vols. London. 1880. Gervinus, G. G. Geschichte des xixten Jahrhunderts seit den
Wiener Vertragen.
8 vols. Leipzig. 1853-66.
Ghillany, F. W. Europaische Chronik, 1492-1865. Mit hesonderer Beruck-
sichtigung der Friedensvertrage, etc. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1865.
Herbst, W. Encyclopadie der Neueren Geschichte. 5 vols. Gotha. 1880-90.
Lavisse, E. and Rambaud, A. Histoire generale. Vol. x. Les Monarchies Con- stitutionnelles. Paris. 1898.
Lodge, R. Student’s Modem Europe. London. 4th
edn. 1897.
Phillips,
W. Alison. Modern Europe. 1815-99. (Periods of European History.) London. 1901.
Ranke, L. von. Zur Geschichte Deutschlands und Frankreichs im neunzehnten
Jahrhundert. Sammtliche Werke. Vols. xux, l. Leipzig. 1867-90.
Rose,
J. H. A century of Continental History, 1780-1881. London. 1889. Seignohos, C. Histoire politique de l’Europe
contemporaine. Paris. 1897.
Stem, A. Geschichte Europa’s seit den Vertragen von 1815. 4 vols.
published.
Stuttgart and Berlin. 1894, etc. (In progress.)
Weber, G. Allgemeine Weltgeschichte. 15 vols. in 29, with 4 of Index. Leipzig.
1882-9.
II. COLLECTIONS OF TREATIES.
Clercq,
A. de and J. de. Recueil des Traites de la France. Paris.
1864. New edn. 1880, etc. (In progress.) Vols. hi sqq., xv (Supplement), xvi (Indices). Hertslet,
Sir E. Treaties and tariffs regulating trade between Great Britain and foreign
Powers. 7 vols. London. 1875-91.
Hertslet,
L. and Sir E. Complete collection of treaties, etc. subsisting between Great
Britain and foreign Powers relating to commerce, etc. London. 1827-95.
Holland,
T. E. The European concert in the Eastern Question. A collection of treaties
and other public Acts. London. 1885.
Lagemans, E. G. Recueil des traitds...conclns par le Royaume des
Pays-Bas (from 1813). 13 vols. The Hague. 1858-97.
Martens, C. de. Canses cflebres du droit des gens. 2 vols. Leipzig and
Paris.
1827. Nouvelles causes
celebres. 2 vols. Leipzig and Paris. 1843.
Martens,
6. F. de and C. de and others. Nouveau
recueil de trait£s d’alliance, etc. Vol. v sqq. 16 vols. Gottingen. 1817-42.
Nouveaux supplements au recueil, etc. F. Murhard.
Gottingen. 1839-42. Nouveau recueil general, etc. By C. Murhard and others. 20
vols. Gottingen. 1843-75.
Martens,
F. (T. T.) de, and Cussy, F. de. Recueil
manuel des traitds. 7 vols. Leipzig. 1846-57.
Recueil des traites et conventions conclus par
la Russie avec les puissances
6trangeres. 14 vols. St Petersburg. 1874.
Neumann, L. Recueil des traites et conventions conclus par l’Autriche
avec les puissances etrangeres (from 1763). 6 vols.
Leipzig. 1855-9.
III. GEOGRAPHY.
In
addition to the works mentioned in Vol. IX, p. 775:
Hertslet,
Sir E. The map of Europe by treaty, showing the changes since 1814, with maps
and notes. Vols. i and ii. 4 vols.
London. 1875-91.
I. UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS.
A
great mass of manuscript material for the history of this period is preserved
in the archives of the various European governments. The documents preserved in
the British Foreign Office records, many of great value, are scattered in
innumerable volumes, without arrangement and with no sort of index. Those on which
the present chapter is based are contained in the following volumes:
F.
O. Congress. Vienna. Clancarty. May—July, 1816: Correspondence, protocols, etc.
concerning the winding up of the Vienna Congress, including the Protes- tatio
of Cardinal Consalvi quoted in the text.
F.
O. Congress. Paris. Viscount Castlereagh. July 7-20,1815, and following
volumes: Correspondence, memoranda, protocols, etc. covering the period between
the second occupation of Paris and the signature of the Treaty of November 20,
1816. These volumes also contain the interesting Bulletins de la Corre-
spondance de l’lnt&ieur, giving reports of the condition of France from day
to day.
F.
O. Congress. Paris. Castlereagh-Bathurst. August—November, 1816: policy to be
pursued in the settlement of France.
F.
O. Continent. France. Wellington. January—December, 1816: Wellington’s reports
on the condition of France and the army of occupation.
F.
O. Continent. Paris. Wellington. January—December, 1817 : Financial negotiations
concerning the indemnity, etc. Affairs of Spain and Portugal and of the Spanish
Colonies.
F. O. Continent Paris. Aix-la-Chapelle. Wellington.
January—December, 1818; F. O. Continent. Congress. Paris, 1818; and the series
of volumes F. O. Continent. Aix-la-Chapelle. Castlereagh: Correspondence,
memoranda, protocols, etc. before and during the Congress of Aix. The Memoire
confidentielle dn cabinet de la Russie, quoted in the text, is in Castlereagh
to Bathurst, No. 13.
F.
O. Continent. Congress. Aix: contains cabinet memorandum of September 4 on the
approaching conferences.
F.
O. Austria. Mr Gordon. January—December, 1819: Correspondence of Gordon and
Castlereagh as to relations of Metternich with Russia, France, etc. Account of
Russian intrigues in Italy in No. 6; King of Bavaria and the Constitution in
No. 14; Russian proposal to renew the ministerial conferences in Paris in No.
17 ; Metternich and Prussia No. 26 ; Secret Societies No. 26.
F.
O. Austria. Drafts to Lord Stewart. May—December, 1819; F. O. Austria. Stewart.
May—October, 1819 : Correspondence about the Carlsbad Decrees, attitude of
Alexander I and Capodistrias towards them, condition of Austria, Mettemich and
France and Russia.
F.
O. Austria. Stewart. November and December, 1819: Vienna Conferences, Alexander
I and Germany, in No. 46, etc.
F.
O. Austria. Stewart. January—August, 1820: Vienna Conferences.
F.
O. Austria. Domestic. April—December, 1819; F. O. Austria. Domestic. Esterhazy.
January—August and September—December, 1820: Letters of Mettemich to Esterhazy on
the state of France, Germany, etc.; the Neapolitan Question; letter of June 5
on proposed intervention of Russia in Spain; Austria and Italy; Alexander 1,
Capodistrias, and the “Universal Union”; Observations de Milord Castlereagh,
etc., on the project of common intervention in Naples, quoted on p. 31; Letters
of Mettemich from Troppau ; Draft of the Troppau Protocol, much fuller and with
a more elaborate expose of motives and procedure than in the final form.
F.
O. Austria. Lord Stewart. January and February, 1821 : Correspondence or
Castlereagh and Stewart on the policy of the Powers at Troppau, and during the
Congress of Laibach.
F.
O. Austria. Lord Stewart. March—September, 1821 : letters quoted in the text as
to the change in the Alliance produced at Laibach.
F.
O. Continent. Circular Despatches : correspondence about the Troppau Protocol.
Letter of Castlereagh (No. 32) of December 16, 1820, on the Protocol. Aper^u
des premiers resultats des Conferences de Troppau. Circular Despatches of
January 12 and 19, 1821.
F.
O. Continent. Hanover. Marquis of Londonderry. September—November, 1821; and
ditto, Drafts Various: no. 13, Londonderry to Bagot quoted in the text.
F.
O. Continent. Verona. Duke of Wellington. September—December, 1822: Bathurst to
Wellington of September 14, enclosing memorandum drawn up by the late Lord
Londonderry etc. with instructions; Letters of Canning with instructions on the
Alliance, Greece, Spain and the Spanish Colonies.
F.
O. Continent. Verona. Duke of Wellington. September and October, 1822: precis
des communications verbales faites par M. de Montmorency...a Verone le 20
Octobre 1822; letters of Wellington on the attitude of the Powers, Nos. 18 and
19.
F.
O. Continent. Verona. Duke of Wellington. 16 November, 1822 : Wellington’s memorandum
on the situation; Letter of November 22 on the attitude of Alexander and
Mettemich; copy of the prods verbal of the Four Powers.
II. PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS.
(A) Treaties,
Protoools and Aots of the Congresses.
These
are published in the general collections of G. F. de Martens, F. (T. T.) de
Martens, Clercq, Neumann, and Hertslet; for which see General Bibliography.
(B)
Contemporary State Papers, Despatches, Letters,
Diaries, eto.
[See
also Bibliography to Vol. IX, Chapters XX and XXL The Congress of Vienna.]
British
and Foreign State Papers. London. 1837, etc. Ib. 1838.
Canning,
G. Speeches of, with a Memoir of his Life. By R. Therry. 6 vols. London.
1828-30.
Castlereagh,
R. Stewart, Viscount. Correspondence, Despatches and other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh,
second Marquess of Londonderry. Edited by his brother (C. W. Vane, Marquess of
Londonderry). 2nd and 3rd ser. 12 vols. London.
1848-53.
Czartoryski, Prince A. Memoires et correspondance avec l’empereur
Alexandre I. 2 vols. Paris. 1887.
Gentz, F. von. Briefe an Pilat, edited by C. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
Leipzig. 1868.
Depeches inedites du chevalier de Gentz aux
Hospodars de Valachie, pour
servir a l’histoire de la politique europeenne (1813-28). Edited
by Count A. Prokesch-Osten. 3 vols. Paris.
1876-7.
Aus der alten Registratur der Staatskanzlei,
Briefe politischen Inhalts von
und an Friedrich von Gentz aus den Jahren 1799-1827. Edited
by C. von Klinkowstrom. Vienna. 1870.
Ans dem Nachlass Varnhagen’s von Ense.
Tagebiicher von Friedrich von
Gentz. 4 vols. Leipzig. 1873.
Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Gentz und Adam
Heinrich Muller. Stuttgart. 1857.
Laharpe, F. C. de. Le Gouverneur d’un Prince. F. C. de Laharpe et
Alexandre I de Russie. 1902.
Iieven,
Princess D. L. Letters to her brother, General A. Benckendorff, during her
residence in London, 1812-34. Edited by L.
G. Robinson. London. 1902.
Maistre, Joseph de. Correspondance diplomatique, 1811-7, recueillie et
publiee par Albert Blanc. Paris. 1860.
Metternich, Prince C. von. Aus Mettemich’s nachgelassenen
Papieren....Heraus- gegeben von Fiirsten R. Metternich; geordnet, etc. von A.
von Klinkowstrom. 8 vols. Vienna. 1880-4. French edition. 8 vols. Paris.
1880-4.
Polovtsoff, A. A. Correspondance diplomatique des ambassadeurs...de
Rnssie en France et de France en Russie, de 1814 a 1830. (Iro perial Russ.
Hist. Soc. St Petersburg.) 1902, etc.
Pozzo di Borgo, Comte C. A., ambassadenr de Russie en France.
Correspondance diplomatique du, et du Comte de Nesselrode, depuis la
restauration des Bourbons jusqu’au congres d’Aix-la-Chapolle (1814-8). Edited
by Count C. Pozzo di Borgo. Paris. 1890.
Richelieu,
A. E., due de. Vol. 64 of the Imperial Russian Historical Society, St Petersb
urg, 1867, etc., contains his correspondence with Capodistrias and others.
Villele, V. M. V., Comte de. Memoires et Correspondance. 6 vols. (Paris.
1888-90.)
Wellington,
A., Duke of. Correspondence and Memoranda...of Arthur, Duke of Wellington.
Edited by his son...the Duke of Wellington. London. 1867, etc. Supplementary dispatches,
etc. 15 vols. London. 1858-72.
III. MEMOIRS AND OTHER WORKS BY CONTEMPORARIES.
Bignon, L. P. E. Du Congres de Troppau, ou Examen des pretensions des
monarchies absolues a l’tgard de la monarchic constitutionnelle de Naples.
Paris. 1821.
Les Cabinets et les Peuples, depuis 1815
jusqu’a la fin de 1822. Paris. 1822.
Capodistrias,
J. A. Aper^u de ma vie politique, in vol. in of the publications of the
Imperial Russian Historical Society. St Petersburg. 1867. An autobiographical
memoir, dated December , 1826, at Geneva, and addressed to the Emperor
Alexander.
Chateaubriand, Vicomte F. R. de. Le Cougres de Verone, etc. Paris and
Leipzig. 1832.
Choiseul-Gouffier, Comtesse de. Memoires historiques sur l’empereur
Alexandre. Paris. 1829.
Reminiscences sur l’empereur Alexandre. Paris.
1862.
Dufour de Pradt, D. L’Europe apres le congres d’Aix-la-Chapelle. Paris.
1819. Empaytaz, H. L. Notice sur Alexandre, Emperenr de Russie. 2nd edn. Paris. 1840.
Eylert, R. F. Charakterzuge und historische Fragmente aus dem Leben des
Konigs von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm III. 4 vols. Magdeburg. 1843-6.
Montgelas, Count Max von. Denkwiirdigkeiten, 1799-1817. Stuttgart. 1887.
Munster, Count E. F. H. von. Politische Skizzen fiber die Lage Europas vom
Wiener Congress bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig.
1867.
Stapleton,
A. G. George Canning and his Times. London. 1859.
The Political Life of George Canning. 3 vols. London. 1831.
Talleyrand-I’erigord, C. M. de, Prince de Be'nevent. Memoires.
Edited, with a preface, by the Due de Broglie. (Arranged by M. de Bacourt.) 6
vols. Paris.
1891-2.
English translation. 6 vols. London. 1891-2.
IV. LATER WORKS.
(A) General.
No
separate general study of this period exists. It is treated from various points
of view in different histories of Europe, or of particular countries, e.g.
Gervinns, Treitschke (who had access to Prussian documents), Vaulabelle,
Viel-Castel, etc. (see General Bibliography and bibliographies to Chapters II,
III, IV, VII, XI, etc.). A. Stern, Geschichte Europa’s, is based on the
archives now available; and the valuable introductions in T. T. Martens'
Recueil des traites conclus par la Russie, etc give many extracts from the
unpublished Russian records.
(B) Special
Works, Biographies, etc.
Alexandresco, N. G. La Correspondance du Chevalier de Gentz avec le
Prince de Valachie, Jean Caradja, etc. Paris. 1895.
[An analysis of the correspondence and of the conditions which determined it.]
Alison,
Sir A. Lives of Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart 3 vols. Edinburgh.
1861.
Bianchi,
N. Storia documentata della diplomazia Europea in Italia dell’ anno 1814 all’
anno 1861. 8 vols. Turin. 1865-72.
Storia della politica austriaca rispetto ai
sovrani ed ai governi italiani dall’
anno
1791 al maggio 1857. Savona. 1857- Crousaz-Crdtet, L. de. Le Due de Richelieu en Russie et en France, 1766-1822, etc. Paris.
1897.
Joyneville,
C. Life and Times of Alexander I. 3 vols. London. 1875. Londonderry, T. S. H.
Stewart, Marchioness of. Robert Stewart,
Viscount Castlereagh. London. 1904.
Schiemann, T. Geschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus I. Vol. i. Kaiser
Alexander I und die Ergebnisse seiner Lebensarbeit. (With
an appendix of hitherto unpublished documents.) ' Berlin. 1904.
Shilder,
N. K. Imperator Aleksander, etc. 4 vols. St Petersburg. 1897-8. (Is Russian.)
Strohle von Ravelsberg, F. Mettemich und seine Zeit, 1773-1859. Contains
much material, largely personal, for the leading figures of the period; but is
ill- arranged and not always trustworthy. Vienna and Leipzig. 1906.
Temperley,
H. W. V. Life of Canuing. London. 1905.
Wertheimer, E. Die Verbannten des ersten Kaiserreichs. Leipzig. 1897.
I. BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
Briere, G., Caron, P., and Maistre, H. Repertoire methodique de
l’histoire moderne et contemporaine de la France. Paris. 1898-. (One vol.
yearly.) Hahn, E. Bibliographic de la presse periodique frani^aise. Paris.
1866.
Monod, G. Bibliographic de l’histoire de France. Paris. 1888.
See also the bibliographies in Lavisse and Rambaud. Histoire Generate.
Vol. x.
II. CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTS.
Bai-ante, Baron P. de. Souvenirs. 6 vols. Paris. 1882-9.
Bengnot, Cte J. C. Memoires. 2 vols. Paris. 1866.
Broglie, A. L. V. C., Due de. Souvenirs. 4 vols. Paris. 1886.
Capefigne, B. H. Mdmoires tires des Papiers d’un Homme d’etat;
(Decazes.)
4 vols. Paris. 1835.
Dupin, A. T. Memoires. 2 vols. Paris. 1856.
Guizot, F Memoires pour servir k l’histoire de mon temps. 8 vols. Paris.
1858-67. ’
Haussez, Baron C. L. de. Mdmoires. Paris. 1896.
La Fayette, M. J. P. R. Y. G. Motier, Marquis de. M&noires et
Correspondance.
6 vols. Paris. 1837-8.
La Valette, Cte Ch. de. M&noires. 2 vols. Paris. 1831.
Mavidal, J. and Laurent, E. Archives parlementaires. Vols. xiv-lxii. Paris.
1867. Nenville, Cte Hyde de. Mdmoires. 3 vols. Paris. 1888.
Pallain, G. Talleyrand et Louis XVIII. Correspondance pendant le Congres
de Vienne. Paris. 1881.
Pasquier, E. D., Due. Mdmoires pour servir k l’histoire de mon temps. 6
vols.
Paris. 1893-4. Engl, transl. London. 1893-4.
Pozzo di Borgo, Cte C. A. Correspondance diplomatique avec le Comte de
Nesselrode. 2 vols. Paris. 1890-7.
Rdmusat, C. de. Correspondance pendant les premieres amides de la
Restauration.
6 vols. Paris. 1883-6.
Vaublanc, Cte V. M. V. de. Memoires. Paris. 1857.
Villele, Cte J. B. G. M. S. J. de. Mdmoires et Correspondance. 5 vols.
Paris. 1887-90.
VitroUes, Baron E. F. A. d’A. de. M&noires. Ed. A. Forgues. 3
vols. Paris. 1884.
Wellington,
A. Duke of. Dispatches, Correspondence and Memoranda. 8 vols.
1819-32.
London. 1867. Vols. i-iv.
Supplementary
Dispatches and Memoranda. 15 vols. London. 1858-63.
Vols.
ix-xii,
III. PRINCIPAL
HISTORIES.
Bernhardi, T. von. Geschichte Russlands und der europaischen Politik.
(Staaten- geschichte der neuesten Zeit.) 3 vols. Leipzig. 1863-77.
Dareste de la Chavanne, C. Histoire de France. 9 vols. Paris. 1865-85. Vol. ix.
La Restauration.
Daudet, E. Histoire de la Restauration. Paris. 1882.
Louis XVIII et le Due Decazes. Paris. 1899.
Dulaure, J. A. and Angins, P. R. Histoire de la Revolution depuis 1814
jusqu’a 1830. 8 vols. Paris. 1834-8.
Hauranne, P. Duvergier de. Histoire du Gourernement parlementaire en
France.
7 vols. Paris. 1857-65. Vols. i-vi.
Houssaye,
H. “1815.” 3 vols. Paris. 1893-1905.
Lavallee,
T. Histoire des Franfais: continued by F. Lock and M. Dreyfous.
7 vols. Paris. 1886-1901. Vol. v.
Nettement, A. Histoire de la Restauration. 8 vols. Paris. 1860-72.
VaulabeUe, A. T. de. Histoire des Deux Restaurations. 8 vols. Paris.
1867-68. Viel-Castel, L. de. Histoire de la Restauration. 20 vols. Paris,
1860-78. Vols. i-ix.
IV. BIOGRAPHIES.
Barante, Baron P. de. Vie politique de Royer-Collard, ses discours et
ses ecrits.
2 vols. Paris. 1861.
Bardoux, A. Guizot. (Grands ^crivains fraufais.) Paris. 1894.
Blennerhassett, Lady. Frau von Stael, ihre Freunde und ihr Einfluss auf
Politik und Litteratur. 3 vols. Berlin. 1887.
Vol. in.
Talleyrand. Berlin. 1894.
Broglie, A., Due de. Nouvelles Etudes. Paris. 1869.
Cisternes, R. de. Le Due de Richelieu. Paris. 1898.
Crousaz-Crctet, L. de. Le Due de Richelieu en Russie et en France,
1766-1822.
Paris. 1897.
Crozals, J. de. Guizot. Paris. 1894.
Lacombe, C. de. Le Comte de Serre. 2 vols. Paris. 1881.
Marcellus, M. S. J., Comte de. Chateaubriand et son temps. Paris. 1859.
Neuville, L. R. de. Le Due de Richelien. Revue des questions historiqnes.
October, 1897.
Philippe, M. A. Royer-Collard, sa vie publique, sa vie privee, sa
famille. Paris. 1857.
Spuller, E. Royer-Collard. (Grands l£crivains franfais.) Paris. 1895.
Taine, H. Philosophes franfais du xvinme siecle. Paris. 1857.
V. AUXILIARY INFORMATION.
Audiffret, C. L. G., Marquis de. Systeme financier de la France. 6 vols.
Paris. 1870.
B^dolliere, E. de la. Histoire de la Garde nationale. Paris. 1848.
Bernhardi, T. von. Die Legitimisten. Vermischte Schriften. Vol. i. Berlin. 1879.
Blanc, L. Histoire de dir ans. 5 vols. Paris. 1841-4. Vol. i.
Brentano, L. Das droit d’ainesse unter der Restauration. Gesammelte
Aufeatze.
Vol. i. Stuttgart. 1899.
Chevalier, A. Lea Freres des Nicoles Chritiennes et l’enseignement
primaire en France. Paris. 1894.
Constant, B. Cours de Politique constitutionnelle, ou Collection des
ouvrages publies sur le Gouvernement representatif par Benjamin Constant. Ed.
E. Laboulaye. 2 vols. Paris. 1872.
(Euvres politiques de Benjamin Constant. Ed.
C. Louandre. Paris. 1874.
Gerando, Baron J. M. Institutes du droit administr. franfais. 5 vols.
Paris. 1840-44.
Guizot, F. Trois Generations. Paris. 1863.
Helie, F. A. Les constitutions de la France. Paris. 1879.
Hennebert, E. Histoire de l’artillerie. Paris. 1886.
Hervieu, H. Les ministres, leurs roles, et leurs attributions. Paris.
1893.
Lauris, G. de. Benjamin Constant et les idees liberalea. Paris. 1904.
Lavergne, L. G. L. G. de. ficonomie rurale de la France depuis 1789.
Paris. 1866. Lebon, A. L’Angleterre et Immigration. Paris. 1882.
Littre, M. P. E. Dictionnaire, s. v. Doctrinaires. 2 vols. Paris.
1863-72. Lucas, C. Du systeme pinitentiaire en Europe et anx fitats-Unis. 2
vols. Paris.
1828-30.
De la reforme des prisons. 3 vols. Paris.
1836-8.
Luze, E. de. L’organisation administr. de la France depuis 1789. Paris.
1884. Mallet du Pan, J. F. Correspondance inedite avec la cour de Vienne. 2
vols. Paris. 1884.
Mazade, C. de. L’Opposition royaliste. Paris. 1894.
Le Comte de Serre. La politique moderee sous
la Restauration. Paris. 1879.
Muel, L. Precis hist, des assemblies parlementaires et des hauts cours
de justice de 1789 a 1895. Paris. 1896.
Necker, J. (Euvres completes. Vol. xi: Dernieres vues de politique et de
finance.
15 vols. Paris. 1820.
Pierre, E. Histoire des Assemblies politiques en France. Paris. 1877.
Rambaud, A. Histoire de la civilisation contemporaine en France. Paris.
1896. Remade, L., Cte. Bonaparte et Louis XVIII. Relations secretes des Agents
du Comte de Provence sous le Gonsulat. Paris. 1899.
Remusat, C. de. Critiques et Etudes litteraires, ou Passe et Present. 2
vols. Paris. 1857.
Susane, L. A. V. V. Histoire de l’infanterie fra^aise. 8 vols. Paris.
1849-63,
Histoire de la cavalerie franfaise. 3 vols.
Paris. 1874.
Thureau-Dangin, P. Le Parti liberal sous la Restauration. Paris. 1876.
Royalistes et Re'publicains. Paris. 1873.
See
also Bibliography to Chapter III,
REACTION
AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.
I. CONTEMPORARY AUTHORITIES.
(A)
Collections of Documents. '
Bulletin
des Lois. 5th to 9th Series. Paris.
1814-48.
Duguit, L. and Monnier, H. Les constitutions et les principales lois
politiques de la France depuis 1789. Paris. 1898.
Lesnr, C. L. Annuaire Historique. Paris. 1822-31.
Moniteur, le, 1815-30, and other journals.
(B) Memoirs and Correspondence.
Bonald, L. G. A., Vicomte de. Pengeea et Discours. Paris. 1847.
Broglie, A. L. V. C., Due de. Merits et Discours. 2 vols. Paris. 1863.
Chateaubriand, Vicomte F. R. de. Memoires d’Outre Tombe. 6 vols. (Ed.
Bir<5.) 1898-1900.
Le congres de Verone. 2 vols. Paris. 1838.
Correspondance. Ed. Comte M. L. J. de
Marcellus. 2 vols. Paris. 1858.
Courier, P. L. (Euvres. Ed. A. Carrel. 4 vols. 1834.
Cuvillier-Fleury, A. Journal Intime. Vol. I. Paris. 1900.
Lamennais, H. F. R. de. (Euvres completes. 12 vols. Paris. 1836-7.
■ Correspondance. Ed.
E. Forgues. 2 vols. Paris. 1865.
Montalivet, Comte G. M. C. de. Fragments et Souvenirs, t. 1".
Paris. 1899. Montlosier, F. D. de. La monarchic fran^aise avec un supplement
sur la session actuelle dn 1 Janvier 1821 au 1 Janvier 1824. 8 vols. Paris.
1814-24.
Memoire a consulter sur un syst&me
relig'eux tendant k renverser la religion,
la soctete, le trdne. 1826.
Les Jeauites, la Congregation et le parti
pretre. Paris. 1827.
Memoires. Paris. 1829.
Le ministere et la Chambre des Deputes. Paris.
1830.
Mor^j Comte C. H. J. D. de. Memoires. Paris. 1898.
Mounier, Baron C. P. E. Souvenirs intimes et notes. Paris. 1896.
B«iset, Comte G. A. H. de. Mes Souvenirs. 3 vols. Paris. 1901.
Richelieu, A. J., Due de. Memoires sur son second ministere. Revue
historique, t. xxxvn, mai, aout 1888.
Salaberry, Comte C. M. de. Souvenirs politiques. Paris. 1900.
Serre, Comte P. F. H. de. Discours. 2 vols. Paris. 1826.
Correspondance. 6 vols. Paris. 1876-7.
II. BIOGRAPHIES.
Bardoux, A. Chateaubriand. Paris. 1893.
Bonnal, E. Manuel et son temps. Paris. 1877.
Daudet, E. Louis XVIII et le due Decazes. 2 vols. Paris. 1899-1903.
Faguet, E. Politiques et moralistes du xix' siecle. Royer-Collard
and B. Constant.
ltoe sdrie. Paria. 1891.
Henrion, M. R. A., Baron. Vie de Mgr. Frayssinous. 2 vols. Paris. 1844.
Lescure, M. F. A. de. Chateaubriand. (Grands iScrivains franfais.) Paris. 1892.
Mazade, C. de. L’opposition royaliste (Villele, Berryer). Paris. 1894.
Le comte de Serre. Paris. 1879.
Neuville, J. G. Hyde de. Notice sur le comte de Villele. Paris. 1899.
Roussel (de l’Oratoire), A. Lamennais d’apres des documents inedits. 2
vols. Paris. 1893.
Rousset, C. F. M. Un ministre de la Restauration: le marquis de
Clermont- Tonnerre. Paris. 1886.
Sainte-Beuve, C. A. Nouveaux lundis, t. iv, 262. (Royer-Collard.)
Spuller, S. E. Lamennais. Paris. 1892.
III. SPECIAL TREATISES AND ARTICLES.
Chaptal, J. A. C. De l’industrie fran^aise. 2 vols. Paris. 1819.
Chotard, M. L’oeuvre financiere de M. de Villele (Annales des Sciences
Politiques, voL v. Paris. 1890, p. 1).
Corcelle, J. Documents pour servir a l’histoire des conspirations.
Paris, same date. Dnpin, C. Forces productives de la France. 2 vols. Paris.
1827.
Grandmaison, G. de. La Congregation de 1801 a 1830. Paris. 1889.
Grimaud, L. Histoire de la liberte d’enseignement. Paris. 1898.
Guillon, E. Les complots militaires pour la Restauration. Paris. 1895.
Lamy, E. Luttes entre l’fitat et l’Eglise au xixe siecle.
Paris. 1900.
Levasseur, E. Le systeme protecteur sous la Restauration (Revue
internationale du commerce et de l’industrie, 31 mars 1902).
Paris Revolutionnaire. 4 vols. Paris. 1833-4.
Riancey, H. L. de. L’instruction publique et la liberty d’enseignement 2
vols. Paris. 1844.
Schefer, C. La France modeme et le probleme colonial (1815-30), t. 1“.
Paris. 1907.
Sudre, C. Les finances de la France au xixe siecle. 2 vols.
Paris. 1883.
Weill, G. Histoire du parti republicain. Paris. 1900.
St Simon et son ceuvre. Paris. 1894.
Les flections legislatives depuis 1789. Paris.
1896.
See
also Bibliography to Chapter II.
I. MANUSCRIPT SOURCES.
In
many Italian cities, by the efforts of local authorities and Government institutions
and also of private persons, rich collections of documents and memoirs relating
to the history of the Italian Risorgimento have been made. Brief accounts of
these collections may be found in the Catalogo illustrativo dei documenti ed
oggetti relativi al Risorgimento Italiano, with preface by Cesare Correnti.
Turin. 1884.
II. CONTEMPORARY AUTHORITIES AND DOCUMENTS.
In
the times of the Risorgimento and also, to a less degree, later, in periodicals
and separately, many anonymous writings were published, which are often of
importance. Information concerning these can be found in G. B. Montavolo,
Biblioteca bibliografica del Risorgimento Italiano. Opere Anonime e pseudonime. Rome. 1884.
Andragane, A. Memoires d’nn prisonnier d’Etat. Paris. 1850.
Azeglio, M. di. I miei Ricordi. Florence. 1888.
Scritti politici e letterari. 2
vols. Florence. 1872.
Bianchi,
N. Scritti e lettere di Carlo Alberto. Turin. 1879.
Cantu,
C. Carte Segrete ed atti uffiziali della polizia austriaca in Italia. 3 vols.
1813-48.
Carte
Segrete della Polizia Anstriaca in Italia, estratte dall’ Archivio di Venezia e
pubblicate per commissione di Daniele Manin. Capolago. 1851.
Casini,
T. Memorie di un vecchio Carbonaro ravegnano. In Biblioteca Stor. del
Risorgimento Italiano, i, 5, 6. Rome. 1898.
Church,
Sir R. Brigantaggio e societa segrete nelle Puglie (1817-28). Dai Ricordi del
Generale Riccardo Church. Florence. 1899.
Relazione dei fatti accaduti al...Riccardo
Church. Naples. 1820.
Colletta,
P. Raccolta di documenti, che servono ad illustrare i tre ultimi periodi
rivoluzionari di Napoli, 1799-1820-48. Naples. 1863-6.
Storia del Reame di Napoli dal 1734 al 1825. 4
vols. Capolago. 1834.
Confalonieri,
F. Memorie e lettere. Edited by G. Casati. Milan. 1880.
Coppi,
A. Annali d’ Italia; 1750-1845. 15 vols. Rome. 1828-77.
Fontanarosa,
V. II Parlamento nazionale napoletano per gli anni 1820 e 1821 (Memorie e
documenti). In Bibl. Stor. del Risorgimento Ital. n, 10. Rome. 1897.
Garibaldi, G. Memorie. Florence. 1884.
Guardione, F. Lettere inedite dei Fratelli Bandiera. Catania. 1894.
Guerrazzi, F. D. Note autobiografiche. With a
preface by Rojolino Guastalla. Florence.
1899.
La Cecilia, G. Memorie Storico-politiche dal 1820 al 1876. Rome. 1876.
Maistre, J. de. Simple R£cit des dvdnements arrives au PifSmont dans les
mois de Mars ct d’Avril 1821, par un officier piemontais. Paris.
1822.
Marmo,
G. Lettere inedite di Carlo Alberto. Turin. 1883.
Mazzini,
G. Scritti editi e inediti. 18 vols.
Milan, Rome. 1871.
Ricordi dei fratelli Bandiera. Paris. 1845.
Metternich, C. W. N., Prince. Aus nachgelassenen Papieren. 8
vols. Vienna.
1880-4.
French edn. 8 vols. Paris. 1880-4.
Modena.
Documenti risguardanti il governo degli Austroestensi in Modena dal 1814 al
1859 raccolti da nna commissione.... 3 vols. Modena. 1859. Pallavicino, G.,
Marquis. Memorie. Edited by his wife. Turin. 1882.
Pellico,
S. Le mie Prigioni. Turin. 1832.
Pepe,
G. Memorie intorno alia sua vita e ai recenti casi d’ Italia. 2 vols. Paris. 1847.
Romanelli,
L. Memorie. Florence. 1852.
Santorre di Santarosa. De la revolution piemontaise. Paris.
1822.
Memorie e lettere inedite. Edited by N.
Bianchi. Turin. 1877.
Solaro
della Margherita, Count C. Memorandum storico-politico dal 7 fehbraio 1833 al 9
ottobre 1847. Turin. 1861.
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Ancona,
A. di. Federigo Confalonieri. Milan. 1896.
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L. Storia d’ Italia dal 1814 al 1863. 4
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Ayala, M. di. Memorie di Mariano d’ Ayala e del suo tempo (1808-77).
Rome.
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Baldasseroni, G. Leopoldo II e i suoi tempi. Florence. 1871.
Beauchamp, A. de. Histoire de la revolution du Piemont. 2
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Milan. 1870.
Bertolini,
F. Storia d’ Italia dal 1814 al 1878. 2 pts. Milan. 1880-1.
Storia del Risorgimento Italiano illustr.
Milan. 1899.
Bianchi,
N. Storia documentata della diplomazia europea in Italia dall’ anno 1814 al
1861. 8 vols. Turin. 1865-72.
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ducati Estensi dal 1815 al 1852. 2 vols. Turin. 1852.
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A. Storia del Piemonte dal 1814 ai giomi nostri. 5 vols. Turin.
1849-52.
Cantu,
C. Storia degli Italiani. 6 vols. Turin. 1855-57.
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Castro, G. de. Milano e le cospirazioni lombarde (1814-20) giusta le
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Faldella, G. Storia della “Giovine Italia.” 7 vols. Turin. 1895-7.
Farini, L. C. Storia d’ Italia dalT anno 1814 ai nostri giomi. Turin.
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Guardione, F. Di G. Abele e degli avvenimenti politici di Sicilia dal
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Johnston,
R. M. The Napoleonic empire in South Italy and the rise of the secret
societies. 2 vols. London. 1904.
King,
B. A History of Italian Unity; being a political History of Italy from 1814 to
1871. 2 vols. London. 1899.
Labate,
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Michel,
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Sausone, A. La Rivoluzione del 1820 in Sicilia. Palermo. 1888.
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Tivaroni, C. Storia critica del Risorgimento Italiano. 9
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A. La rivoluzione dell’ anno 1831 in Bologna. Bologna. 1878.
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See
also Bibliography to Chapter V.
I. PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS.
Barberi, A. Bullarii roraani Continuatio. 20
vols. xiii-xix. Rome. 1835-57. Duerm, Cb. van.
Correspondance du Cardinal H. Consalvi avec le Prince
C. de Mettemich 1815. Louvain-Brussels. 1899.
GabeUi, A. Roma e i Romani. Documenti di Statistical etc. Rome. 1886.
Gennarelli, P. II Govemo pontificio e lo Stato romano. Documenti, etc. 2 vols.
Prato. 1860.
Mejer, O. Die Propaganda, ihre Provinzen und ihr Recht. 2 vols. Gottingen. 1853.
Munch, E. Vollstandige Sammlung aller Concordate. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1831. Pradt, D. de. Les quatre Concordats. 4 vols. Paris. 1818.
Reusch, F. H. Briefe an Bunsen von romischen Cardinalen und Pralaten,
dentschen Bischofen und andern Katholiken, aus den Jahren 1818-37. Leipzig.
1897.
Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen
Archiven und Bibliotheken, her-
ausgegeben vom koniglich-preussischen historischen Institut in Rom. 7 vols.
Rome.
(Bibliography of Italian Literature in each volume.)
Rinieri,
S. Corrispondenza inedita dei Cardinali Consalvi e Pa'cca, 1814-15. Turin.
1903.
H
Congresso di Vienna e la Santa Sede 1813-15. Turin. 1903. Carte
segrete
della Polizia austriaca in Italia. Turin. 1903.
Roskovany, A.
Monumenta catholica pro independentia potestatis Ecclesiasticae ab imperio
civili. Budapest. 1847.
II. MEMOIRS, ETC.
Barante, Baron P. de. Souvenirs. 5 vols. Paris. 1890. Vols. i-ra.
Chateaubriand, Vicomte F. R. de. M&noires d’Outre-Tombe. Ed. E. Bire. 6
vols.
Vol. iv—v. Paris. 1898-1900.
Cr£tineau-Joly, S. MSnoires du Cardinal Consalvi. 2 vols. Paris. 1864.
Gioberti, V. Opere, Ricordi biograiici e carteggio. 3 vols. Turin. 1863.
Guizot, F. Memoires pour servir k l’bistoire de mon temps. Vols. n, hi.
7 vols. Paris. 1858-67.
Maury, T. S. Cardinal. Correspondance diplomatique et Memoires.
1792-1817.
2 vols. Lille. 1891.
Pacca,
B. Cardinal. Memorie storiche. Rome. 1830.
Pasolini, G. Memorie raccolte di suo figlio. Imola. 1881.
Pasquier, E. Memoires. 6 vols. Paris. 1893-5.
Remusat, C. de. Lettres a Madame de Remusat. 2 vols. Paris. 1884.
III. PRINCIPAL
HISTORIES.
Briick, H. Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Deutschland im xix.
Jahrhundert.
2 vols. Mainz.
1887.
Gams, P. Geschichte der Kirche Christi im xix. Jahrhundert. 3 vols.
Innsbruck. 1853.
Mejer, O. Zur Geschichte der romisch-deutschen Frage. 3 vols. Rostock.
1874. Ranke, L. von. Die romischen Papste in den letzten vier Jahrhunderten.
Sammtliche Werke. Vol. xxxix. Leipzig. 1877. Engl. Tr. hy S. Austin. 3 vols.
London. 1840.
Treitschke, H. v. Deutsche Geschichte im xixten Jahrhundert. 5 vols.
Leipzig.
1882. Vols.
xi, in.
Werner, K. Geschichte der katholischen Theologie seit dem Trienter Concil
his zur Gegenwart. (Historische Commission bei der kgl. Akademie der Wissen-
schaften.) Munich. 1866. (Contains a Bibliography,
complete to the present date, of the period treated in this Chapter.)
IV. ITALY, INCLUDING THE PAPAL STATES.
Ancona, A. di. Unita e federazione. Varieta storiche e letterarie. Serie n.
Milan. 1885.
Bersezio, V. II Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II. Trent’ anni de vita
italiana.
2 vols. Turin.
1878.
Brosch, M. Geschichte des Kirchenstaats. (Geschichte der Europaischen
Staaten.)
2 vols. Gotha.
1882.
Bulle, O. Die italienische Einheitsidee in ihrer literarischen Entwicklung
von Parini bis Manzoni. Berlin. 1893.
Dardano, P. Diario dei Conclavi del 1829-30-1. Florence. 1879.
Dollinger, J. Kirche und Kirchen, Papstthum und Kirchenstaat. Munich.
1861. Farini, L. C. Lo Stato romano dall’ anno 1815. 4 vols. Tuvin. 1850-3. Translated hy W. E. Gladstone. London. 1851-4.
Hanssonvillei, Comte O. B. de. L’Eglise romaine et le premier Empire. 6 vols. Paris. 1870.
Hergenrother, J., Cardinal. Der Kirchenstaat seit der franzosischen
Revolution.
Historiscb-statistische Studien und Skizzen. Freiburg. 1860.
La Mantia, V. Storia della Legislazione italiana. Roma e Stato romano.
Vol. i. Turin. 1884.
Maistre, J. de. Lettres et Opuscules inedits. 2 vols. Paris. 1861.
Correspondance diplomatique 1811-17. 2 vols.
Paris. 1861.
Memoires politiques et Correspondance
diplomatique. Publies par Albert
Blanc. Paris. 1858.
Nielsen, F. Die romische Kirche im xix. Jahrhundert. Gotha. 1878.
Niirnberger, A. J. Papstthum und Kirchenstaat. Mainz. 1897.
Reumont, A. von. Geschichte der Stadt Rom. Vol. in/i. 3 vols. Berlin. 1867.
Geschichte Toskana’s seit d. Ende des
florentinischen Freistaats. (Gesch.
d. Europ. Staaten.) Vol. n. Gotha. 1877- Roncalli, N. Diario, con un Studio
storico intorno all’ idea dell’ unita italiana in Roma. 3 vols. Turin. 1884.
Ruth, E. Geschichte von Italien vom Jahre 1815 bis 1850. Heidelberg. 1867. Silvagni, D. La Corte e la society romana ne’ secoli xviii e xix.
Vols. n, m.
3 vols. Rome. 1885.
Tivaroni, C. Lo svolgimento del pensiero nazionale. 3 vols. Turin. 1894.
Vesi, A. Rivoluzione di Romagna del 1831. Narrazione storica correlate
di tutti i documenti. Florence. 1851.
V. BIOGRAPHIES.
Artaud de Montor, A. F. Histoire du Pape Pie VII. 2 vols. Paris. 1836.
Histoire du Pape Leon XII. Paris. 1843.
Histoire du Pape Pie VIII. 2 vols. Paris. 1843.
Bartholdy, J. L. Ziige aus dem Leben des Cardinals Consalvi. (Rnmpf’s
Gallerie der Welt.) Stuttgart. 1824.
Bati, D. Vincenzo Gioberti. Florence. 1881.
Beck, 1. I. H. Freiherr von Wesseuberg, sein Leben und sein Wirken.
Freiburg i. B. 1862.
Blennerhassett, Lady C. Chateaubriand. Romantik und die Restaurationsepoche
in Frankreich. (Weltgeschichte in Charakterbildern.) Mainz. 1903. Cugnoni, G.
Della vita e dei Scritti di G. A. Sala. Rome.
4 vols. 1888.
Daudet, E. Diplomates et Hommes d’Etat contemporains. Paris. 1866.
Devonshire, Elizabeth, Duchess of. Anecdotes and Biographical Sketches^ London.
(Privately
printed.) 1863.
Fischer,
E. L. Cardinal Consalvi. Mainz. 1899.
Kraus, F. X. Cavour. Die Erhebnng
Italiens im xix. Jahrhundert. (Weltge- schichte in Charakterbildern.) Mainz.
1902.
J. v. Hontheim, Weihbischof von Trier.
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.
Vol.
m Leipzig. 1881. (Contains a complete bibliography of the subject to the time
of writing.)
Niebuhr, B. G., Lebensnachrichten uber, 1800-31. 3
vols. Hamburg. 1838-9. Ranke, L. Consalvi. Sammtliche Werke. Vol. xl. Leipzig. 1877.
Reumont, A. von. Zeitgenossen. Biografien und Karakteristiken. 2
vols. Berliu. 1862. Vol. i.
Wiseman,
N. Cardinal. Recollections of the last four Popes. London. 1858.
Baumgarten, H. Geschichte Spaniens. (Staatengeschichte der nenesten Zeit.)
3 vols.
Leipzig. 1865-71.
Briick, H. Das irische Veto. Mainz. 1879.
'
Cretineau-Joly, S. L’Eglise romaine en face de la Revolution. 2 vols.
Paris. 1859. Saffarel, P. Bonaparte et les r£publiques italiennes. Paris. 1896.
Kestner-Kochlin, H. Briefwechsel mit seiner Schwester. Berlin. 1904.
Vtartignac, D, Essai historique sur la Revolution d’Espagne, etc. Paris. 1832.
Mejer, O. Febronius. Weihbischof J.
vou Hontheim und sein Widerruf. Tubingen. 1880.
Moore, T. Life, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron. London. 1838.
Oncken, W. Oesterreich und Preussen im Befreiungskrieg. 2 vols. Berlin.
1876. Perthes, C. T. Friedrich Perthes’ Leben. Hamburg and Gotha. 1848-51.
Politische Zustande und Personen in
Deutschland zur Zeit der franzosischen
Revolution. 2 vols. Gotha. 1862.
Ricci, S. Memorie, pubblicate di Gelli. 2 vols. Florence. 1865.
Rumohr, C. F. von. Erinnerungen an drei Reisen nach Italien. Leipzig. 1832. Stendhal (H. Beyle). Rome, Naples et Florence en 1817. Paris. 1817.
Theiner, A. Geschichte des Pontilikates Clemens XIV. 2 vols. Leipzig and
Paris. 1853.
See
also Bibliography to Chapter IV.
GREECE
AND THE BALKAN PENINSULA. (1812—31.)
I. UNPUBLISHED AUTHORITIES.
In
addition to the great number of documents published in various collections, a
vast amount of material for the history of this period is still buried in the
various archives of Europe. Those of Russia were accessible to F. de Martens
for hia monumental Recneil des traites; the Archives nationaux and the Archives
de la Marine of France were used by Debidour for his Life of Colonel Fabvier;
while Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, when gathering materials for his Life of
Capodistrias, examined the records preserved in the Hofbibliothek at Munich,
the archives of the Senate of Corfu, and those of the University and Parliament
at Athens.
In
the Record Office at London a great mass of useful material is preserved both
in the Foreign Office and the Admiralty Records. The latter embrace the
despatches of the admirals commanding the Mediterranean squadron during the
whole period of the Greek War, including the (supplementary) despatches
concerning the battle of Navarino, covering the period 1826-9. The Foreign
Office despatches cover a field too immense to be analysed here. The long
series of letters to and from the successive ambassadors at Constantinople and
St Petersburg are in especial a mine of material which has not yet been
exploited.
Less
obviously accessible are the scattered documents bearing on the Eastern
Question contained in the volumes of the diplomatic correspondence of the
period of the Congresses. The account in the text of the relations of Russia
and Turkey after the treaty of Bucharest is partly based on a long letter of
Sir Thomas Liston to the Duke of Wellington, dated at Constantinople, March 25,
1815 (in Foreign Office. Congress. Turkey. Miscellaneous Archives, September,
1814— July, 1815). In the same volume is a memorandum by Mavrogeni (dated
Vienna, February 16, 1815), of a conversation with Castlereagh on the question
of the guarantee of Turkey by the Congress (cf. Castlereagh to Liston, Vienna,
February 14, 1815). There are also valuable documents on the Greek Question in
the despatches of Lord Londonderry from Hanover (Foreign Office. Continent.
Hanover. Marquis of Londonderry, September—November, 1821), e.g. reports of the
Austrian internuncio, Count Lutzow, to Metternich on the feeling of the Porte
towards Russia, dated August 25 and September 10, 1821; copy of the report of
Lebzeltem to Metternich (^ September) of an interview of Bagot with the Emperor
Alexander on the withdrawal of Stroganoff, quoted in the text; Metternich to
Baron Vincent (Vienna, October 1) on Capodistrias' policy; id. to Esterhazy
(October 2) on the growing alienation of Alexander from Capodistrias; id. to
Lutzow (October 5) instructing him to press the Porte to concede Russia’s just
claims; id. to Lebzeltem (Secret, October 6) on Russian policy, the Greek “
rebels,” and Capodistrias’
“double
policy”; a “secret and confidential” memorandum of Mettemich (October 22) on
Austria’s attitude towards Russia in the Eastern Question; correspondence of
Mettemich with Count Nesselrode on the affairs of Turkey, etc.; Londonderry to
Bagot (No. 13, October 28) on British policy towards Russia and Turkey. Two
letters of Londonderry to Gordon referred to in the text are in : F. O.
Continent. Hanover. Drafts, various. September—October, 1821— explaining his
reasons for the interview with Mettemich (October 11); approving Metternich’s
attitude towards Turkey (Aix, October 1). For Canning’s attitude in the Greek
Question at the period of Verona, see Canning to Wellington, September 27, 1822
(in F. O. Continent. Verona. Duke of Wellington. September—December, 1822).
Of
great value for the student of the War of Greek Independence also is the mass
of new material contained in the 29 volumes of the Correspondence and Papers of
Sir Richard Church, now in the British Museum (Add. mss. 36543-36571). These include, besides
correspondence relating to Greece and letters to and from President
Capodistrias and many other Greek leaders, etc. etc., a narrative by Sir
Richard Church of the war in Greece during his tenure of the command (vols.
xxi-xxiii, Nos. 36563-36565). This contains material for correcting many errors
which have been repeated in most works on the war. Attention may be specially
drawn to the accounts of the massacre of the garrison of St Spiridion (vol. j, chap. ii, p. 34), and of the failure
to relieve the Acropolis on May 6, 1827 (chap. iv), in view of the unfavourable
criticism of Church in these connexions in Finlay (ii, 135, etc.),
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and other writers, followed in Alison Phillips’ War of
Greek Independence (p. 216, etc.). In general, Finlay’s somewhat contemptuous
estimate of Church’s influence and work in Greece cannot be upheld in the light
of evidence now available.
II. PUBLISHED CONTEMPORARY AUTHORITIES.
A.
Treaties, etc.
Besides
the collections of Hertslet, G. and F. de Martens, and Neumann, mentioned in
the General Bibliography to this volume, see Parliamentary Papers xlvih, 183. Protocols of Conferences
relative to the affairs of Greece, 1831-2 (i.e. Conference of London).
B. Dipi.omatio and otheh Cobresponhence.
See,
besides the Wellington Despatches, Metternich’s Memoirs, Gentz’s letters, and
other collections covering this period mentioned in the Bibliography to Chapter
I; see also especially the great collection of materials contained in the
Appendix (vols. m-vi) to Prokesch-Osten’s Geschichte des Abfalls, etc. (see below). Other collections are:
Lettres et documents officiels relatifs aux derniers ev^nements de la
Grece, qui ont precede et suivi la mort du comte Capodistrias jusqu’au 31
octobre, 1831. Publies par plusieurs membres de l’ancien comite grec de Paris.
Paris. 1831. Cherbuliez, A. Correspondance du C9mte Capodistrias, president de
la Grece. Geneva, Paris. 1839. Includes diplomatic,
administrative, and private letters written between April 20 and October 9,
1831.
Eynard, J. G. Lettres et documents officiels relatifs aux derniers
evenements de la Grece. Paris. 1831.
Kolokotrones, J. T. ‘EXA^vtca virofuvffftaTa rjrot fjrtffroXat cat
Siatfiopa eyypatpa d(j)opa>vTa Trjv ‘EAXijvucijv eTrai'atrratrii' atro 1821
jJ-^XPL 1827-
Athens. 1856.
Gentz, F. von. Zur Geschichte der Orientalischen Frage. Briefe aus dem
Nachlasse Friedrichs von Gentz. 1823-9.
Edited by Count Anton Prokesch- Osten (the younger). Vienna. 1877.
Prokesch-Osten,
Count A. (the younger). Aus dem
Nachlasse des Grafen Prokesch- Osten k. k. oesterreichischen Botschafter und
Feldzeugmeister. Briefwechsel mit Herrn von Gentz und Fiirsten Metternich. 2
vols. Vienna. 1881.
C. Topography,
Travels, etc.
Broughton,
Lord. (Hobhouse, J. C.) A Journey through Albania and other provinces of Turkey
in Europe and Asia, etc. during the years 1809 and 1810. London. 1813. New edn.
2 vols. 1855.
Dalling
and Bulwer, Lord. (Bulwer, Sir H. Lytton.) An Autumn in Greece; comprising
sketches of the character, customs, and scenery of the country; with a view to
its present critical state: in letters addressed to C. B. Sheridan. To which is
subjoined: Greece to the close of 1825, etc., in a letter to the Rt. Hon.
George Canning. By a Resident among the Greeks. London. 1826. Dodwell, E. A
Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece during the years 1801, 1805,
and 1806. 2 vols. London. 1819. Contains information about Ali Pasha of Janina.
Hughes,
T. S. Travels in Greece and Albania. 2nd edn. London. 1830.
Leake,
W. Martin. Travels in Northern Greece. 4 vols. London. 1835.
Travels in the Morea. 3 vols. London. 1830.
Pouqueville, F. C. H. L. Voyage en Moree, a Constantinople, en Albanie,
etc.
3 vols. Paris. 1805. Eng. transl. by A.
Plumptre. London. 1813. Important especially for Ali of Janina and Albania
generally.
Voyage dans la Grece... 5 vols. (Paris. 1820, 1821.)
D. Contemporary Memoirs,
Brochures, etc. abodt the Grees
Revolution.
Blaquiere,
E. The Greek Revolution; its origin and progress; together with some remarks on
the Religion, National Character, etc. in Greece. London.
1824.
Narration of a second visit to Greece,
including facts connected with the last
days
of Byron, extracts from correspondence, official documents, etc. London.
1825.
Letters from Greece, with remarks on the
treaty of intervention. London.
1828.
Byron,
G. G., Lord. Letters and Journals. Works of Lord Byron. Edited by R. E.
Prothero. Vol. vi. London. 1901.
Dragoumes, N. Souvenirs historiques. Capo d’Istria, la Regence, le regne
d’Othon.
Traduit du Grec moderne par Jules Blancard. Paris. 1890.
Examen critique de l’ouvrage: De l’etat actuel de la Grece, etc. [by a
Greek partisan of Capodistrias], Leipzig. 1835.
Jourdain, Capitaine de fregat de la Marine Royale et Colonel au service
du Gouvemement Grec. Memoires historiques et militaires sur les cvenements de
la Grece, depuis 1822 jusqu’a la bataille de Navarin. 2 vols. Paris. 1828.
Kolokotrones, T. C. AtJj-yijo-ij avfi^avTav Ttjs 'EWijvucfjs <f>v\rjs an6
ra 1770 eats ra 1836. Athens. 1846. English translation by
Mrs Edmonds: Kolokotrones, . Klepht and Warrior. London. 1892.
Metaxas, C. Souvenirs de la guerre de l’inddpendance de la Grece.
Translated by J. Blancard. Paris. 1887.
Papadopoulo-Vretos, A. Memoires sur le president de la Grece. Paris.
1837.
Raybaud, M. Memoires sur la Grece pour servir a l’histoire de la Guerre
de l’Ind£pendance, etc. 2 vols. Paris. 1824.
Thiersch, F. W. von. De Fetat actuel de la Grece, et des moyens
d’arriver a sa restauration. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1833. [The
author visited Greece during the presidency of Capodistrias, against whose
person and policy he is strongly prejudiced.] .
Voutier, Colonel. Memoires sur la guerre actuelle des Grecs. Paris. 1823.
III. HISTORIES OF THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE.
A. General.
A
trustworthy history of this period^ based on all the material now available,
does not exist. The works on the subject given below, though valuable in
various degrees, must all be read with caution; and not least those written by
eye-witnesses, who were too often swayed by prejudice or the dupes of the Greek
factions.
Finlay,
G. History of the Greek Revolution. 2 vols. London. 1861. Largely from personal
knowledge.
.
Gordon, T. History of the Greek Revolution. London. 1833. The author took part
in the war. The portion of Zinkeisen's Geschichte Griechenlands covering this
period is a translation of this work.
Hertzberg, G. F. Geschichte Griechenlands seit dem Absterben des antiken
Lebens bis zur Gegenwart. Vol. iv. (Geschichte der Europaischen Staaten.)
Gotha.
Isambert, G. L’Inddpendance Grecquei et l’Europe. Paris. 1900.
Kliiber, J. L. Pragmatische Geschichte der nationalen und politischen
Wiedergeburt Griechenlands, etc. Frankfort.
1835. Based on contemporary materials. Leake, W. Martin. An historical outline
of the Greek Revolution. 1825. Another edition, with a few remarks on the
present state of affairs in that country. London. 1826.
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, C. W. P. Geschichte Griechenlands von der Eroberung
Konstantinopels durch die Turken im Jahre 1453 bis auf unsere. Tage.
(Staatengeschichte der neuesten Zeit.) 2 vols. Leipzig. 1870-4.
Parish,
H. H. The diplomatic history of the monarchy of Greece from the year 1830.
London. 1838. The author was attached to the Legation at Athens. Philemon, J.
AoKtfitov ItTTopiKOv irepl rrjs "EXkrjviKrjs eiravatrrdtreois. Athens.
1859. In four parts : (1) History of the Hetairia Philike, (2) The heralding of
the war, and the rising under Ypsilanti, (3 and 4) The insurrection in Greece
to
1822. Contains a large collection of documents.
Phillips,
W. Alison. The War of Greek Independence. 1821 to 1833. : London and
New York. 1897.
Pouqueville, F. C. H. L. Histoire de la regeneration de la Grece, etc. 4
vols. Paris.
1824. The author was French resident at the court of Ali of Janina and
afterwards consul at Patras.
Prokesch-Osten,
A., Count (the elder). Geschichte des
Abfalls der Griechen vom Tiirkischen Reiche im Jahre 1821 und der Grundung des
Hellenischen Konigreiches, etc. 6 vols. Vienna. 1867.
The author writes as a diplomatist of the school of Metternich. He had personal
experience of some phases of the war. The last four volumes contain pieces
justificatives of much value.
Raffenel, M. C. D. Histoire des ev&ieraents de la Grece, etc. etc.
Paris. 1822.
Founded on personal observation.
Sontzos, A. Histoire de la revolution grecque. Paris. 1829.
Tricoupi, Spiridionos. 'loropia rir ‘EXXrpixijs eiravaoratreas. (Athens.
1853.)
B. Special.
Byzantios, C. S. 'lirropta rat tclktikqv arparav rfjs 'IXKHas, iirb ify
Trp&rnjs o-vtrrda-tiBs tov koto to 1821 ra>v 1832. Athens.
1837.
Fotnio,
I. Tudor Vadimirescu si Alecsandru Ipselante in revolutionea dia anulu 1821
supranumita Zavera. (Translated from the Greek of P. M. Georgescu.) Bucharest. 1874. [Contains various proclamations, etc. in connexion with
Ypsilanti’s rising.]
Jurien de la Graviere, J. P. E. La Station du Levant. Paris. 1876.
Maurer, G. L. von. Das griechische Volk in offentlicher, kirchlicher und
privat- rechtlicher Beziehung vor und nach dem Freiheitskampf bis zum 31 Juli
1834. Heidelberg.
1835. [An important work on the constitution, laws, and customs of the new
Greek State.]
Miaoules,
A. Swaim/cr) 'urropia rrnv vwep Trjs iXevdeplas Trjs avayevvi)8ti<n]s
'EXXaSos yevop.4vm> vavjiaxi&v 8ia tSsv it\oiav tSv rpiav vyo’av,
"YSpaS) Ilsraccy kul
SErdpav, k. t. X. Nauplia. 1833.
—— 'Ioropta
Trjs vrjdov "YSpas airi tS>v apxaiorarav
xpovav p*XPl TVS *Tcl 1821 eKpayeitrt]! 'EXKrjviKrjs enavairrda-eus. Athens. 1874.
Muhammad, Asa’d Sufwat. Precis historique de la destruction des
Janissaires.
French transl. by Armand Pierre Caussin de Perceval. Paris. 1833.
Pellion, General de division. La Grece et Capodistrias pendant l’occupation
franfa'i e de 1828 a 1834. Paris. 1855.
IV. BIOGRAPHIES, ESSAYS, ETC.
Bikelas,
D. Seven Essays on Christian Greece. Translated by John, Marquess of Bute.
Paisley and London. 1890.
Bourchier,
Lady. Memoir of Sir Edward Codrington, with correspondence. 2 vols. London.
1873.
Church,
E. M. Sir Richard Church in Italy and Greece. Edinburgh. 1895. Debidour, A. Le general Fabvier, sa vie militaire et
politique. Paris. 1904.
A
valuable work containing many original documents.
Hidromenos,
A. M. ’\a>dvvr)s KanoSiarplas, Kvfiepvrjrrjs lijs 'EXXaSos. Athens. 1900.
Jebb,
Sir R. C. Modem Greece; with papers on Byron in Greece, etc. 1880.
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, C. W. P. Graf Johann Kapodistrias. Berlin. 1864.
Based
on original sources, and of much value.
Rothpletz, E. Der Genfer Jean Gabriel Eynard als Philhellene. 1821-9.
Zurich. 1900.
V. WORKS ON THE DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE
PERIOD.
Beer, A. Die orientalische Politik Oesterreichs seit 1774. Prague and
Leipzig.
1883.
Demelitsch, F. von. Mettemich und seine auswartige Politik. Vol.
i (to the Peace of Bucharest). Stuttgart. 1898.
VI. WORKS ON THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.
Chesney,
F. R. The Russo-Turkish campaigns of 1828-9, etc. London. 1854. Moltke, H. C. B. von. Der russisch-turkische Feldzug in der
europaischen Tiirkei, 1828 und 1829. Berlin. 1845.
Eng. transl. The Russians in Bulgaria and Rumelia in 1828 and 1829. London.
1854.
Owing
to the close connexion between the affairs of Spain and those of Europe in
general, especially France and England, a great part of the bibliographies to
Chapters I, II, III, XI, XV, XVIII, and XX is also applicable to this chapter.
Accordingly the titles of some works which refer both to this and to other
parts of the volume are omitted here, especially the diplomatic memoirs and
correspondence of public men such as Villele, Chateaubriand, Canning, and
others.
I. BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
Hartzenhusch, E. Apuntes para un catalogo de periodicos madrilenos....
Madrid.
1894.
Perez, D. Ensayo de bibliografia y tipografia gaditanas. Madrid. 1903.
(The 4th section of this book is devoted to the bibliography of the Cortes of
Cadiz, 1808-14.)
Torres Campos, M. Bibliografia espanola contemporanea del Derecho y de
la Politica. 2 vols. Madrid. 1883-8.
II. PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS.
Cantillo, A. del. Tratados, convenios y declaraciones de paz y de
comercio...desde el ano 1700 hasta el dia. Madrid. 1843.
Catalogo de cuentas de la Administracion publica, en los anos de 1744 a
1855, existentes en el Archivo general Central. In Revista de Archivos,
Bihliotecas y Museos. Madrid. {Inprogress.)
Coleccion de decretos y ordenes. Series n : Decretos del Roy Don
Fernando VII, de 1814 a 1823 inclusive. Series m : Decretos del Rey D. Fernando
VII y de la Reina Gobemadora, de 1824 a 1836 inclusive. 45 vols. Madrid.
1814-36.
Coleccion de leyes, decretos y declaraciones de Cortes. From 1837 to 1845.
24 vols. Madrid. 1837-45.
Coleccion de los decretos y ordenes que han expedido las Cortes
generales y extraordinarias, desde su instalacion en 24 de Setiembre de 1810
hasta el 19 de Febrero de 1823. 10 vols. Madrid. 1820-3.
Diarios de las sesiones de Cortes. (Fropi 1820-45.) 59 vols. Madrid.
1859-76.
Estatutos, Reglamento y Codigo de la Confederacion de C. C. (Comuneros)
es- pafioles. Madrid, s. a. (1822.)
Fernandez Martin, M. Derecho parlamentario espanol. 2 vols. Madrid.
1885.
Hernandez, F. Acusacion fiscal...en la causa de D. Matias Vinuesa.
Madrid. 1821.
Janer, F. Tratados de Espana (1842 a 1868). Madrid. 1869.
Rico y Amat, J. El libro de los diputados y senadores. 4
vols. Madrid. 1862-6.
(Collection
of parliamentary speeches.)
Riego,
R. del. Carta del general D. Rafael del Riego a sus companeros de armas los
generales Lopez-Bafios y Arco-Agiiero. Madrid.
1820.
Vinuesa, Manifiesto de D. Matias... Madrid. 1821.
III. BIOGRAPHIES.
Cabrera, Vida y hechos de D. Ramon. 2nd edn. Valencia. 1839.
Cardenas, F. de. Life of Tadeo Calomarde. Galeria de
Espanoles celebres contemporaneos, Vol. iv. Madrid. 1843.
Carrasco,
A. Icono-biografia del Generalato espanol. Madrid. 1901. Published also as a
supplement in the “ Memorial de Artilleria.” 1899 sqq.
Condiciones y semblanzas de los S. S. Diputados a Cortes en la
legislatura de 1820 y 1821. Madrid. 1821.
Cueto, L. A. de. Biografia del conde de Toreno. In
vol. 64 of the Biblioteca de Autores espanoles. Ed. M. Rivadeneira. Madrid. 1872.
Florez, J. S. Espartero. Historia de su vida militar y politica. 3 vols.
Madrid.
1843-4. 2nd edition. 4 vols. 1844-5.
Galeria militar contemporanea. Madrid. 1849.
Haebler, EL Maria Josefa Amalia, Herzogin zu Sachsen, Konigin von
Spanien. Dresden. 1892.
Hamilton,
T. Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White. 3
vols. London. 1845.
Le Brun, C. Retratos politicos de la Revolucion de Espana. Philadelphia.
1826. Pineyro, E. Manuel J. Quintana. Chartres.
1891.
San Miguel, E. General. Vida de D. Agustin Argiielles. 4 vols. Madrid.
1851. Vayo, D. E. de K. (?). Historia de la vida y reinado de Fernando VII. 3
vols. Madrid. 1842.
Villanueva, Vida literaxia de D. Joaquin L. de. 2 vols. London.
1825.
Viniegra,
Dona L. S. Life of Torrijos. 2 vols. Madrid. 1860.
IV. MEMOIRS AND TRAVELS.
Alcala Galiano, A. Recuerdos de un anciano. Madrid.
1878.
Memorias. 2 vols. Madrid. 1886.
Borrow,
G. The Bible in Spain. London. 1843.
Casa Valencia, E., Conde de. Recuerdos de la jnventud(1831 a 1854).
Madrid. 1900. Conte, A. Recuerdos de un diplomatico. Vol. t. 3 vols. Madrid.
1901-3. Fernandez de Cordoba, General F. Mis Memorias intimas. 3 vols. Madrid.
1886-9.
Fernando VII. Itinerario de la retirada que el gobierno constitucional
obligo a hacer a sus Majestades...en Febrero de 1823. In Conde de Casa
Valencia’s Estudios historicos. Madrid. 1895.
Halen, J. van. Memorias. Madrid. 1829.
Lob£, G. Mi segundo viaje a Europa y especialmento a Espana, en los anos
1840 a 1842. 4 vols. Madrid. 1841-2.
Mesonero Romanos, R. de. Memorias de un setenton. Madrid.
1880.
Mina,
General F. (Espoz y Mina). Memorias. 5
vols. Madrid. 1854. Miraflores, M., Marquis de. Memorias.... 2 vols. Madrid.
1843-4.
Continuacion de las Memorias. 2 vols. Madrid.
1873.
Noguds, General A. Aventuras y desventuras de un soldado viejo, natural
de Borja.
Madrid.
1898.
Quin,
M. J. Visit to Spain.... London. 1823.
Memorias historicas sobre Fernando VII. 3
vols. Valcnce-Madrid. 1840.
Sanroma,
T. M. Mis memorias. 3 vols. 1893-4.
Steele,
F. Notes on the war of Spain, detailing occurrences military and political in
Galicia, and at Gibraltar and Cadiz. London. 1824.
Vaudoncourt,
General G. de. Letters on the internal political state of Spain during the
years 1821-3. London. 1825.
Zorrilla,
J. Recuerdos del tiempo viejo. Barcelona. 1881.
V. GENERAL HISTORIES AND TREATISES.
Baumgarten, H. Geschichte Spaniens vom Ausbruch der franzosischen
Revolntion bis auf unsere Tage. (Staatengeschichte der neuesten Zeit.) 3 vols.
Leipzig. 1865.
Becker, T. Relaciones entre Espana y Rusia. Un proyecto matrimonial. (Ferdinand VII and Grand Duchess Anna.) In La
Epoca, March, 1906.
Borrego, A. Historia de las Cortes de Espana durante el siglo xix. 2
vols. Madrid. 1885.
Burgos, F. J. de. Anales del reinado de Isabel II. 6 vols. Madrid.
1850-2.
Caballero, F. El gobierno y las Cortes del Estatuto.
Los dos principios. Algesiras. 1837.
Exercito del rey Carlos. (1835-6.)
Calvo y Martin, M. Regimen parlamentario de Espana en el siglo xix.
Madrid. 1883.
Cambronero, C. La matanza de los frailes el ano 1834, segun documentos
ineditos del Archivo municipal. In Revista contemporanea. Madrid. 15 July,
1897.
Castillo y Ayensa, J. Historia critica de las negociaciones con Roma
desde la muerte de Fernando VII. 2 vols. Madrid. 1859.
Chaves, M. Bocetos de una epoca (1820-40). Seville. 1891.
Diercks, G. Geschichte Spaniens. 2 vols.
Berlin. 1895.
Doblado,
L. Letters from Spain. London. 1822.
Espana
y America en progreso. Anon. Paris. 183o.
Fernandez
Duro, C. Armada espanola. Vol. ix. 9 vols. Madrid. 1903.
Ferrer
del Rio, A. Estudio historico de las luchas politicas en la Espana del siglo
xix. Madrid. 1880.
Garrido, F. La Espana contemporanea. 2 vols. Madrid. 1865-7.
Gmelin, H. Studien zur Spanischen Verfassungsgeschichte des neunzehnten
Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart. 1905.
Gomez de Arteche, J., General. Reinado de Fernando VU. Historia general de Espana. Madrid. 1902 sqq. (Publication interrupted.)
Hubbard, N. G. A. Histoire contemporaire de l'Espagne. 6 vols. Paris.
1869-83.
Hugo, H. Histoire de la Campagne d’Espagne, 1823. 2
vols.
Hume,
M. A. S. Modern Spain, 1789-1898. London. 1899.
La Espana del siglo xix. (By several
authors.) 3 vols. Madrid. 1886-7.
La Fuente, V. de. Historia de las sociedades secretas antiguas y modemas
en Espafia. 3 vols. Lugo. 1870-1.
Lerna, Marquis of. Un proyecto inedito de testamento de Fernando VH. In
Nuestro Tiempo, 25 April, 1906.
Mariana,
P. Juan de. Historia de Espafia. 3 vols. Madrid. 1853. Vol. iu. Contemporary
Spain, by E. Chao.
Mariano. La Regeucia de D. Baldomero Espartero. Madrid. 1870.
Martinez de la Rosa, F. Bosquejo historico de la politica de Espana
desde los tiempos de los Reyes Catolicos hasta nuestros dias. 2 vols. Madrid.
1857.
Mifiano. Histoire de la Revolution d’Espagne, 1820-3. 2 vols. Paris.
1824.
Miraflores, M._, Marquee de. Apuntes historico-criticos para escribir la
historia de Espana desde 1820 hasta 1823. London. 1834.
Resena historico-critica de la participacion
de los partidos en los suoesos
politicos de Espana en el siglo xix. Madrid. 1863.
Passy, L. La mission de Martignac et l’ambassade de Talaru pendant la
guerre d’Espagne (1823). In “Seances et travaux de l’Academie des sciences
morales et politiques.” 1899.
Perez de Guzman, J. Una mision diplomatica oficiosa. Documentos de 1819.
La Epoca, August 12, 1899. Lisbon.
Las Cortes y los Gobiernos del reinado de Da
Isabel II. La Espana modema,
1903. Madrid.
Los decanos de las Cortes y de los ministerios
desde la muerte del rey
Fernando VII hasta la de D. Alfonso XII. La
Ilustracion Espanola y Americana, May 8, 1903. Madrid.
Pirala, A. Historia de la guerra civil, con la regencia de Espartero. 3
vols. Madrid. 1889.
Historia contemporanea. Anales desde 1843
hasta la conclusion de la ultima
guerra civil. 6 vols. Madrid. 1875-9.
Presas, J Pintura de los males que ha causado a Espana el gobierno
absoluto de los dos ultimos reinados...Burdeos. 1827.
Quintana, M. J. Obras completas. 3 vols. Madrid. 1897-8.
Revolution d’Espagne. Examen critique, 1820-36. Anon. Paris. 1836.
Rico y Amat, J. Historia politica y parlementaria de Espana. 3
vols. Madrid. 1860-1.
Rodriguez
Solis, E. Historia del partido republicano espanol. Madrid. 1893.
Sagarminaga,
F. El gobierno y regimen foral del senorio de Vizcaya desde el reinado de
Felipe II hasta la mayor edad de Isabel II. 8 vols. Bilbao. 1891.
Der Versuch des Staatsstreiches Ferdinands VII
von Spanien in Juli 1822.
Reprint from the Historische Vierteljahrschrift. Leipzig.
Tirado, M. La masoneria en Espana. 2 vols. Madrid. 1893.
Toreno, J. M., Conde de. Historia del levantamiento, guerra y revolucion
de Espana.
3 vols. Paris. 1836. (Several other
editions.)
Vorges, E. M. Canning et l’intervention des Bourbons en Espagne. Revue
d’histoire diplomatique, vii.
Paris. 1903.
Zancada, P. El sentido social de la revolucion de 1820. Revista
contemporanea, Madrid. August, 1903.
THE
SPANISH DOMINIONS IN AMERICA.
Works
marked with an asterisk also form part of the bibliography of Chapter IX. For
the Philippine Islands, which are not here treated, the reader is referred to
Biblioteca FUipina, by P. de Tavera, Washington, 190S, and to List of books on
the Philippines in the Library of Congress, by A. P. C. Griffin, Washington,
1903. For the West Indian Islands and the Spanish settlements within the
present limits of the United States, which are here only incidentally touched,
the hibliographies in Volume VII, especially to Chapters IX, XI, XII and XXI,
may be consulted.
I.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
Lamed,
J. N. The literature of American history. London. 1902.
Rich,
O. Catalogue of books relating principally to America. London. 1832.
Bibliotheca Americana Nova. 2 vols. London.
1835-46.
Sabin,
J. Dictionary of books relating to America. Vols. i-xix. New York. 1868-91.
See
also in the last section of this list the works of Bancroft, Bonnycastle,
Hancock, Hazard, Markham, Mendiburu, Robertson, Winsor.
II. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS,
ETC.
MS.
and early printed materials:—In the city of Seville there are two collections
which concern this history. One, the Biblioteca Colombina, contains the library
of Ferdinand, son and biographer of Christopher Columbus, including some books
which belonged to the Admiral and are annotated by his hand. The other consists
of tho surviving part of the Archives of the Indies: 32,000 or more bundles of
these ms. documents are stored in the Lonja,
the ancient Exchange. The publication of documents in Mexico, Lima, Buenos
Aires, and Montevideo indicates that great quantities of manuscript materials
exist in various Spanish-American capitals.
A. General Collections.
Coleccion de documentos in&litos para la historia de Espana. Edited
by A. Fernandez de Navarrete and others. 112 vols. Madrid. 1842-98. (The
general index to the collection shows which documents concern America.)
Nueva Coleccion de documentos para la historia de Espana y de sus
lndias. Edited by F. de Zabalburu. 6 vols., of which only
vol. vi concerns America. Madrid.
1892-6.
Coleccion de documentos relativos a las antigiias posesiones espanolas
en America y Oceania. Edited by J. F. Pacheco, F. de
Cardenas, and L. Torres de Mendoza. 42 vols.
Madrid. 1840-83.
Coleccion de docnmentos ineditos relativos a...las antiguas posesiones
de Ultramar. 2* Serie, publicada por la real Academia de Historia. 14 vols.
Madrid.
1885-1900.
Coleccion de Bulas, Breves y otros documentos relativos a la Iglesia de
America y Filipinas. Edited by F. T. Hernaez. 2 vols.
Brussels. 1879.
Coleccion
completa de los tratados de la America Latina. Edited by C. Calvo.
16 vols. Paris. 1862-7.
Tratados...que
han hecho con las potencias estranjeras los monarcas Espanoles...
desde
1700 hasta el dfa. Edited by A. del Cantillo. Madrid. 1843.
Stunario
de leyes para las Indias. Compiled by R. Aguiar y Acuna. Only vol. i published.
Madrid. 1629.
Recopilacion
de las leyes para los reynos de las Indias. 4 vols. Madrid. 1681.
4th
edition 1791. 5th edition 1842.
Cartas de Indias. Madrid. 1877.
Historiadores primitivos de las Indias Occidentales. Edited
by A. G. Barcia. 3 vols. Madrid. 1749.
Coleccion de libros espanoles raros o curiosos. Madrid. 1871,
etc.
B. Collections relating to South Amerioa.
*Coleccion de obras y documentos relativos a la historia de las
Provincias del Rio de la Plata. Edited by P.
de Angelis. 6 vols. Buenos Aires. 1836-7. 2nd edition 1903.
*Coleccion de memorias y documentos para la historia y geografia de los
pueblos del Rio de la Plata. Edited by A. Lamas.
Montevideo. 1849.
Coleccion
de documentos para la historia de Chile. Edited by C. Gay. 2 vols. Paris. 1846.
Coleccion de documentos ineditos para la historia de Chile...1518-1818. Edited
by J. T. Medina. Santiago. 1888, etc. (The volumes hitherto published deal with
the period of the Spanish conquest.)
Memorias
de los Vireyes que han goberaado el Peru. Edited by M. A. Fuentes. 6 vols. Lima. 1859.
Memorias de los Vireyes del nuevo reino de Granada. Edited
by A. Garcia y Garcia. New York. 1869.
Tomo
primero de las Ordenanzas del Peru. Compiled by T. de Ballesteros. Lima. 1685.
Relaciones geograficas de Indias. Edited by M. Jimenez de Espada. 4
vols. Madrid.
1881-97.
Recneil de documents et memoires originaux sur l’histoire des
possessions espagnoles dans l’Amerique. Edited by H.
Ternaux-Compans. Paris. 1840. Documentos historicos del Peru. Edited by M.
Odriozola. 2 vols. Lima. 1863-4. Documentos literarios del Peru. Edited by M.
Odriozola. 8 vols. Lima. 1863-76. Anales del Cuzco. Lima. 1901.
Mercnrio
Peruano. 12 vols. Lima. 1791-5.
Archivo
Boliviano. Edited by V. de Ballivian y Roxas. Paris. 1872.
Libro primero de cabildos de Lima. 3 vols. Paris. 1888.
Coleccion de documentos relativos a la expulsion de los Jesuitas. Con introduccidn
y notas por F. J. Brabo. Madrid. 1872.
Lettres edifiantes et curieuses. 8th and 9th
vols. of 2nd edition. Paris. 1780-3. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series.
West Indies and America. The two vols.
covering
1661-74: for Morgan and the buccaneers. London. 1881 and 1889. Documents
regarding the frontier of British Guiana and Venezuela: with maps. London.
1896.
C. Collections
relatino to North America.
Instrucciones
que los Vireyes de Nueva Espana dejaron a sus sucesores. Mexico. 1867.
Documentos
para la historia de Mexico. Series 1-5.
Mexico. 1853-8.
Coleccion de documentos para la historia de Mejico. Edited
by J. Garcia Icazbalceta.
2 vols. Mexico. 1858-66.
Nueva
coleccion de documentos para la historia de Mejico (dealing chiefly with Californian
Missions). Edited by J. Garcia Icazbalceta. 5 vols. Mexico,
1886-92.
Documents pour servir a l’histoire du Mexique. Edited by E. Boban. 2
vols. Paris. 1891.
III. OTHER ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES.
The
history of the Spanish Empire has been distorted by popular romances, by the
representations of corsairs and enemies, by the polemical pleadings of
insurgent leaders in the war of independence, and by sectarian prejudice. The
English reader may form a more impartial view from Robertson’s admirable
summary in Books vn and vih of
the History of. America, the Travels of Depons, and Humboldt’s three books on
New Spain, on Equatorial America, and on Cuba. Azara’s book is an excellent
authority in its statistical part and in its description of the Paraguayan
Indians and of the shepherds and vagabonds of the Pampa: but with regard to the
Jesuits he is a hostile critic, whose prejudice leads him to exalt the merits
of the conquistadores and of the encomienda system. Alcedo’s dictionary,
translated by Thompson, is a most useful work. Raynal’s book is useless to the
student of Spanish-American history, and is only included in this bihliography
owing to its former high reputation and the significance of its publication. B.
Moses’ book consists of a series of essays, “not designed to embrace the
history.” T. C. Dawson gives separate summaries for the several Republics since
the Spanish conquest. The first volume of Brantz Meyer provides a just and
sympathetic summary of Mexican history; and the voluminous works of Bancroft contain
a great accumulation of historical and illustrative material.
Anson,
G. A voyage round the World. Edited by R. Walter. London. 1748. Azara, F. Voyages dans l’Amerique Mdridionale. 4 vols. and Atlas.
Paris. 1809.
Bougainville, L. A. de. Voyage round the World in 1766-9. Translated by J. R.
Forster. London. 1772.
Cattaneo,
C. Three letters from Buenos Aires and Paraguay (in Muratori’s Relation of
Missions of Paraguay). . London. 1751.
Churchill,
A. and J. Collection of Voyages. 6 vols. London. 1704-32. Compendio general de las contribuciones y gastos que
ocasionan...los efectos...que se trafican entre los reynos de Castilla y
America. Cadiz. 1762.
Dampier,
W. Voyages. 4 vols. London. 1697-1709.
Depons,
F. Travels in South America, 1801-4. 2 vols. London. 1807. Dobrizhoffer, M. An
account of the Abipones, an equestrian people of Paraguay, translated from
Latin by Sara Coleridge. 3 vols, London. 1822.
Escalona
Aguero, G. de. Gazophilacium regium Perubicum. Madrid. 1647.
2nd
edition, Madrid. 1775.
Esquemelin,
A. O. The buccaneers of America. Transl. from the Dutch. 2 vols. London. 1684^5.
Feyjoo, M. Relacion de Trujillo. Madrid. 1763.
Frezier, A. F. Voyage de la mer du Sud pendant les annees 1712-14. Paris.
1710. Gage, T. The English-American his travail by sea and land: or a new
survey of the West Indies. London. 1648.
Gemelli-Careri,
G. F. Giro del Mondo. 6 vols. Naples. 1699-1700. (Translated in 4th volume of
Churchill’s Voyages. London. 1732.)
Gumilla,
J. El Orinoco ilustrado. Madrid. 1746.
Hawkesworth,
J. Account of voyages...in the Southern Hemisphere. 3 vols. London. 1773.
Hawkins,
Sir R. Observations of Sir R. H. on his voyage into the South Sea in 1593.
London. 1622. Reprinted by the Hakluyt Soc. London. 1847. Herran, G. Relacion
de las Misiones de los Indios Chiquitos. Madrid. 1726. Humboldt, Alexander von.
Voyage aux Regions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent,
fait en 1799-1804 par A. de Humboldt et A. Bonpland. 3
vols. Paris. 1814.
Personal narrative of travels to the
equinoctial regions of the New Continent.
Translated
by H. M. Williams. 5 vols. London. 1814-21.
Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle
Espagne. 2 vols. and Atlas.
Paris.
1811.
Political essay on the Kingdom of New Spain.
Translated by J. Black.
4 vols. London. 1810-11.
Essai politique sur File de Cuba. Paris.
1826.
The island of Cnba. Translated by J. S.
Thrasher. New York. 1856.
Juan,
J. and Ulloa, A. Relacion historica del viaje a la America meridional.
2 vols. Madrid. 1748.
A
voyage to South America.... Translated by J. Adams. 2 vols. London.
1758.
(This abridged translation went through several editions and was reprinted in
the 14th volume of Pinkerton’s Voyages. London. 1808.)
Noticias secretas de America. Edited by D.
Barry. London. 1826.
La Condamine, C. M. de. Relation d’un voyage dans l’interieur de
l’Amdrique Meridionale. Paris. 1745.
La Perouse, J. F. G. de. Voyage autour du Monde. 4
vols. Paris. 1797.
M.,
R. Account of Mr R. M.’s voyage to Buenos Aires and Potosi. London. 1716.
Mavor, W. Account of voyages, travels and discoveries. London. 1801. Nouvelle Bibliotheque des voyages anciens et modernes. 12
vols. Paris. 1841. Padilla, J. de. Cerca...buen tratamiento de los Indios.
Lima. 1661. (?)
Peru,
Estado politico del reyno del. Madrid. 1747.
Phillips,
R. New Voyages and Travels. London. 1819-22.
Pinkerton,
J. Collection of Voyages and Travels. London.
1808-14.
Pointis, L. de. Relation de l’Expedition de Cartagene, faite par les
Frani^ais en 1697. Amsterdam. 1698.
Rogers,
W. A cruising voyage round the World. London. 1712.
Ruiz de Montoya, A. Conquista espiritual del Paraguay. Madrid.
1639.
St
Malo, Conde de. Voyage to Peru in 1745-9. London.
1753.
Solorzano Pereira, J. de. Politica
Indiana. Madrid. 1649. Republished at Antwerp, 1703; and finally edited with additions,
by F. Ramiro de Valenzuela—2 vols. Madrid. 1776.
De Jure Indiarum. 2 vols. Madrid. 1629-39.
Republished at Madrid,
1653;
and at Leyden, 1672. Editio novissima, edited by F. M. de Vallarna. Madrid. 1777.
Temaux-Compans, H. Archives des Voyages. 2 vols. Paris. 1841-5.
Ulloa, A. de. Noticias Americanas. Madrid. 1772.
Unanue,
J. H. Guia del Peru. Lima. 1823.
Vancouver,
G. A voyage of discovery to the N. Pacific Ocean. 3 vols. London. 1798.
Veitia Linage, J. de. Norte de la Contratacion de las Indias
Occidentales. Seville. 1672.
The Spanish rule of trade to the West Indies.
An ahridged and sometimes
inaccurate
translation by Captain J. Stevens. London. 1702.
Vetancurt,
A. Teatro Mexicano. Mexico. 1698.
Villasenor
y Sanchez, J. A. Teatro Americano. 2 vols. Mexico. 1746.
IV. LATER WORKS.
Alcedo,
A. de. Diccionario geografico-histdrico de las Indias Occidentales o America.
5 vols. Madrid. 1786-9.
* Geographical and historical dictionary of
America and the West Indies.
Translated
with large additions by G. A. Thompson. 5 vols. and Atlas. London. 1812-15.
Alsedo
(or Alcedo) y Herrera, D. Aviso...del Peru desde 1535 hasta 1739. Madrid. 1740.
Compendio historico de Guayaquil. Madrid.
1741.
Piraterfas y agresiones del os Ingleses en la
America Espafiola. Madrid. 1883.
Autunez y Acevedo, R. Comercio de los Espanoles con sus Colonias. Madrid.
1797- *Bancroft, H. H. History of the Pacific States of North America (with
bibliographies). 39 vols. San Francisco. 1882-90. [Includes accounts of
California and New Mexico, a history of Mexico in 6 vols., and a history of
Central America in 3 vols. This last work treats Guatemala and the adjacent
provinces not only since they assumed the name of Central America but also
during the Spanish period.]
A
popular history of the Mexican people. London. 1888.
Baralt,
R. M. and Diaz, R. Historia de Venezuela, 1497-1797. Paris. 1841. *Barros
Arana, D. Historia jeneral de Chile. 16 vols. Santiago. 1884-1902. Blackmar, F.
W. Spanish Colonization in the South-West (i.e. in California). In Series vni
of John Hopkins University Studies. Baltimore. 1880. Bonnycastle, R. H. Spanish
America. With bibliography. 2 vols. London. 1818. Borde, P. G.
L. Histoire de...la Trinidad sous le gouvernement espagnol. 2 vols. Paris.
1876.
Briceno, M. Los Comuneros. Historia de la insurreccion de 1781. Bogota.
1880. [Burke, E.] Account of European settlements in America. 2 vols. London.
1857. Burney, J. Chronological history of discoveries in the South Sea or
Pacific Ocean.
6 vols. London. 1803-17.
Cappa, R. Estudios crfticos acerca de la dominacion Espafiola en
America. Madrid. 1888, etc.
Caulin, A. Historia de Cumana, Guyana y Vertientes dd Orinoco. Madrid.
1779. Cavo, A. Los tres siglos de Mexico... Edited, with
notes and supplement, by C. M. de Bustamente. 4 vols. Mexico. 1836-8.
Charlevoix, P. F. X. Histoire du Paraguay. 6 vols. Paris. 1767.
Histoire de S. Domingue. 4
vols. Amsterdam. 1733.
Coke,
T. History of the West Indies. 3 •vols. London. 1808-10.
*Coroleu,
J. America, Historia de su colonizacirin, dominacion e indepehdencia.
3 vols. Barcelona. 1894-5.
Cunninghame-Graham,
R. B. A vanished Arcadia. (The
Paraguayan Missions.) London. 1901.
Del Techo (Du Toit), N. Historia provinciae Paraquariae Societatis Jesu.
Leyden.
1673.
Translated in vol. iv of Churchill’s Voyages. London. 1732. Description
of...Cartagena, Puerto Bello, Vera Cruz, the Havana and San Agustin. Loudon. 1741.
*Funes, G. Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay, Buenos Ayres y
Tucuman.
3 vols. Buenos Aires. 1816-17.
*Gay,
C. Historia fi'sica y politica de Chile. 8 vols. (two of documents). Paris.
1847-54.
Hale,
S. Mexico. (Story of the Nations.) London. 1891.
*Hancock,
A. V. History of Chile. With bibliography. Chicago. 1893.
Hazard,
S. Santo Domingo past and present. With bibliography. London. 1873. Jefferys,
T. An account of tie Spanish islands and settlements. London. 1762. JuarroSj D.
History of Guatemala. Translated by J. Baily. London. 1823. Kottenkampf, F. Geschichte der Colonisation Amerika’s.
Frankfort. 1860.
Laet, J. Nieuwe Wereldt. Leyden 1625: Latin version
1633: French Version 1640. Lorente, S. Historia del Peru. 4 vols. Paris.
1863-70.
*Markham,
Sir C. R. History of Peru. With
bibliography. Chicago. 1892. Medina, J. T. Historia...de la Inquisition de
Lima, 1569-1820. 2 vols. Santiago.
1887, etc.
— Historia...de la Inquisition de Cartagena. Santiago. 1899.
Historia...de la Inquisition en las provincias
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Historia...de la Inquisicion en Chile. Santiago.
1890.
*Mendiburu,
M. Diccionario Historico-Biografico del Peru (with bibliography). Lima.
1874-85.
Milla,
J. and Gomez, Carrillo, A. Historia de la America Central. Guatemala.
1879-97.
Moses,
B. The establishment of Spanish rule in America. New York. 1898. Muratori, L.
A. II Cristianesimo felice nelli Missioni nel Paraguai. Venice. 1743.
Relation of Missions of Paraguay: English
translation from French version.
London. 1751.
Oviedo y Banos, J. de. Conquista de Venezuela.
Madrid. 1723.
♦Parish,
W. Buenos Aires and the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata: from their
discovery...to...independence. 2nd edition. London. 1852.
Parras, P. J. de. El Gobierno de los regulares de America. Madrid.
1783. *Pelliza, M. A. Historia Argentina. 3
vols. Buenos Aires. 1888-9.
*Pereira, R. S. Les Etats-Unis de Colombie. Paris. 1833.
Pradt, D. D. de. Les trois ages des Colonies. 2 vols. Paris. 1801-2.
Raynal, G. T. F. Histoire philosophique et politique des Etablissements
et du Commerce des Europeens dans les deux Indes. 7
vols. The Hague. 1774. Robertson, W. History of America (with bibliography). 2
vols. London. 1777. Rosales, D. de. Historia general del Reyno de Chile. Edited
by B. Vicuna Mackenna. 3 vols. Valparaiso. 1877-8.
San
Domingo, History of. London. 1818.
Southey,
B. History of Brazil (including Paraguay). 3 vols. London. 1810-19. Southey, T.
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London. 1747.
Suarez,
F. G. Historia del Ecuador. 4 vols. and Atlas. Quito. 1890-2.
Vicuna Mackenna, B. Historia de Santiago. Valparaiso. 1869.
Historia de Valparaiso. Valparaiso.
1869.
Watson,
R. G. Spanish and Portuguese South America. 2 vols. London. 1884. Wilcocke, S.
H. History of the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres. London. 1807. *Winsor, J.
(Editor). Narrative and critical history of America (with bibliography).
8 vols. London and Cambridge (Mass.). 1886-9.
Zinny, A. Historia de los Gobernadores de las provincias Argentinas. Buenos
Aires. 1887. '
THE
EMANCIPATION OF THE SPANISH DOMINIONS IN AMERICA.
A
complete bibliography is in the present instance impossible, since almost every
Spanish-American State possesses a large and growing historical literature concerning
the struggle for emancipation. Much original material exists in English,
written hy English witnesses or actors in the struggle. Stevenson’s Twenty
years in S. America is a hook of remarkable value: the author was secretary to
the last Spanish governor of Quito and afterwards to Lord Cochrane. Miller and
Cochrane are first-hand authorities; but allowance must be made for their point
of view. Flinter summarises the earlier Venezuelan movement from the Royalist
standpoint. The Englishmen who took part in the struggle and wrote memoirs were
not historians, and usually saw only part of the movement; their hooks are to
be regarded as personal documents and used with critical caution. A summary of
the movement, including Mexico, down to the spring of 1823 is given hy C. S.
Cochrane, a fuller account of the South American struggle in Pilling’s useful
book. The history of the Colomhian Revolution by Restrepo, Bolivar’s Foreign
Minister, is a work of much historical value and high literary quality. The
Mexican Revolution may be studied in Alaman, in Bustamente’s continuation of
Cavo, and in Bancroft; and the historical introduction to Ward’s Mexico
deserves attention. The lahorious and valuable work of the royalist Torrente,
composed in the form of annals, comprises the movement in both continents. The
minutes of the court-martial on Popham throw an interesting light on the
designs of Pitt, through the evidence of Melville, of Huskisson, and of Popham
himself.
Akers,
C. E. History of South America, 1854-1904. London. 1904.
Alamin,
L. Historia de Mejico. 5 vols. Mexico. 1849-62.
The present state of Mexico. London. 1825.
Amunategui,
M. L. Cronica de 1810. Sahtiago. 1876.
Antepara,
J. M. Documents shewing designs of General Miranda. London. 1810. Arrangoiz y Berzabal, F. de P. Mdjico desde 1808 haste
1867. Madrid. 1871-2. Baralt, R. M. and Diaz, R. Historia de Venezuela,
1797-1830. Paris. 1841. Becerra, R. Ensayo historico de la vida de Miranda. Vol.
i. Caracas. 1896. Benedetti, C. Historia de Colombia. Lima. 1887.
Biggs,
J. History of Miranda’s attempt in South America. London. 1809. Blanco White,
J. El Espanol. 8 vols. London. 1810-14. [A periodical dealing mainly with the
Revolutions of Spain and of Spanish America, with many documents and
illustrative' comments.]
Bolivar, S., Documentos relativos & la vida de. 21 vols. Caracas.
1826-33. Bolivia: Project of Constitution. (Translated.) London. 1826.
Borda,
J. J. Historia de Colombia. Bogota. 1890.
Brackenridge,
H. M. (Secretary to the U.S. Commissioners). Voyage to South America. 2 vols.
London. 1820.
Bulletin
of Bureau of American Republics. Washington. 1891, etc.
Bulnes, G.
Expedicion libertadora del Peru. Santiago. 1887.
Burke,
W. South American Independence: or, the Emancipation of South America the Glory
and Interest of England. London. 1807.
Additional reasons for our immediately
emancipating Spanish America.
London.
1808,
Bustamente, C. M. Cuadro historico de la Revolucion. 6
vols. Mexico. 1821-32. Caldcleugh, A. Travels in South America. London. 1826.
Callahan,
M. Cuba and International Relations. Baltimore. 1889.
Chesterton,
G. L. Narrative of proceedings in Venezuela. 1819-20. London. 1820. Cochrane,
C. S. Journal of a residence in Colombia in 1823-4. 2 vols. London.
1825.
Cochrane,
Thomas. See Dundonald.
Colombia:
a geographical, statistical and political account. 2 vols. London. 1822.
Present state of Colombia: by an officer late
in the Colombian service.
London. 1827.
Colombia
in 1826, by an Anglo-Colombian. London. 1828.
Craufurd,
R. Authentic narrative of expedition under Brigadier-Gen. Craufurd until its
arrival at Montevideo. By an officer of the expedition. London. 1838. Darwin,
C. Journal of researches...during the voyage of H.M.S. “Beagle.” London. 1837.
Dauxion Lavaysse, J. J. Voyage aux lies de Trinidad, de Tabago, de la
Marguerite, et dans diverses parties de Venezuela. 2
vols. Paris. 1813.
A
statistical, commercial and political account of Venezuela, Trinidad,
Margarita,
and Tobago: from the French: with introduction and notes. London. 1820.
Dawson,
T. C. The South American Republics. 2 vols. New York. 1903-4. Deberle, A. Histoire de l’Am£rique du Sud. Paris. 1897.
Ducoudray Holstein, H. L. V. Memoirs of General Bolivar. 2
vols. London. 1830. Dundonald, Thomas, Earl of (Lord Cochrane). Narrative of
services in Chile, Peru and Brazil. 2 vols. London. 1859.
Emancipation
of South America, the. Edinburgh Review. Vol. xm. 1809. Flinter, G. D. History
of the Revolution of Caracas. London. 1819.
Fortescue,
J. W. Dundonald (English Men of Action). London. 1895.
Garcia Camba, B. Memorias de las armas Espanolas en el Peru. Madrid.
2 vols.
1846.
Gillespie,
A. Gleanings...collected...at Buenos Ayres. Leeds. 1818.
Graham,
M. Journal of a residence in Chile. London. 1824.
Haigh,
S. Sketches of Buenos Aires and Chile. London. 1831.
Hall,
B. Journal written on the coasts of Chili, Peru and Mexico in the years 1820-2.
Edinburgh. 1826.
Hamilton, J.
P. (one of the British Commissioners). Travels through Colombia. London. 1827.
Hart,
A. B. The foundations of American Foreign Policy. New York. 1901. Head, F. B.
Notes taken during some journeys across the Pampas. London. 1826. Hippisley, G.
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in November 1817. London. 1819.
King,
C. R. Life and correspondence of Rufus King. 6 vols. New York. 1894
1900.
Kottenkampf, F. Der Unabhangigkeitskampf der Spanisch-amerikanischen Colo-
nien. Stuttgart.
1838.
Larrazabal,
F. Vida de Bolivar. 2 vols. New York. 1866.
Latandj
J. H. Diplomatic relations of the United States and Spanish America. Baltimore.
1900.
MacGregor,
G. Narrative of the Expedition under General MacGregor against Portohello. London. 1820.
Marbais du Graty, A. L. H. G. La Confederation Argentine. Paris. 1858.
La Republique du Paraguay. Brussels. 1862.
Marure, A. Revoluciones de Centro-America. Guatemala.
1837.
Miers,
J. Travels in Chile and La Plata. 2 vols. London. 1826.
Miller,
J. Memoirs of General W. Miller in the service of Peru. London. 1828.
(2nd
edition, with additional matter, 1829.)
Miranda,
F. Diary and letters of Henry Ingersoll, prisoner at Cartagena 1806-9;
in
vol. in of American Historical Review.
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1859.
Historia de San Martin y de la Emancipation
Sudamericana. 3 vols. Buenos
Aires.
1887-8.
Mollien,
G. Travels in the Republic of Colombia in 1822-3; translated from the French.
London. 1824.
Monarchical
projects, or a plan to place a Bourbon Prince on the throne of Buenos Aires. London. 1820.
Montufar, M. Memorias de la Revolucion de Centro-America. Jalapa. 1832.
Morillo, P. Memoires du General Morillo. Paris. 1826.
Mulhall,
M. G. The English in South America. Buenos Aires. 1878.
O’Leary,
D. F. Memorias del General O’Leary (Bolivar’s chief aide-de-camp).
31 vols. Caracas. 1879-88.
Paez, J. A. Autobiografia. 2 vols. New
York. 1867.
Parish-,
W. Account of United Provinces of Rio de la Plata. London. 1825.
Buenos Aires and the Provinces of the Rio de
la Plata. London. 1838.
Paz
Soldan, M. F. Historia del Peru independiente. 3 vols. Lima. 1868-70. Pazos, V.
Letters on the United Provinces of South America, addressed to...Henry
■ Clays New York and London. 1819.
Pilling,
W. The Emancipation of South America: a condensed translation of Mitre’s
History of San Martin (with some additions). London. 1893. Poinsett, J. R.
Notes on Mexico. London. 1825.
Popham,
Sir H., Minutes of Court-martial for trial of. London. 1807.
Pradt, D. D. de. Des Colonies et de la Revolution actuelle de
l’Am£rique. 2 vols. Paris. 1817.
Reddaway,
W. F. The Monroe Doctrine. Cambridge. 1898.
Reflections
on the state of the late Spanish Americas. London. 1820. ftegistro oficial de la
Republica Argentina. Buenos Aires. 1879-84.
Rengger,
J. R. and Longchamp. Historischer Versuch iiber die Revolution /on Paraguay u.
die Dictatorial-Regierung von Dr Francia. Stuttgart and Tubingen. 1827. French
transl. Paris. 1827. Engl, transl. (from the French): The Reign of Dr Francia. London. 1827.
Restrepo, J. M. Historia de la Revolucion de Colombia. 10 vols. Paris.
1827. R6v6rend, A. P. Ultima enfermedad de Bolivar. Paris.
1866.
Revolution
in Spanish America, Outline of: by a South-American. London. 1817. Robertson,
J. P. and W. P. Letters on Paraguay. 3 vols. London. 1838-9. Rodney, C. A. and
Graham, T., U.S. Commissioners. Reports on the Provinces of South America.
London. 1819.
Rush,
R. A residence at the court of London, 1819-25. 2 vols. London. 1833-46. Sarmiento, D. F. Vida de Facundo Quiroga...i
costumbres de la Republica Argentina. Santiago.
1851.
Sarmiento,
D. F. Civilisation and Barbarism, or Life in the Argentine Republic in the days
of the tyrants; translated by Mrs H. Mann. New York. 1868. Schepeler, Colonel R. P. von. Geschichte der Revolution des
Spanischen America’s, 1808-23. Aachen and
Leipzig. 1833-4.
Schryver, S. de. Esquisse de la vie de Bolivar. Brussels.
1899.
Smith,
M. Adventures in the Miranda expedition. Albany. 1814.
South
America and Mexico, View of. By a citizen of the United States. New York.
1826.
Spanish
America, Observations on the instructions given by the President of the United
States to the representatives of that country at the Congress held at Panama in
1826. London. 1829.
Stevenson,
W. B. Twenty years’ residence in South America. 3 vols. Liverpool.
1825.
Sutcliffe,
T. Sixteen years in Chile and Peru, 1822-39. London. 1841. Temperley, H. W. V.
Life of Canning. London. 1905. [Contains many references to ms. materials in the Record Office.]
Torrente, M. Historia de la Revolucion Hispano-Americana. 3
vols. Madrid.
1829-30.
Venezuela.
Recollections of a service of three years: by an officer of the Colombian Navy.
2 vols. London. 1828.
Campaigns and cruises in Venezuela and New
Granada. London. 1831.
Tropical Information. London. 1846.
Vicuna Mackenna, B. La Revolucion de la Independencia del Peru. Lima.
1860.
La guerra a muerte. Santiago.
1868.
Vida de...D. Bernardo O’Higgins. Santiago.
1882.
Walton,
W. Present state of the Spanish Colonies. 2 vols. London. 1810.
An expose on the dissensions of Spanish
America. London. 1814.
Ward,
H. G. Mexico. 2 vols. London. 1828.
Washburn,
C. A. History of Paraguay. 2 vols. Boston. 1871.
Whitelocke,
J. Lieutenant-General, The trial at large of. London. 1808.
I. DOCUMENTS.
A
large mass of documents bearing upon Brazilian history will be found in the
Revista trimensal do Instituto Hist, e Geogr. do Brazil, which has been
published regularly at Rio de Janeiro since 1839. The Archives preserved in the
Torre do Tombo and the Biblioteca National at Lisbon contain the chief
manuscript sources for the history of the period 1815-48.
Araujo Cameiro, H. J. de. Cartas dirigidas a S. M. el Rey D. Joao VI
desde 1817 acerca do estado do reino de Portugal e Brazil e outros mais
documentos. London. 1821.
Diario das Cortes Geraes e Extraordinariaa da Naijao Portugueza. 7 vols.
Lisbon.
1820-2.
Documentos para a historia das Cortes Geraes da Na^ao Portugueza,
1820-31.
8 vols. Lisbon. 1883-91.
Figaniere, J. C. de. Bibliographia Historica Portugueza. Lisbon. 1850.
Intervene estrangeira...documentos historicos sobre a interven^ao armada de
Franca, Hespanha e Inglaterra nos negocios intemos de Portugal no anno de
1847. Oporto. 1848.
Monglave,
E. de. Correspondance Constitntionnelle (of John VI and Pedro Regent of
Brazil). Paris. 1828.
Oliveira Lima, M. de. Rela9ao dos manuscriptos portuguezes e
estrangeiros de interesse para o Brazil existentes no Museu Britannico de
Londres. Inst Hist, e Geogr. Braz. Rio de Janeiro. 1903.
Pinheiro Ferreira, S. Constituifao politica do Imperio do Brazil (Mar.
1824) e a Carta Constitutional do reino de Portugal. Paris. 1830.
Santarem, F. M., Viscount de. Quadro elementar das relates politicas e
diplomaticas.
18 vols. Paris. 1842-62.
Silva Couvreur, G. A. da. Repertorio das ordens do dia dadas ao exercito
Portugnez desde 22 de Maio 1828 ate 30 de Dezembro de 1850. 2 vols. Lisbon.
1845-50.
Soriano, S. J. da Luz. Historia da guerra civil e do estabelecimento do
govemo parlamentar em Portugal; comprehendo a historia diplomatica, militar e
politica desde reino. 1777-1840. Contains a great number of
original documents. 14 vols. Lisbon. 1866-84.
II. GENERAL HISTORY.
(a) Portugal.
Bouchot, F. Histoire du Portugal. Paris. 1854.
Giedroye, Prince R. Resume de l’histoire du Portugal au xix' siecle.
Paris. 1874.
Oliveira Martins, J. P. Historia de Portugal. 2 vols. Lisbon. 6th
edn. 1901. Pinto Leal, Barboza de. Portugal antigo
e moderno. 7 vols. Lisbon. 1873-7. Schafer, H. Geschichte von Portugal. (Gesch.
der Europ. Staaten.) 6 vols.
Hamburg and Gotha. 1836-54.
Stephens, H. M. Portugal. (Story of the Nations Series.)
London. 1891.
(i) Brazil.
Abreu e Lima,
General. Compendio da historia do Brazil. Pernambuco. 1843. Constancio, F. S.
Historia do Brazil. Paris. 1839.
Galanti, P.
R. M. Compendio da historia do Brazil. 4 vols. Sao Paulo. 1905. Macedo, J. M.
de. Anno biographico brazileiro. 3 vols. Rio de Janeiro. 1876. Mello Moraes, A.
J. Brazil historico. 4 vols. Rio de Janeiro. 1839.
Chorographia historica, chronographica,
genealogica, nobiliaria e politica do
Brazil. 5 vols. Rio de Janeiro. 1858-63.
Oliveira Martins, J. P. O Brazil e as Colonias Portuguezas. Lisbon. 3rd
edn.
1888.
Pereira da Silva, B. M. Varoes illustres do Brazil. 2 vols. Paris. 1888.
Vamhagen, F. A. Historia geral do Brazil. 2 vols.
Madrid. 1854-7.
III. HISTORY OF THE PERIOD (1815—49).
(a) Portugal.
(i) Works by Contemporaries.
Alexander,
Sir J. E. Sketches in Portugal during the Civil War of 1834, with observations
on the present and future prospects of Portugal. London. 1835.
Almeida
Garrett, J. B. da Silva Leitao. Memoria historica de J. X. Mousinho da
Silveira. Lisbon. 1849.
Araujo, J. M.
X. d\ Revela^oes e memorias para a historia da Revolu^ao do 24 de Agosto de
1820 e de 15 de Dezembro do mesmo anno. Lisbon. 1846.
Arsejas, G. G. N. Historia contemporanea, ou D. Miguel em Portugal. Motivo
da sua exaltafao e causa da sua decadencia. Lisbon. 1836.
Badcock,
Lieut. Col. L. Rough leaves from a Journal kept in Spain and Portugal during
1832, 1833 and 1834. London. 1835.
Baillie, M. Lissabon in den Jahren 1821-23. 2 vols. Stuttgart. 1827.
Balbi, A. Essai statistique sur le Royaume de Portugal et d’Algarve. Paris,
1822.
Bordign£,
Comte de. Legitimite portugaise. Paris. 1830.
Brown,
Captain. An historical view of the revolutions of Portugal since the close of
the Peninsular War. London. 1827.
Fauche, C. E. La ve'rite sur l’expedition de D. Pedro. Amsterdam.’ 1832.
Freire de Carvalho, J. L. Essai historique et politique sur la
constitution et le
■ gouvemement du
Portugal. Paris. 1830.
Memorias com o titulo de Annaes para a
historia do tempo que durou a
usurpa<j&o de D. Miguel. 4 vols. Lisbon. 1841-9.
A Carta e os seus vinte e dois annos de idade.
Lishon. 1848.
Freire de Carvalho, J. L. Ensaio politico sobre as causas que prepararao
a usurpa^ao de D. Miguel no anno de 28. Lisbon. 1847.
Glascock,
Captain W. N. Naval sketch book. London. 1834.
Halliday, A.
The present state of Portugal. Edinburgh. 1812.
Hodges,
Colonel Sir G. L. Narrative of the expedition to Portugal in 1832 under the
orders of D. Pedro. 2 vols. London. 1833.
Knight, T.,
Corporal. The British Battalion at Oporto. London. 1834.
Le Portugal avant et apres 1846. Note pour servir a l’histoire
contemporaine de ce pays. Paris. 1847.
Mattos. R. J. da Cunha. Memorial da Campanha de D. Pedro d’Alcantaras
ex-imperador Brazil. 2 vols. Rio de Janeiro. 1833.
Napier,
Admiral Sir C. An account of the War in Portugal between Don Pedro and Don
Miguel. 2 vols. London. 1835.
O Cerco do
Porto; por um Portuense. Oporto. 1841.
(Owen,
Colonel H. ?) The Civil War in Portugal; by a British Officer of Hussars.
London. 1838.
Porchester,
H. J. G., Lord. Last days of the Portuguese Constitution. London.
1830.
Revista
historica de Portugal desde a morte de D. Joao VI ate o falecimento do
Imperador D. Pedro. Coimbra. 1846.
Rezende, Marquis de. ^claircissements historiques. Paris. 1832.
Rocha, A. da Silva-Lopes. The proclamation of His Serene
Highness the Infante Dom Miguel, King of Portugal (trans.). London. 1829.
Shaw, Colonel
Sir C. Memoirs. 2 vols. London.
Silva Lopes,
J. B. da Istoria do cativerio dos prezos d’estado...durante adezastrosa epocha
da Usurpapto. 4 vols. Lisbon. 1833-4.
Silva Maia,
E. J. da. Historia da revoluyao do Porto. Lisbon. 1841.
Memorias historicas, politicas e philosophicas
da revolufao do Porto em Maio
de 1828. Rio de Janeiro. 1841.
Soriano, S. J. da Luz. Historia do Cerco do Porto. Lisbon.
1846.
(ii) Works by Later Writers.
Alviela, Count G. de. litablissement des Cobourg en Portugal. Brussels.
1869.
Arriaga, J. Historia da revolu9ao portugueza de 1820. 4
vols. Oporto. 1886-9.
Bollaert, W.
The Wars of Succession of Portugal and Spain from 1821 to 1840.
2 vols. London. 1870.
Minutoli, J. von. Portugal und seine Colonien. 2 vols. Stuttgart. 1866.
Oliveira Martins, J. P. Portugal Contemporaneo. 2 vols. Lisbon. 3rd edn.
1895.
Smith, J. A. (Marquis de Carnota). Memoirs of
the Duke of Saldanha with selections from his correspondence. 2 vols. London. 1880.
Soriano, J. P. da Luz. Historia da Guerra Civil...[see Documents above].
Vida do Marquez Sa da Bandeira. 2 vols.
Lisbon. 1887-8.
Vianna, A. Documentos para a historia contemporanea. Jose
da Silva Carvalho e o seu tempo. S vols. Lisbon. 1891-4.
(b) Brazil.
(i) Works by Contemporaries.
Armitage, J.
History of Brazil from 1808 to 1831. 2 vols.
London. 1836.
Debret, J. B. Voyages pittoresques et historiques au Brdsil. 1816-31.
Paris. 1839.
Grosse, E.
Dom Pedro I. Leipzig. 1836.
Koster, H. Travels
in Brazil. London. 1816.
Saint-Hilaire, A. Voyages dans les provinces de Rio de Janeiro et de
Minas Geraes, etc. 4 vols. Paris. 1830-3.
Spix, J. B. von and Martius, C. F. von. Reise in Brasilien, 1817-20. 3
parts. Munich. 1823-31.
Tollenare, L. F. de. Notas Domincaes tomadas durante uma residencia em
Pernambuco nos annos de 1816, 1817 e 1818. Trans, from
the French ms. by Alfredo de
Carvalho. Recife. 1905.
(ii) Works by Later Writers.
Baril, V. L.
L’empire du Brasil. Paris. 1862.
Coelho, J. M. L. Elogio historico de J. Bonifacio de Andrade. Lisbon.
1877. Mello Moraes, A. J. A independencia e o imperio do Brazil. Rio de
Janeiro. 1877.
Pereira da
Silva, B. M. Historia da fundaijao do imperio brazileiro. Paris. 1870.
Segundo pericdo do reiuado de D. Pedro I.
Paris. 1875.
Historia do Brazil de 1831 a 1840. Rio de
Janeiro. 1888.
THE
GERMANIC CONFEDERATION, 1815-40.
The general
sources of German history, the extent and nature of German archives, and the
guides to them, have already been indicated in the bibliographies to Chapters
V-VTII of Volume II, V and XXI of Volume III, and those on the Thirty Years’
War in Volume IV. To some extent the hibliography of German history becomes
simpler in the nineteenth century. The extinction of so many sovereignties
allows us to bestow less attention on the respective collections of archives;
for instance the archives of the cities which lost their imperial position
cease to have the same political importance, and become merely municipal. So,
too, the value of the archives of territorial States varies; those of Saxony
are not so important in the nineteenth as in the eighteenth century; those of
Wiirttemberg and Baden are far more so in the later period; and the archives at
Berlin become the most extensive and indispensable collection of documents for
German history. Their publication has been facilitated by the comparative
liberality with which German Governments have opened their record offices to
historical students, and by the number of public commissions and voluntary
associations which exist for the purpose of printing and editing these
documents. The work of these bodies is described quarter by quarter or year by
year in the Historische Vierteljahrschrifl ed. Gerhard Seeliger, Leipzig,
1898-1906, and in the Jahresberichte of Jastrow published at Berlin.
Authorities for the external relations of the German States are described in
the bibliographies to various chapters of this volume, and works by and on
German men of letters in the bibliography to Chapter XII.
I. GENERAL HISTORY OF GERMANY.
A. Documents, Correspondence, Journals, eto.
Aegidi, L. K. Die Schlussakte der Wiener Ministerial-Konferenzen. 2 parts.
Berlin. 1860-9.
bomhardi, T. von. Aus seinem Lehen. 2 parts. Leipzig. 1893.
Bunsen, C. K. J. Aus semen Briefen. 3 vols. Leipzig. 1868-71. Engl, transl.
2 vols. London.
1868.
Elvers, C. F. Hauptquellen des Deutschen Bundesstaatsrechtes. Gottingen.
1824.
Flathe, T. Deutsche Reden. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1893-4.
Frommann, F. J. Das Burschenfest auf der Wartburg. Jena. 1818.
Gagern, H. C. von. Mein Antheil an der Politik. Vols. in and iv. Stuttgart.
1830-3.
Gentz, F. von. Briefwechsel mit Adam Muller. Stuttgart. 1857.
Briefe an l’ilat. Ed. K.
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1868.
Gentz, F. von. Aus dem Nachlasse von F. von G. Briefe und Denkschriften.
2 vols. Vienna.
1867.
Gorres, J. von. Gesammelte Briefe. 3 vols. Munich. 1868-74.
Grill parser, F. Tagebiicher und Briefe. 2 vols. Stuttgart. 1903.
Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm, Dahlmann and Gervinus. Briefwechsel. 2 vols.
Berlin. 1886-6.
Jager, O. and Moldenhauer, F. Auswahl wichtiger Aktenstiicke. Berlin. 1893.
Jahn, F. L. Die Deutsche Turnkunst. Berlin. 1816.
Kieler
Blatter. Edited by Kiel Professors. 7 vols. 1816-19.
Kieser, D. G. Das Wartburgfest. Jena. 1818.
Klinkowstrom, C. von. Aus der alten Registratur der Staatskanzlei. Briefe
von und an F. von Gentz. Vienna. 1870.
Kleiber, J. L. Quellensammlung zu dem offentlichen Rechte des Teutschen
Bundes. 3rd edn. Erlangen. 1834.
Wichtige Aktenstiicke fur den Rechtszustand
der Deutschen Nation mit
Anmerkungen von J. L. Kliiber. Mannheim. 1844.
Kombst, G. Authentische Aktenstiicke aus den Archiven des Deutschen Bundes.
Strassburg. 1835. 2nd edn. Leipzig. 1838.
Der Bundestag gegen Ende des Jahres 1832.
Leipzig. 1836.
Kotzebue, A. von. Literarisches Wochenblatt. 3 vols.
Weimar. 1818-19. Lindner, L. F. Manuscript aus Siiddeutschland. London. 1820.
.
Luden, H. Nemesis. Zeitschrift fiir Politik und Geschichte. 12 vols.
Weimar. 1814-18.
Mettemich, C. W. N., Prince. Aus Mettemichs nachgelassenen Papieren. Edd.
Prince Richard Mettemich and A. von Klinkowstrom. 8 vols. Vienna.
1880-4.
French edition: 8 vols. Paris. 1880-4. English translation by Mrs Napier :
Memoirs of Prince Mettemich. 6 vols. London.
1880, etc. Meyer, G. von. Corpus juris Confoederationis Germanicae. 2 parts.
Frankfort.
1822.
Repertorium zu den Verhandlungen der Deutschen
Bundesversammlung.
Frankfort. 1820-2.
viiruss, A. Diplomatisches Archiv fur die Deutschen Bundesstaaten. 3 parts.
Leipzig. 1846-8.
Mollat, G. Quellenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen Politik im 19 Jahrh.
Leipzig. 1892.
Niebuhr, B. G. Lebensnachrichten. 3 vols. Hamburg. 1838-9.
Oken, J. L. Isis, oder Encyklopadische Zeitschrift. Leipzig. 1817, etc.
Pfizer, Paul. Briefwechsel zweier Deutschen. Stuttgart. 1831.
Pdlitz, C. H. L. and Bulau, F. Die gesammten Verfassungen des Teutschen
Staatenbundes. 3 parts. Leipzig. 1832-47.
Pradt, D. D. de. Le Congres de Carlsbad. 2 vols. Paris. 1819-20.
Rochow, General von. Preussen und Frankreich znr Zeit der Julirevolution.
Briefe des Generals von R. an K. F. F. von Nagler. Edd. E. Kelchner and C.
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. Leipzig. 1871.
Sand, Karl. Tagebiicher und Briefe. Altenburg. 1821.
Stein, Freiherr vom. Briefe an H. von Gagem. Stuttgart. 1833.
Denkschriften. Ed. Pertz. Berlin. 1848.
Tagebuch wahrend des Wiener Kongresses. Hist.
Zeitschr. 1888.
Stockmar, Ch. von. Denkwiirdigkeiten. Brunswick. 1872. Engl, transl.
London. 1892.
Stourdza, A. M^moire sur l’6tat actuel de l’Allemagne. Paris. 1818.
Varnhagen von Ense, K. A. Denkwiirdigkeiten. 3rd edn. 6 vols. Leipzig.
1871-6.
Blatter aus der Preussischen Geschichte. 6
vols. Leipzig. 1868-9.
Tagebiicher. 14 vols. Leipzig, Zurich, and
Hamburg. 1861-70.
Varnhagen von Ense, K. A. Briefwechsel mit Oelsner. 3 vols. Stuttgart.
1864-5. Verhandlungen der Bundesversammlung, 1830-46. Heidelberg. 1846-8.
Weech, F. von. Korrespondenzen und Aktenstucke zur Geschichte der Minister-
konferenzen von Karlsbad und Wien. Leipzig. 1866.
Weil, C. Quellen und Aktenstucke zur Deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte.
Berlin.
1850.
Zopfl, H. Staatsakten fiir Geschichte und offentliches Recht des Deutschen
Bundes.
3 vols. Frankfort. 1858-69.
B. Later
Works, Histories, eto.
Aegidi, L. K. Ans dem Jahre 1819. Hamburg. 1861.
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. 46 vols. Leipzig. 1875-1902.
Bauer, B. Geschichte der konstitutionellen und revolutionaren Bewegungen im
siidlichen Deutschland in d. Jahren 1831-4. 3 vols. Charlottenburg. 1845.
Biedermann, K. 1815-40. Fiinfundzwanzig Jahre Deutscher Geschichte. 2 vols.
Breslau. 1889-90.
Ehrhard, A. Fr. Grillparzer, sein Leben und seine Werke. Munich. 1902.
Eichhorn, K. F. Betrachtungen fiber die Verfassung des Deutschen Bundes.
Berlin. 1833.
Fischer, K. Die Nation und der Bundestag. Leipzig. 1880.
Gorres, J. von. Teutschland und die Revolution. Coblenz. 1819.
Translation by J. Black: Germany and the Revolution. London. 1820. ilagen, K. Ueber die offentliche Meinung in Deutschland von
den Freiheitskriegen bis zu den Karlsbader Beschlussen. Raumer’s Hist.
Taschenbuch. Leipzig. 1846-7.
Heeren, A. H. L. von. Der Deutsche Bund in seinen Verhaltnissen zu dem
Europaischen Staatensystem. Gottingen. 1817. rise, L. F. Geschichte der
Deutschen Bundesversammlung. 3 vols. Marburg. 1860-2.
Jarcke, K. E. Ueber Austragalgerichte. Vienna. 1833.
Kaltenborn, C. von. Geschichte der Deutschen Bundesverhaltnisse...1805-56.
2 vols. Berlin.
1857.
Kaufmann, E. Polit. Geschichte Deutschlands im 19ten Jahrh. Berlin. 1900.
Kliipfel, K. Die deutschen Einheitsbestrebungen. Leipzig. 1853.
Mucke, J. R. Die politischen Bewegungen in Deutschland von 1830 bis 1835.
2 vols.
Leipzig. 1875.
Pertz, G. H. Das Leben des Grafen von Gneisenau. Vol. v, by H.
Delbriick. Berlin. 1880.
Pfister, A. Das deutsche Vaterland im 19ten Jahrh. Stuttgart. 1900.
Schaumann, A. F. H. Der Kongress zu Karlsbad. Raumer’s Historisches
Taschenbuch. Leipzig. 1850.
Schwartz, K. Leben des Generals Clausewitz. 2 vols.
Berlin. 1878.
Seeley, Sir
J. R. Life and Times of Stein. 3 vols.
Cambridge. 1878.
Silbemagl, I. Die geheimen politischen Verbindungen der Deutschen in der
ersten Halfte des 19 Jahrhunderts. Hist. Jahrbuch xiv. Munster. 1882. Springer,
A. Fr. Chr. Dahlmann. 2 parts. Leipzig. 1870-2.
Treitschke, H. von. Deutsche Geschichte im 19ten Jahrhundert. Vols. l-iv.
(St i tanpesch. d. neuesten Zeit.) Leipzig. 1879-89.
Aus der Zeit der Demagogenverfolgung. Preuss. Jahrb. xliv.
II. PARTICULAR STATES.
A. Austria and Hungary.
Beer, A. Die Finanzen Oesterreichs im 19ten Jahrhundert. Prague. 1877.
Kirchl. Angelegenheiten in Oesterreich
1816-42. Mitt. d. Instit. fur
Oesterr. Gesch. xvm, 493-581.
Hormayr, J. von. Kaiser Franz und Metternich. Leipzig. 1848.
Horvath, Mihaly. Fiinfundzwauzig Jahre. Leipzig. 2 vols. 1867.
Meynert, H. Kaiser Franz I. Vienna. 1872.
Springer, A. Geschichte Oesterreichs seit dem Wiener Frieden 1809.
(Staaten- gesch. d. neuesten Zeit.) 2 vols. Leipzig. 1863.
Sybel, H. von. Die Oesterreichische Staatskonferenz von 1836. Histor.
Zeitschrift, xxxviii. Munich.
Wiedemann, Th. Die Religiose Bewegung in Oberoesterreich
und Salzburg. Innsbruck. 1890. (
B. Baden.
Allgaier, A. Die Stande Badens. Pforzheim. 1896.
Binding, K. Die Verfassung d. Grossherzogthums Baden von 22 August 1818.
Leipzig. 1900.
Calker, W. van. Das badische Budgetrecht. Leipzig. 1902.
Maas, H. Geschichte der katholischen Kirche im Grossherzogthum Baden.
Freiburg i. B. 1891.
Muller, L. Badische Landtagsgeschichte 1815-40. Berlin. 4 parts. 1900-2.
Rotteck, K. von. GesammelteundnachgelasseneSchriften. 3 vols. Stuttgart. 1841.
Weech, F. von. Baden nnter den Grossherzogen Karl Friedrich, Karl, Ludwig
1738-1830. Freiburg i. B. 1863.
Geschichte der Badischen Verfassung.
Karlsruhe. 1868.
C. Bavaria.
Heigel, K. T. Ludwig I. Leipzig. 1872.
Der Antheil des Kronprinzen Ludwig am
Bayrischen Verfassungswerk.
Munich. 1884.
Heilmann, J. Feldmarschall Fiirst Wrede. Leipzig. 1881.
Lerchenfeld, G., Freiherr von. Geschichte Bayems unter Maximilian Joseph I.
Berlin. 1854.
Aus den Papieren des Freiherrn von L. Ed. M.
von L. Nordlingen. 1887.
Die Bairische Verfassung und die Karlsbader
Beschliisse. Nordlingen. 1883.
Mittermiiller, R. Korrespondenz Konig Ludwigs I mit E. von Schenk. Hist.-
polit. Blatter, xciv.
Montgelas, Count M. J. von. Briefe. Ed. J. von Zerzog. Ratisbon. 1853.
Reidelbach, H. Ludwig I und seine Kunstschopfungen. Munich. 1887.
Ritter, F. von. Beitrage zur Regierungs-Geschichte Ludwigs I. 2 vols.
Munich. 1853-5.
Sicherer, H. von. Staat und Kirche in Bayern. Munich. 1873.
Treitschke, H. von. Bayern und die Karlsbader Beschlusse. Preussische
Jahrb.
LII.
Trost, L. Ludwig I in seinen Briefen an seinen Sohn, den Konig Otto von
Griechenland. Bamberg. 1891.
D. Brunswiok.
Treitschke, H. von. Der Aufruhr in Braunschweig 1830. Preuss. Jahrb. Lxm.
E. Hanover.
Grotefend, G. A. Geschichte der allgemeinen landstSndischen Verfassung des
Konigreichs Hannover in den Jahren 1814 bis 1848. Hanover. 1857. Hannoversches
Portfolio. Sammlung von Aktenstiicke zur Geschichte des Hannoverschen
Verfassungskampfes. 4 vols. Stuttgart. 1839-41.
Hassel, W. von. Geschichte des Konigreichs Hannover. Pt. i. 1813-48.
Bremen. 1898.
Oppermann, H. A. Zur Geschichte des Konigreichs Hannover von 1832 his 1860.
2 vols.
Leipzig. 1860-2.
Rehberg, A. W. Zur Geschichte des Konigreichs Hannover in den ersten Jahren
nach der Befreiung. Gottingen. 1826.
Stiive, C. Ueber die gegenwartige Lage des Konigreichs Hannover. Jena.
1832. Treitschke, H. von. Der Herzog vou Cumberland und das Hannoversche
Staats- grunjgeset. von 1833. Forschungen zur Brandenb. und Preuss. Gesch. i.
Leipzig. 1888.
Wilkinson, C. A. Konig Ernst August von Hannover. Brunswick. 1902.
F. Hesse.
Actenstiicke die landst&ndischen Anklagen wider den Staatsminister
Hassen- pflug betreffend. Stuttgart. 1836.
Fischer, W. Die Unruhen in Hessen im Jahre 1830. Hessenland, xi, 235-7.
Gerland, O. Zwei Menschenalter Kurhessischer Geschichte. Cassel. 1892.
Wippermann, K. W. Kurhessen seit dem Freiheitskriege. Cassel. 1850.
G. Nassau.
Sauer, W. Das Herzogthum Nassau in den Jahren 1813-20. Wiesbaden. 1893.
Nassau unter dem Minister von Marschall.
Annalen des Yereins fur
Nassauische Alterthum und Geschichte, xxii.
Wiesbaden. 1827, etc.
H. Prussia.
Ans dem Altensteinschen Kultusministerium. Deutsche Revue, vin.
Bailleu, P. Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm im Standekampf 1820. Hist.
Zeitschr. iixxxvn, 67-73.
Below, G. von. Die polnische Frage in Preussen in d. Jahren 1828-34.
Deutsche Revue, xxvii, 4.
Benzenberg, J.. F. Die Verwaltung des Staatskanzlers Hardenherg. Leipzig.
1821.
Bockh, R. Die gesch. Entwickelung der amtlichen Statistik des Preuss.
Staats. Berlin. 1863.
Biilow-Cmnmerow, E. von. Preussen, seine Verfassung, seine Verwaltung, sein
Verbalthiss zur Deutschland. 2 parts. Berlin and Jena. 1842-3.
Distel, T. Aus W. von Humboldts letzten Lebensjahren. Leipzig. 1884
Droysen, J. G. Zur Geschichte der Preussischen Politik in den Jahren 1830-2.
Zeitschr. fur Preuss. Gesch. xi. Berlin. 1864, etc.
Hoffmann, J. G. Beitrage zur Statistik des Preussischen Staates. Berlin.
1821. Humboldt, W. von. Politische Denkschriften. Vol. m. 1815-34. Berlin.
1905. Perthes, C. T. Der Staatsdienst in Preussen. Hamburg. 1838.
Ranke, L. von. Zur eigenen Lebensgeschichte. Leipzig. 1890.
Riihl, Fr. Briefe und Aktenstiicke zur Gesch. Preuss. unter Fr. Wilhelm
III.
3 vols. Leipzig.
1902-3.
Schmoller, G. Die Epochen der Preussischen Finanzpolitik. Jahrb. fur
Gesetz- gehung, etc. Neue Folge. j.
Stern, A. Die Preussische Verfassungsfrage im Jahre 1817 und die Rundreise
von Altenstein, Klewitz, Beyme. Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissen-
schaft, ix. Freiburg i. B. 1889, etc.
Treitschke, H. von. Preussen und das Bundeskriegswesen 1831. Forschungen
zur Brandenb. und Preuss. Gesch. n. Le;pzig. 1889.
Der erste Verfassungskampf in Preussen,
1815-23. Preuss. Jahrb. xxix.
Wangemann, T. Sieben Bucher Preussischer Kirchengeschichte. 3 vols. Berlin.
1859-60. .
Zedlitz, Freiherr L. von. Die Staatskrafte der Preussischen Monarchie unter
Friedrich Wilhelm III. Berlin. 1828-30.
I. Saxony.
Politz, K. H. L. Die Regierung Friedrich Augusts, Konig von Sachsen. 2
parts. Leipzig. 1830.
Witzleben, C. D. von. Die Entstehung der konstitutionellen Verfassung des
Konigreichs Sachsen. Leipzig. 1881.
K. WuRTTEMBERO.
Flicker, K. V. and Gessler, T. von. Geschichte der Verfassung
Wiirttembergs. Stuttgart. 1869.
Hartmann, J. Uhlands Tagebuch 1810-20. 2nd edn. Stuttgart. 1898.
Mohl, R. Geschichte der Wurtemhergischen Verfassung von 1819. Zeitschrift
fur Staatswissenschaft, iv.
Treitschke, H. von. K. A. von Wangenheim. Hist, und polit. Aufsatze. 5th
edn.
Leipzig. 3 vols. 1886.
W. Graf Wintzingerode, ein Wurtemberger
Staatsmann. Gotha.
1866.
III. SPECIAL SUBJECTS.
A. The
Burschenschaft.
Haupt, H. Die alte Wurzburger Burschenschaft 1817-33. Wurzburg. 1899.
Hochverrathsprozesse, die, gegen Angehorige der Burschenschaft.
Burschenschaftl. Blatter, 1889. i.
Keil, Rob. and Rich. Die Grundung der Deutschen Burschenschaft in Jena.
Jena. 1865.
Geschichte des Jenaischen Studentenlebens.
Leipzig. 1858.
Oppermann, O. Burschenschafterbriefe zur Zeit d. Juli-Revolution. N. Heidelberg.
Jahrb. xm, 56-120.
Schneider, G. H. Burschenschaft Germania zu Jena. Jena. 1897.
B. Ecclesiastical History.
Baur, F. C. Die Tuhinger Schule. Tubingen. 1869. 2nd edn. 1860.
Bunsen, C. K. J. von. Darlegung des Verfahrens der Preuss. Regierung gesen
den Erzbischof von Koln. Berlin. 1838.
Dumont, K. T. Diplom. Korresp. fiber die Berufung des Bischofs Geissel von
Speyer zum Koadjutor des Erzh. C. A. Freiherrn von Droste zu Vischerine von
Koln. Freiburg i. B. 1880.
Gorres, J. von. Athanasius. Ratisbon. 1837. 4th edn. 1838.
Hase, K. von. Geschichte der protestantischen Kirche im
19ten Jahrh Leinzie- 1892.
'
F s'
Kremer-Auenrode, H. von. Actenstiicke zur Geschichte des Verhaltnisses
zwischen Staat und Kirche im 19. Jahrh. 4 parts. Leipzig. 1873-80.
Maurenbrecher, W. Die Preuss. Kircheupolitik und der Kolner Kirchenstreit.
Stuttgart. 1881.
Nippold, F. Die vertrauten Briefe des Erzbischofe Spiegel von Koln. Barmen.
1889.
Reuschj F. H. Briefe an Bunsen von rom. Kardinalen und Pralaten, etc.
1818-37. Leipzig. 1897.
Schleiermacher, F. Briefwechsel mit G. Chr. Gass. Berlin. 1852.
Aus S.’s Leben in Briefen. 4 vols. Berlin.
1858-63.
Wessenberg, J. H. C. von. Betrachtungen fiber die Verhaltnisse der
katholischen Kirche Deutschlands. Zurich. 1818. (Cf. Wessenberg’s letters
published by A. Kleinschmidt in Deutsche Revue, xiv.)
C. The Zollverein.
Aegidi, L. K. Aus der Vorzeit des Zollvereins. Hamburg.
1865.
Ashley, P.
Modem Tariff History. London. 1905.
Beer, A. Oesterreich und die Deutschen Handelseinigungshestrebungen
1817-20.
Oesterreich. Ungar. Revue. Neue Folge, in.
Eckert, Chr. Zur Vorgesch. d. Deutscher Zollvereins. Jahrb. fur Gesetzgeog.
xxvi, 505-56.
Fenstenberg-Packisch, H. von. Geschichte des Zollvereins mit besonderer
Beriick- sichtigung der staatlichen Entwickelung Deutschlands. Leipzig. 1869.
Hausser, L. Friedrich List’s Leben. Stuttgart. 1850.
Kfihne, L. Ueber den Deutschen Zollverein. Berlin. 1836.
Mucke, J. R. Zur Vorgesch. des Deutschen Zollvereins, insbes. die
Bestrebungen des mitteldeutschen Vereins gegen den Preussischen Zollverein.
Leipzig. 1869. Nebenius, C. F. Der Deutsche Zollverein. Carlsruhe. 1835.
Schippel, M. Grundzuge der Handelspolitik. 1902.
Schmoller, E. Das preussisch. Handels- und Zollgesetz von 26 Mai 1818.
Berlin. 1898.
Sombart, W. Die Deutsche Volkswirtschaft im 19 Jahrh. Berlin. 1902.
Treitschke, H. von. Die Anfange des Deutschen Zollvereins. Preuss. Jahrb. xxx.
Aus den Papieren des Staatsministers von Motz.
ib. xxxix.
Weber, W. Der Deutsche Zollverein. Geschichte seiner Entstehung und Entwickelung.
Leipzig. 1869.
Zimmermann, A. Geschichte der Preuss.-Deutschen Handelspolitik. Oldenburg.
1892.
I. GENERAL LITERARY HISTORY.
A. Bibliography.
Goedeke, K. Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung. 2nd
edn. Edited hy E. Goetze. Vols. iv sqq. in
progress. Dresden. 1891 sqq.
Jahresberichte fur neuere deutsche Litteraturgeschichte. (Since 1890.)
Berlin. 1893 sqq.
Meyer, R. M. Grundriss der neuern dentpchen Litteraturgeschichte. Berlin.
1902. Nollen, J. S. A Chronology and Practical Bibliography of Modern German
Literature. Chicago. 1903.
See also
Koberstein, A., in Section B below.
B. Histories.
Baechtold, J. Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur in der Schweiz. 2nd edn.
Frauenfeld. 1892.
Biedermann, K. Deutschland im 18. Jahrhundert. 4 vols. Leipzig. 1854-80.
Francke, K. History of German Literature, as determined by Social Forces.
6th edn. New York. 1903.
Gervinus, G. G. Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung. 6th edn., by
K. Bartsch.
5 vols.
Leipzig. 1871-4.
Hettner, H. Die deutsche Litteratur im 18. Jahrhundert.
4th edn., by O. Hamack.
4 vols.
Brunswick. 1893-4.
Koberstein, A. Grundriss der Geschichte der deutschen Nationallitteratur.
5th edn., by
K. Bartsch. 5 vols. Leipzig. 1872-4.
Meyer, R. M. Die deutsche Litteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts. 3rd edn. Berlin.
1906.
Morikofer, J. K. Die schweizerische Litteratur des 18. Jahrhunderts.
Leipzig. 1861. Nagl, J. W. and Zeidler, J. Deutsch-osterreichische
Litteraturgeschichte. Vol. i.
Vienna. 1899.
(Vol. ii in progress.)
Robertson, J.
G. A History of German Literature. Edinburgh. 1902.
Schaefer, J. W. Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur des 18. Jahrhunderts.
2nd edn. by F. Muncker. Leipzig. 1881.
Scherer, W. Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur. 10th edn.
Berlin. 1903.
English
translation by F. C. Conybeare. 2 vols. Oxford.
1885.
Schmidt, J. Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur von Leibniz bis auf unsere
Zeit.
5 vols. New
edn. Berlin. 1896.
Vogt, F. and Koch, M. Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur. 2nd edn.
Leipzig. 1903.
Articles in Allgemeine deutsche Biographic. Edited by R.
von Liliencron and F. X. von Wegele. Leipzig.
1875 sqq.
C. Collections.
Bibliothek der deutschen Nationallitteratur des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts.
44 vols. Leipzig. 1868-91.
Deutsche Litteraturdenkmale des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts in Neudrucken.
Edited hy B. Seuffert, Heilbronn and Stuttgart, 1881-90; by A. Sauer, Berlin,
1890-1903,
and continued. (133 parts.)
Deutsche
Nationallitteratur. Historisch-kritische
Ausgabe. Edited by J. Kiirschner. 222 vols. Stuttgart. 1882-98.
II. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TO THE STURM UND
DRANG.
A. Works.
Bodmer, J. Critische Abhandlung von dem Wunderbaren in der Poesie. Zurich.
1740.
Betrachtungen iiber die poetischen Gemahlde
der Dichter. Zurich. 1741.
Breitinger, J. J. Critische Dichtkunst. Zurich. 1739.
Burger, G. A. Gedichte. Edited by A. Sauer. Stuttgart. 1884.
Gerstenberg, H. W. von. Briefe iiber Merkwurdigkeiten der Litteratur (176&-70).
Edited by A.
von Weilen. Heilbronn. 1889.
Gottsched, J. C. Versuch einer critischen Dichtkunst vor die Deutschen. Leipzig.
1730.
Hamann, J. G.
Schriften. Edited by F. Roth. 7 vols. Berlin. 1821-5.
(Two
additional volumes appeared in 1842 and 1843, edited by G. A. Wiener.) Heinse, J. J. Sammtliche Werke. Edited by H. Laube. 10
vols. Leipzig.
1838. New
edition, edited by C. Schiiddekopf, in progress. Leipzig. 1902 sqq. Herder, J.
F. Sammtliche Werke. Edited by B. Suphan. 32 vols. Berlin.
1877 sqq. [One
volume has still to appear.]
Klinger, F. M. von. Sammtliche Werke. 12 vols. Stuttgart 1842.
Klopstock, F. G. Werke. Edited by R. Hamel. 4 vols. Stuttgart. 1884. Leisewitz, J. A. Sammtliche Schriften.
Brunswick. 1838.
Lenz, J. M. R. Gesammelte Schriften. Edited by L. Tieck. 3 vols. Berlin.
1828. Lessing, G. E. Sammtliche Schriften. Edited by K.
Lachmann. 3rd edn. by
F. Muncker. 15 vols. Stuttgart. 1886-1900.
Letters, in the same edition,
4 vols., in progress.
Moritz, K. P.
Anton Reiser. Edited by Ii. Geiger.
Heilbronn. 1886.
Yoss, J. H. Sammtliche poetische Werke. 5 vols. Leipzig. 1850.
Wieland, C. M. Werke. Edited by H. Diintzer. 40 vols.
Berlin. 1879-82. [A critical edition is planned by the Prussian Academy.]
B. Biography and Critioism.
Appell, J. W. Werther und seine Zeit. 4th edn. Oldenburg. 1896.
Braitmaier, F. Geschichte der poetischen Theorie und Kritik von den
Diskursen der Maler bis auf Lessing. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1888.
Criiger, J. Gottsched, Bodmer und Breitinger. (Kurschner’s Deutsche
Nationallitteratur, Vol. xlii.) Stuttgart.
1884.
Frederick II. De la literature allemande. Edited by L. Geiger. 2nd edn.
Berlin. 1902.
Haym, R. Herder nach seinem Leben und seinen Werken. 2 vols. Berlin.
1877-85.
Kuhueir.nm, E. Herders Leben. Munich. 1896.
Minor, J. J. G. Hamann und seine Bedeutung fiir die Sturm- und
Drangperiode. Frankfort. 1881.
Muncker, F. Bremer Beitrager. 2 vols. (Kurschner’s Nationallitteratur.
Vols. xliii, xxjv.) Stuttgart.
1899.
F. G. Klopstock. Stuttgart. 1888.
Rieger, M. Klinger in der Sturm- und Drangperiode. Darmstadt. 1880.
Klinger in seiner Reife. Darmstadt. 1896.
Sauer, A. Der Giittinger Dichterbund. 2 vols. (Kurschner’s
Nationallitteratur. Vols. xux, l.)
Stuttgart. 1887-94.
Stunner und Dranger. 3 vols. (Same series.
Vols. lxxix-lxxxi.)
Stuttgart. 1883.
Schmidt, E. H. L. Wagner. Jena. 1876.
Lenz und Klinger. Berlin. 1878.
Lessing. Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner
Schriften. 2
vols. 2nd edn.
Berlin. 1899.
Sime, J.
Lessing. His Life and Writings. 2 vols. London.
1877- Waniek, G. Gottsched und die deutsche Iitteratur seiner Zeit. Leipzig.
1897.
III. GOETHE AND SCHILLER.
A. Works.
Goethe, J. W.
von. Werke. Vollstandige Ausgabe letzter Hand. 40 vols.
Stuttgart. 1827-30.
Werke. Herausgegeben im Auftrage der
Gros&herzogin Sophie von Sachsen.
In 4 Divisions: I. Werke (60 vols.), II. Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften
(14 vols.); III. Tagebiicher (14 vols.); IV. Briefe (circa 45 vols.). In
progress. Weimar. 1887 sqq.
• Der junge
Goethe. Seine Briefe und Dichtungen von 1764-76. Edited by
M. Bemays. 3
vols. Leipzig. 1875. Reprinted, 1887.
Schiller, J. F. von. Sammtliche Werke. First collected
edition, by C. G. Korner. 12 vols.
Stuttgart. 1812-16.
Sammtliche Schriften. Historisch-kritische
Ausgabe. Edited by K. Goedeke.
15 vols.
Stuttgart. 1867-76.
Briefe. Edited by F. Jonas. 7 vols. Stuttgart.
1892-6.
B. Biography
and Criticism.
Berger, K. Schiller. Sein Leben und seine Werke. 2 vols.
Munich. 1905 sq.
[Vol. n not
yet published.]
Biedermann, W. von. Goethes Gesprache. 10 vols. Leipzig. 1889-96.
Sielschowsky, A. Goethe. Sein Leben und seine Werke. 2 vols. Munich.
1896-1904 English translation by W. A. Cooper. Vol. i. New York. 1905.
Braun, J. W. Goethe und Schiller im Urteile ihrer Zeitgenossen. 5
vols. Berlin. 1883-5.
Carlyle, T.
Essays on Goethe (1828-32). In Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.
Vols. i and
rv. London. 1839.
The Life of Friedrich Schiller. London. 1825.
Dowden, E.
Essays on Goethe and Schiller. In New Studies in Literature. London. 1895.
Duntzer, H.
Goethes Leben. 2nd edn. Leipzig. 1883. English translation by T. W. lister.
London. 1882.
Eckermann, J. P. Gesprache mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens.
3 vols. 7th edn., by H. Diintzer. Leipzig.
1899.
Goethe-Jahrbuch.
Edited by L. Geiger. Frankfort. 1880 sqq.
Graf, H. C. Goethe tiber seine Dichtungen. 3 vols. Frankfort. 1901 sqq. In
progress.
Grimm, H. Goethe. Vorlesungen. 7th edn. 2 vols. Berlin. 1903.
English translation by S. H, Adams. 2nd edn. Boston.
1881.
Hamack, O. Goethe in der Epoche seiner Vollendung. 2nd edn. Leipzig. 1901.
Schiller.
2nd edn. Berlin. 1904.
Helm, V. Gedanken iiber Goethe. 5th edn. Berlin. 1902.
Lewes, G. H.
The Life and Works of Goethe. 4th edn. London. 1890.
Meyer, R. M.
Goethe. 2nd edn. 3 vols. Berlin. 1899.
Minor, J. Schiller. Sein Leben und seine Werke. Vols. i, n. Berlin. 1890.
Scherer, W. Aufsatze liber Goethe. 2nd edn. Berlin. 1900.
Schuddekopf, C. and O. Walzel. Goethe und die Romantik. 2
vols. Weimar. 1898-9.
Seeley, Sir
J. R. Goethe Reviewed after Sixty Years. London. 1894 Thomas, C. The Life of
Schiller. New York. 1902.
Weissenfels, R. Goethe im Sturm und Drang. Vol. x. Halle. 1894.
Weltrich, R. Schiller. Geschichte seines Lebens und Charakteristik seiner
Werke. Vol.
i. Stuttgart. 1885-99.
IV. OTHER WRITERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD.
A. Works.
Fichte, J. G. Sammtliche Werke. 8 vols. Berlin. 1845-6.
Humboldt, K. W. von. Gesammelte Werke. 7 vols. Berlin.
1841-52. (A new edition by the Prussian Academy is in process of publication. Berlin. 1903 sqq.) Iffland, A. W. Theatralische Werke in
einer Auswahl. 10 vols. Leipzig. 1844 Kant, I. Sammtliche Werke. Edited by G.
Hartenstein. 8
vols. Leipzig. 1867-9. (A new edition by the Prussian Academy is in process of
publication. Berlin. 1900 sqq.)
Kosegarten, G. L. Dichtungen. 12 vols. Greifewald. 1824-7.
Kotzehne, A. von. Auswahl dramatischer Werke. 10 vols. Leipzig. 1867-8.
Richter, J. P. F. Sammtliche Werke. 60 vols. Berlin. 1879.
Seume, J. G. Prosaische und poetische Werke. 10 vols. Berlin. 1879.
Tiedge, C. A. Werke. Edited by A. G. Eberbard. 7 vols.
Halle. 1823.
B. Biography
and Criticism.
Carlyle, T.
ISssays on Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1827 and 1830). Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. London. 1839.
Fichte, I. H. Fichte’s Leben und litterarischer Briefwechsel. 2 vols. 2nd
edn.
Leipzig. 1862.
Fischer, K. J. G. Fichte. 3rd edn. Heidelberg. 1897.
Immanuel Kant. 2 vols. 4th edn. Heidelberg.
1898-9.
Hamack, O. Die klassische Aesthetik der Deutschen. Leipzig. 1897.
Hauffen, A. Das Drama der klassischen Periode. (Kiirschner’s Deutsche
National- litteratur. Vols. cxxxviii-ix.)
Stuttgart. 1891.
Haym, R W. von Humboldt. Lebensbild und Charakteristik. Berlin. 1856.
Mendheim, M. Lyriker und Epiker der klassischen Periode. (Kiirschner’s Deutsche
Nationallitteratur. Vols. cxxxv-vx.) 2 vols. Stuttgart 1893.
Nerrlich, J. P. Jeau Paul; sein Leben und seine Werke. Berlin.
1889.
V. THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.
A. Works.
Arndt, E. M.
Werke. Edited by H. Rosch and H. Meisner. 8 vols. Berlin. 1892-5.
Amim, B. von. Sammtliche Werke. 11 vols. Berlin. 1853.
Arm‘mJ L. A. von. Sammtliche Werke. 2nd edn. 22 vols. Berlin.
1853-6.
—t— Trost-Einsamkeit. Edited by F. Pfaff. Freiburg. 1883.
and C. Brentano. Des Knaben Wunderhom. Edited
by A. Birlinger and
W. Crecelius.
2 vols. Wiesbaden. 1872-6.
Brentano, C. Gesammelte Schriften. 9 vols. Frankfort. 1852-5.
Chamisso, A. von. Werke. Edited by M. Koch. 4 vols. Stuttgart. 1883. Eichendorff, J. von. Sammtliche
poetische Werke. 4 vols. 3rd edn. Leipzig.
1883.
Gorres, J. J. von. Gesammelte Schriften (political writings only). Edited
by M. Gorres. 6 vols. Munich. 1854-60.
Die teutschen Volksbiicher. Heidelberg. 1807.
Altdeutsche Volks- und Meisterlieder.
Frankfort. 1817.
Grillparzer, F. Sammtliche Werke. 20 vols. 5th edn. Stuttgart. 1892-4.
Tagebiicher und Briefe. Edited
by K. Glossy and A. Sauer. 2 vols.
Stuttgart. 1903.
Hauff, W. Sammtliche Werke. Edited by H. Fischer. 6 vols. Stuttgart. 1885. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Sammtliche Werke.
Edited by E. Grisebach. 15 vols. Leipzig. 1900.
Holderlin, F. Gesammelte Dichtungen. Edited by B.
Litzmann. 2 vols. Stuttgart. 1898.
Immermann, K. C. Werke. Edited by R. Roxberger. 20 vols. Berlin. 1883.
Kleist, H. von. Sammtliche Werke. Edited by Th. Zolling. 4 vols. Stuttgart
1884.
Sammtliche Werke. Edited by E. Schmidt. 5
vols. Leipzig. 1903-5.
Komer, T. Werke. Edited by A. Stem. 3 vols. Stuttgart. 1890-9.
La Motte Fouque, F. de. Ausgewahlte
Werke. 12 vols. Halle. 1841.
Lenau, N. Sammtliche Werke. Edited by M. Koch. 2 vols. Stuttgart. 1888. Morike, E. Gesammelte Schriften. 4 vols.
Stuttgart. 1878-89.
Miillner, A. Dramatische Werke. 8 vols. Brunswick. 1828.
Novalis, F. (F. von Hardenberg.) Schriften. Edited by F.
Schlegel and L. Tieck.
2 vols. Berlin. 1802. (Vol. m. Edited by L.
Tieck and E. von Biilow. 1846.)
Schriften. Edited by E. Heilbom. 3 vols.
Berlin. 1901. .
Flaten-Hallermunde, Count A. von. Sammtliche Werke. Edited
by C. C. Redlich.
3 vols. Berlin.
1883.
Schelling, F. W. J. von. Sammtliche Werke. 14 vols. Stuttgart. 1856-61.
Schlegel, A. W. von. Sammtliche Werke. Edited by E. Bocking. 12 vols. Leipzig.
1846-7.
Schlegel, F. von. Sammtliche Werke. 2nd edn. 15 vols. Vienna.
1846.
Prosaische Jugendschriften. Edited by J.
Minor. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Vienna.
1906.
Tieck, L. Schriften. 15 vols. Berlin. 1828-9.
Uhland, L.
Gedichte. Edited by E. Schmidt and J. Hartmann. 2 vols.
Stuttgart. 1898.
Werner, Z. Ausgewahlte Schriften. 15 vols. Grimma. 1840-1.
B. Biography
and Criticism.
Bing, J. Novalis. Hamburg. 1893.
Brahm, O. Heinrich von Kleist. 3rd edn. Berlin. 1892.
Brandes, G. Den romantiske Skole i Tyskland. (Hovedstromninger i det 19de
Aarhundredes Litteratur. Vol. 11.) Copenhagen. 1873. English
Translation: The Romantic School in Germany. Main Currents in 19th Century
Literature. London. 1902.
Dilthey, W. Leben Schleiermachers. Vol. x. Berlin. 1870.
Ehrhard, A. Franz Grillparzer. Paris. 1900.
Ellinger, G. E. T. A. Hoffmann. Hamburg. 1894.
Fischer, K. Schellings Leben, Werke und Lehre. 2nd edn. Heidelberg. 1897.
Haym, R. Die romantische Schule. 2nd edn. Leipzig. 1906.
Heilborn, E. Novalis der Romantiker. Berlin. 1901.
Heine, H. Die romantische Schule. Hamburg. 1836.
Hettner, H. Die romantische Schule in ihrem inneren Zusammenhang mit Goethe
und Schiller. Brunswick. 1850.
Huch, R. Bliitezeit der Romantik. Leipzig. 1899.
Ausbreitung und Verfall der Romantik. Leipzig.
1902.
Litzmann, C. C. T. F. Holderlins Leben. Berlin. 1890.
Minor, J. Tieck und Wackenroder. (Kiirschner’s Deutsche Nationallitteratur.
Vol. oxlv.) Stuttgart. 1886.
Das Schicksalsdrama. (Same series. Vol. cu.)
Stuttgart. 1884.
Die Schicksalstragodie in ihren
Hauptvertretern. Frankfort. 1883.
Plitt, G. L. Aus Schellings Leben. In Briefen. 3 vols. Leipzig. 1869-70.
Poppenberg, F. Zacharias Werner. Berlin. 1893.
Scherer, W. Jakob Grimm. 2nd edn. Berlin. 1886.
Servaes, F. Heinrich von Kleist. Leipzig. 1902.
Steffens, H. Was ich erlehte. 10 vols. Breslau. 1840-4.
Steig, R. Achim von Amim und Klemens Brentano. Stuttgart. 1894.
Goethe und die Bruder Grimm. Berlin. 1892.
H. von Kleists Berliner Kampfe. Berlin.
1901.
VI. YOUNG GERMANY.
A. Works.
Borne, L. Gesammelte Schriften. 12 vols. Complete edn. Stuttgart. 1880.
Gutzkow, K. Gesammelte Werke. 12 vols. Jena. 1873-8.
Dramatische Werke. 20 vols. Jena. 1871-2.
Heine, H. Sammtliche Werke. Edited hy E. Elster. 7 vols. Leipzig. 1887-90. Laube, H. Sammtliche Schriften. 16
vols. Weimar. 1875-82.
B. Biography and Criticism.
Bolsche, W, Heinrich Heine. Versuch einer asthetisch-kritischen Analyse
seiner Werke. Leipzig. 1887.
Brandes, G. Det unge Tyskland. (Hovedstromninger i det 19de Aarhundredes
Litteratur. Vol.
vi.) Copenhagen. 1890. English Translation: Young Germany. London. 1906.
Legras, J.
Henri Heine poete. Paris. 1897. ldchtenberger,
H. Henri Heine penseur. Paris. 1904.
Prolss, J. Das junge Deutschland. Stuttgart. 1892.
Strodtmann, A. Heinrich Heine's Leben und Werke. 2 vols.
3rd edn Berlin
1884.
"
Wehl, F. Das junge Deutschland. Hamburg. 1886.
CHAPTERS XIII and XIV.
N.B. The
titles of works in Bussian or Polish are translated.
A. BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
Ikonnikoff,
V. S. Sketch of a Russian Historical Bibliography. 2 vols. Kieff.
1891-2. [Good
information as to Archives, Libraries, and Collected Works.] Lambin, B. P. and
P. P. Russian historical bibliography, 1855-64. 10 vols.
St
Petersburg. 1861-84.
Mezhoff, V.
I. Russian historical Bibliography, 1800-54. (St Petersburg Academy.)
3 vols. St Petersburg. 1892-3. The same
continued. 1865-76. 8 vols. St Petersburg. 1882-90.
B. PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS.
Archives of
the Imperial Council. 8 vols. St Petersburg. 1869 sqq.
Jartenieff,
P. I. Archives of Prince Vorontsoff. 40 vols. Moscow. 1870 sqq. Bilbasoff, V.
A. Archives of Count Mordvinoff. 10 vols. St Petersburg. 1901-3. Byloje (the
Past). St Petersburg. 1906. [Periodical, containing a number of hitherto
unpublished documents on the Secret Societies under Alexander I.] Charte Constitutionnelle de l’Empire de Russie. With preface by T.
Schiemann. Berlin.
1903.
Dubrovin, N.
T. Collection of historical materials from the first section of the Imperial
Chancery. 12 vols. St Petersburg. 1876 sqq.
Imperial
Russian Historical Society, Collections of the. 120 vols. St Petersburg. 1867
sqq.
Portfolio,
the. Edited by D. Urquhart. A Collection of State Papers illustrating the
history of our times. 6 vols. Hamburg and London. 1836 sqq. New Series. 5 vols.
London. 1843-5.
Russian
Antiquity. St Petersburg. 1870 sqq. (Periodical.)
Russian
Archive, the. Edited P. I. Bartenieff. Moscow. 1863 sqq. (Periodical.) Statutes
for the Russian Empire, Complete Collection of. St Petersburg. 1839 sqq.
C. MEMOIRS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.
Bailleu, P.
Briefwechsel Friedrich Wilhelms III mit Alexander I. Berlin. 1900. Bulharin, T.
Memoirs. St Petersburg. 1848.
Grabbe, A. P.
Memoirs. Moscow. 1888.
Karamsin, N. M.
Unpublished writings and correspondence. St Petersburg. 1862. Kosheleff, A. I.
Memoirs. Berlin. 1884.
Le Strange,
G. Correspondence of Princess Lieven and Earl Grey. 3 vols.
London. 1890.
Labianovski,
F. P. Memoirs. Moscow. 1870.
Lvoff.
Letters of Churchmen and Laymen to the Metropolitan Philaxetus. St Petersburg.
1900.
Pushkin, A.
S. Collected Works. St Petersburg. 1899 sqq.
Robinson, L.
G. Letters of Dorothea, Princess Lieven, during her residence in London,
1812-34. London. 1902.
Ryleieff, K.
F. Collected Works and Correspondence. St Petersburg. 1906. Shishkoff, A. S.
Memoirs. 2 vols. Berlin. 1870.
Turgenieff.
Letters of the Brothers Turgenieff. Leipzig. 1872.
Viasemski, P.
P. Collected Works. St Petersburg. 1878 sqq.
Vigel, F. F.
Memoirs. 7 vols. Moscow. 1891.
Volkonski, S.
G., Prince. Memoirs. St Petersburg. 1901.
Yermoloff, A.
P. Memoirs. 2 vols. Moscow. 1865-8.
D. HISTORIES, ETC.
Bartenieff,
P. I. The Nineteenth Century. Moscow. 1872.
Bemhardi, F. T, von. Geschichte Russlands und der Europaischen Politik,
1817-31.
(Staatengesch. d. neuesten Zeit.) 3 vols. Leipzig.
1877.
Bogdanovich,
M. I. History of the reign of Alexander I. 6 vols. St Petersburg. 1869 sqq.
Bruckner, A. Geschichte der Russischen Literatur. Leipzig.
1905.
Joyneville,
C. Life and Times of Alexander I. 3 vols. London. 1875.
Lacroix, Paul. Histoire de la vie et du regne de Nicholas I. Paris. 1864.
Leer, G. A.
Military and Naval Encyclopaedia. St Petersburg. 1883 sqq.
Pypin, A. N.
History of Russian Literature. 4 vols. St Petersburg. 1898 sqq. Schiemann^T.
Geschichte Russlands unter Nikolaus I. Vol. i. [Deals with the life and work of
Alexander I.] Berlin. 1904. In progress.
Schnitzler, J. H. La Russie, la Pologne, et la Finlande. Paris. 1835.
Histoire intime de la Russie sous Alexandre I
et Nicolas I. 2 vols. Paris.
1847.
Shilder, N.
K. Alexander I, his life and reign. 4 vols. St Petersburg. 1898. New edn. 1905.
Nicholas I, his life and reign. 2 vols. St Petersburg. 1903.
Turgenieff, N. I. La Russie et les Russes. 3 vols.
Paris. 1847.
E. BIOGRAPHIES.
Bozherianoff,
I. N. Count Cancrin. St Petersburg. 1897.
Bruckner, A.
Materials for a life of Count N. P. Panin. 7 vols. St
Petersburg.
1888-92.
Capefigue, J. B. La Baronne de Kriidener. Paris. 1866.
Falloux, Count F. A. P. de. Mme Swetchine, sa vie et ses oeuvres. 2 vols. Paris. 1860.
Goetze, P. O. von. Fiirst Alexander Nikolaevich Galitzyn u. s. Zeit.
Leipzig. 1882. Grimm, A. T. von. Alexandra Feodorovna. Leipzig. 1866.
Helldorff, Freiherr von. Aus dem Leben des Prinzen Eugen von Wiirttemberg.
4 parts., Berlin. 1861-2.
Ikonnikoff,
V. S. Count Mordvinoff. St Petersburg. 1873.
Karnovich, E.
P. Prince Constantine Pavlovich. St Petersburg. 1899.
Korff, M. A.
Life of Count Speranski. 2 vols. St Petersburg. 1861.
Kovalevski,
J. Count Bludow and his time. St Petersburg. 1866.
Lalaieff.
life of Prince Michael Pavlovich. St Petersburg. 1898.
Maggiolo, A.
Pozzo di Borgo. Paris. 1890.
Nicholas
Mikhailovich, Grand Duke of Russia. Count Paul Strogonoff, 1774-1817. St
Petersburg. 1903. French trans. Paris. 1905.
Pogodin, M.
P. Karamsin. 2 vols. Moscow. 1866.
Materials for a biography of Yermoloff.
Moscow. 1864.
Shcherbatoff,
A. G., Prince. Field-Marshal Paskevich. 6 vols. St letarsbuxg. 1888.
Solovieff, S.
M. Alexander I. St Petersburg. 1877.
Stoiunin, W.
A. S. Shishkoff. St Petersburg. 1880.
Vagin, V.
Speranski, 1819-22. 2 vols. St Petersburg. 1872. ZablockvDesiatoviki, A P.
Count Kisseleff and his times. 4 vols. St Petersburg.
1881-2.
F. THE
RUSSIAN AND UNITED CHURCHES.
Likovski, E.,
Bishop. Geschichte des allmaligen Verfalls der Unirten Kirche im
rviuten und xixten Jahrhundert. 2 vols. Posen. 1885, 1887.
Moroshkin, M.
Dubrovin, N. Materials for a history of the Orthodox Church under Nicholas I.
St Petersburg. 1902. schantyr, Dean. Facts concerning the Catholic Church in
Russia. 2 vols. Posen.
1843.
Theiner, A. Vicissitudes de l’eglise catholiqne des deux rites en
Pologne et Russie.
2 vols. Paris. 1843.
Znamenski, P.
The Russian Church under Alexander L Kasan. 1885.
G. FINLAND.
Collection of
Proclamations, Decrees, and Manifestos. Abo. 1812
sqq.
La Constitution du Grand Duche de Finlande. Paris. 1900. (Ed. Georgea-
Bellais.)
La Finlande au xix s. Helsingfors. 1900. (Edit.
G. W. Edlund.)
Fisher, J. R.
Finland and the Tsars, 1809-99. London. 1899.
Mechelin, H. L. S. Precis du droit public du G. D. de Finlande. Helsingfors.
1886. Translated by C. J. Cooke. London. 1889.
Schybergson,
M. G. Finlands Historia. Helsingfors. 1902. German translation by F. Arnheim.
(Gesch. der Europ. Staaten.) Gotha. 1896.
Yrjij-Koskinen.
Finnish history. Stockholm. 1874. Authorised German translation. Leipzig.
1874.
H. THE DECEMBRISTS.
Borozdin, A.
K. The letters and confessions of the Decembrists. St Petersburg. 1906.
Dovnar
Zapolski, M. V. Memoirs of the Decembrists. Kieff. 1906.
The Secret Society of the Decembrists. Moscow.
1906.
The Ideals of the Decembrists. Kieff. 1906.
Kotlyarevski,
A The Decembrists, Prince Odoevsky and Alexander Bestuieff.
St
Petersburg. 1907.
Pestel, P.
The Russian Truth (Rousskaia Pravda, i.e. Pestel’s draft Constitution).
Ed. by P.
Stchegoleff. St Petersburg. 1906.
Semyovski-Boguczaroki.
The Decembrists. St Petersburg. 1905.
I. .OTHER
SPECIAL TREATISES.
^azilevski,
B. Offences against the State in Russia since 1825. Stuttgart. 1903. Bemhardi, T. Unter Nikolaus und Friedrich Wilhelm III. Berlin.
1893. Blagovidoff, T. V. The Procurators of the Holy Synod. Kasan. 1899.
Bloch, J. Les Finances de la Russie au xix* Siecle. Historique et
statistique.
2 vols. Paris. 1899.
Custine, Count A. P. de. La Russie en 1839. 4 vols.
Paris. 1843.
Engelhardt.
Sketch of the history of the Russian Censorship, 1703-1903. St Petersburg. 1904.
Haxthausen, Baron A. von. Russische Studien. 2 parts. Hanover. 1847.
English
translation by R. Farie. 2 vols. London. 1856.
Milyukoff, P.
N. Studies in the history of Russian civilisation. 3 vols. St Petersburg. 1899
sqq.
Pypin, A. N.
Social movement in Russia under Alexander I. St Petersburg. 1900. Schiemann, T. Die Ermordung Pauls u. d.
Thronbesteigung Nikolaus I. Berlin. 1902. Semyovski, W. The
question of a constitutional change in Russia in the first quarter of the 19th
century. St Petersburg. 1906.
The peasant question in Russia in the 18th
century and the first half of the
19th. St
Petersburg. 1890.
Seredononin,
S. M. Historical survey of the function of the Ministerial Committee.
3 vols. St Petersburg. 1902 sqq.
Shchegloff.
The Russian Imperial Council. St Petersburg. 1892.
Vagin, V.
Speranski’s plan of constitutional reform. Moscow. 1905.
Vasilchikoff,
Prince. Land tenure and rural economy in Russia. St Petersburg. 1881.
Yakushkin, W.
E. The power of the State and Projects of State reform in Russia. (Contains the
only authentic copy of Nikita Mouravieff’s draft Constitution.) St Petersburg.
1906.
A. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Hirschberg,
A. Bibliography of the rising of the Polish nation. (Contains a bibliography of
the whole period 1815-31.) Lemberg. 1882.
B. DOCUMENTS, ETC.
“ Angeberg, Comte de ” [J. L. Chodzko]. Recueil des trait^s, conventions
et actes diplomatiques concern, la Pologne, 1762-1862. Paris. 1862.
Collection of
the resolutions of the Polish Diet in 1831. Warsaw. 1831. Correspondence with
the Government of Russia respecting the affairs of Poland,
1831-2.
Presented to the House of Commons. London. 1861.
Court of the
Polish Diet in 1828. 3 vols. Warsaw. 1828.
Diary of the
Polish Senate in 1825. 3 vols. Warsaw. 1828.
Obninski, F.
Diary of the Polish Chamber of Deputies in 1820. Warsaw. 1820. Protocol of the
Session of the Polish Chamber of Deputies in 1830. Warsaw. 1831. Protocol of
the Sessions of the Administrative Council and the Provisional Government in
Warsaw 30 November to 5 December, 1830. Paris. 1872.
Rapport de la Commission d’enquete rendu au Grand Due Constantin.
Warsaw. 1827. Siarczynski, A. Diete du Royaume de Pologne en 1818. Warsaw. 1818.
Statute book
for the kingdom of Poland. 13 vols. Warsaw. 1816-32.
C. MEMOIRS, ETC.
Chlapovski, D. Memoirs. 2 parts. Posen. 1899.
Czartoryski,
A. J., Prince. Memoirs and Correspondence (to 1861). Ed. A. Gielgud.
2 vols. London. 1888.
Czartoryski, Prince A. J. Mdmoires et correspondance avec Alexandre I
(to 1823), Ed. C. de Mazade. 2 vols. Paris. 1887.
Dembinski,
H., General. Memoirs. 2 vols. Cracow. 1875-7.
Dembowski, L.
Memoirs. 2 vols. St Petersburg. 1898.
Dwermcki, J.,
General. Memoirs. Lemberg. 1870.
Kolaczkovski,
K., General. Reminiscences. 5 vols. Cracow. 1898-1902.
Kozmian, K. Memoirs. 2 vols. Posen. 1858.
Niemcevicz,
J. U. Memoirs (to 1820). 2 vols. Posen. 1871.
Memoirs of 1831-2. Posen. 1876-7.
D. HISTORIES AND SPECIAL TREATISES.
Askenazy, S.
The work of Lubecki as minister. Warsaw. 1897.
The ministry of Vielhorski. Warsaw. 1898.
Barzykovski,
S. History of the Revolution of November. 5 vols. Posen. 1884. Gadon, L. Prince
Adam Czartoryski during the Revolution of November. Cracow. 1900.
Gembarzevski,
B. The Polish Army, 1815-30. Warsaw. 1903.
Gnorovskij S.
B. The Polish revolution in 1830-31 and the Russian rule preceding it since
1815. London. 1839.
Hoffmann, A. K. Coup d’oeil historique sur le royaume de Pologne,
1815-30. Paris. 1834.
Kuuz, H. Der polnisch-russische Krieg von 1831. Berlin. 1890.
Lelevel, J. Analyse et parallele des 3 constitutions polonaises de 1791,
1807 et 1815. (Translation.) Arras. 1833.
Lescceur, L. L’eglise catholique en Pologne sous le gouvernement Russe. Paris.
1860, 1876. New edition. 1903.
Mochnacki, M.
The rising of the Polish nation, 1830-1. 2 vols. Paris. 1834-5. Collected
works. Posen. 1862. Introduction to this Polish work translated as
Essai historique et politique sur le royaume de Pologne, 1815-30. Paris. 1846.
Nakvaski, H. Le Grand Due Constantin a Varsovie. Paris. 1847.
Puzyrevski,
A. K., General. The Russian and Polish War, 1831. 2 vols.
St
Petersburg. 1887.
Skarbek, F.,
Count. The kingdom of Poland. 2 vols. Posen.
1877.
Smitt, F. von. Geschichte der polnischen Aufstandes und Krieges, 1830-1. 3 vols. Berlin. 1848.
Soltyk, R., Count. La Pologne; precis historique, politique, et
militaire de sa revolution en 1830, 1831. 2 vols.
Paris. 1833.
Valevski, A.,
Count. The Polish question. London. 1831.
E. GALICIA, CRACOW, AND POSEN.
Gross-Hoffinger, A. J. Die Theilung Polens und die Geschichte der
oestreichischen Herrschaft in Galizien. Leipzig.
1847.
Kalinka, W.
Galicia and Cracow under Austrian rule. Cracow. 1851. New edition. 1898.
Lozinski, B.
The Galician Diet of Estates, 1817-45. Lemberg. 1905. Meciszewski, H. History
of the Republic of Cracow. Cracow. 1851.
Proceedings
of the Diet in the kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. 14 parts. Lemberg.
1817-30.
Studniarski,
A. Collection of Laws concerning the Polish language and nationality in Posen. Posen. 1861.
Winiwarter, J. Handbuch d. polit. Gesetzkunde fiir Galizien. Lemberg. 1826.
Zychlinski, L. History of the Diets of the G. Duchy of Posen. 2 vols. Posen.
1867.
THE
ORLEANS MONARCHY. (1830-40.)
I. CONTEMPORARY AUTHORITIES.
A. Collections of Documents, Speeches.
Lesur, C. L. Annuaire Historique, annees 1830-40. Paris.
Mavidal, J. and Laurent, E. Archives Parlementaires. 2"
Serie. Vols. lxi to cv. 1830-7.
Paris Revolutionnaire. 4 vols. Paris. 1833—4.
Perier, Casimir. Opinions et discours. 4 vols. Paris. 1838.
Proces d’avril 1834 (Rapport de Girod de l’Ain). 4 vols. Paris. 1839.
Proces et affaires des 12 et 13 mai 1839 (Rapport de Merilhou). Paris.
1839. Revue Retrospective. Collection of documents published by Taschereau.
Paris.
1848.
Thiers, A. Discours Parlementaires. Ed. Calmon. Vols. i to viii. Paris.
1879-83. See also the following Journals: Le Moniteur, le National, les Debats,
1’Avenir, le Constitutionnel, le Globe, la Presse : and the following Reviews:
des Deux Mondes, Republicaine, Franfaise.
B. Letters
and Memoirs.
Barante, Baron P. de. Souvenirs (1782-1866). Vol. vn. Paris. 1890-9.
Barrot, Odilon. Memoires. Vol. i. Paris. 1874-9.
Beranger, P. J. de. Ma biographie. Paris. 1899.
Correspondance. Ed. P. Boiteau. 4 vols. Paris.
1860.
Berard, A. Souvenirs Historiques sur la Revolution de 1830. Paris. 1834.
Broglie, V., Due de. Merits et Discours. 3 vols. (Vols. n et in.) Paris. 1863.
Souvenirs. 4 vols. Paris. 1886.
Carrel, A. (Euvres. Ed. E. Littre. 6 vols. Paris. 1894.
Castellane, E. V., Marshal de. Campagnes d’Afrique. 6 vols. Paris.
1896-7. Cavaignac, J. M. Les deux generaux (Jacques and Eugene Cavaignac).
Souvenirs et Correspondance (1808-48). Paris. 1899.
Chasles, P. Memoires. 2 vols. Paris. 1876.
Cuvillier-Fleury, A. Journal et correspondances intimes. 2 vols. Paris.
1903. Doudan, X. Melanges et lettres. 4 vols. Paris. 1876-7.
Dupin, A. Memoires. 4 vols. Paris. 1865-61.
Fabre, A. La Revolution de 1830 et le vrai parti republicain. 2 vols.
Paris.
1833.
Faucher, L. Biographie et correspondance. 2 vols. Paris.
Gisquet, H. I. Memoires d’un prefet de Police. Paris. 1840.
G’'eville, C. C. F. Memoirs. Vols. i to iv. London. 1888.
Guizot, F. P. G. Memoires pour servir a l’histoire de mon temps. 8 vols.
(Vols. u to v.) Paris. 1858-67.
La Democratic en France. Paris. 1849.
Lettres a sa famille et a ses amis. Ed. de Witt. Paris. 1895.
Heine, H. Franzdsische Zustande. Hamburg. 1833.
Lutece. (Letters to the Augsburger Allgemeine
Zeitung, 1840-3.) Transl.
Paris. 1855.
Jacquemontj V. Correspondance. 2 vols. Paris. 1838.
Correspondance inedite. 2 vols. Paris. 1867.
Lacordaire, J. B. H. Lettres a Th. Foisset. 2 vols. Paris. 1886.
Correspondance inedite. Paris. 1870.
La Fayette, M. J. M., Marquis de. Memoires, correspondance et
mannscrits.
6 vols. Vols.
v and vi. Paris. 1837-8.
Lamennais, H. F. R. de. Affaires de Rome. Paris. 1837.
Discussions critiques et pensees diverses. 2
vols. Paris. 1840.
Correspondance. Ed. E. Forgues. Paris. 1858.
“Launay, Vicomte de” [Girardin, Madame de]. Lettres parisiennes. 3 vols.
Paris. 1836.
Mettemich, C., Prince von. Memoires et Documents. Vols. v and vx. 8
vols. Paris.
1880-4.
Mill, J. S.
Dissertations and Discussions. 2 vols. (Vol. i.) London.
Montalivet, G. M. C., Comte de. Etudes sur la politique conservatrice de
Casimir Perier. In Rev. des Deux Mondes, May 15, 1874.
Fragments et Souvenirs. 2 vols. Paris. 1900.
Proudhon, P. J. Correspondance. Ed. Langlois. 14 vols. Paris. 1875.
Sainte-Beuve, C. A. Notes et pensdes. Causeries du Lundi. Vol. xi. 15 vols.
Paris. 1852-62.
Nouveaux Lundis. Vol. xn. 13 vols. Paris.
1863-72.
Cahiers. Paris. 1876.
Saint-Simon, Comte C. H. de, and Enfantin, B. P. CEuvres. 47 vols.
Paris. 1865-78. Salvandy, N. A. de. Seize mois, ou la Revolution et les
Revolutionnaires. Paris.
1831.
Vingt mois. 2nd edition. Paris. 1832.
Segur, P., Comte de. Histoire et memoires. 8 vols. Vols. vij and vjjj.
Paris. 1873.
Senior, N. W.
Conversations with M. Thiers, Guizot and other distinguished persons. 2 vols. London. 1878. lalleyrand, C. M., Prince de. Memoires. Ed. Due de
Broglie. Vols. in to v. Paris. 1891.
Lettres a Mme. Adelaide. Revue Retrospective.
Vol. xv. Paris. 1900.
Thiers, A. La monarchic de 1830. Paris. 1831.
Tocqueville, A. de. Correspondance. CEuvres Completes. Paris. 1860-6.
Vol. vn. VeuUlot, L. Rome et Lorette. 2 vols. Paris. 1841.
II. GENERAL HISTORIES.
Blanc, L. Histoire de Dix AnB (1830-40). 5 vols. Paris. 1841-4.
Du Bled, V. HiBtoire de la monarchic de juillet. 2 vols. Paris. 1887.
Che'non, E. Les Institutions civiles et militaires de la France de 1814
a 1848. In
Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire Ge'nerale, vol. x, chap. xi. Paris. 1898. Dalling
and Bulwer, Lord (Bulwer, Sir H. L. E.). The monarchy of the middle classes. 2
vols. London. 1836.
Haussonville,
J. O. d’. Histoire de la politique exterieure de la monarchic de
juillet (1830-48). 2 vols. Paris. 1850.
Hillebrandj K. Geschichte Franhreichs (1830-41). (Gesch. der Europ.
Staaten.)
2 vols. 1877-9.
Malet, A. La France sous la monarchic de juillet. In Lavisse and
Rambaud, Histoire Generale, Vol. x, Chap. x. Paris. 1898.
Nouvion, V. de. Histoire de Louis-Philippe. 4 vols. Paris. 1857-61.
SarranSj B. Lafayette et la Revolution de 1830. 2 vols. Paris. 1832.
Louis-Philippe et la Contrerevolution. Paris.
1834.
Tchernoff, A. D. Le parti republicain sous la monarchie de juillet.
Paris. 1901. Thureau-Dangin, P. Histoire de la monarchie de juillet. Vols. i to
iv. Paris. 1887-90. '
Weill, G. La France sous la monarchie de juillet. Paris. 1902.
Histoire du parti republicain en France.
Paris. 1900.
III. BIOGRAPHIES.
Bapst, G. Le gdndral Canrobert. Souvenirs d’un siecle. 2 vols. Paris.
1898-9. Besson, Mgr. N. F. Biographie du Cardinal Mathieu. 2 vols. Paris. 1882.
Broglie, J. V. de. Le pere Lacordaire. Paris. 1889.
Charavay, E. Le general Lafayette. 2 vols. Paris. 1898.
Chocame, B. Lacordaire, sa vie intime et religieuse. 2 vols. Paris.
1866. Cuvillier-Flenry, A. Portraits politiques et revolutionnaires. 2
vols. Paris. 1851. Dalling and BuWer, Lord (Bulwer, Sir H. L. E.). Life of Lord Palmerston. 3 vols. London. 1873.
Exauvillez, A. P. de. Vie de Mgr. de Quelen. 2 vols. Paris. 1850.
Foisset, T. Vie du pere Lacordaire. Paris. 1870.
Haussonville, Comte O. de. Lacordaire. Paris. 1895.
Ideville, Comte H. de. Le marechal Bugeaud, d’apres sa correspondance
intime.
3 vols. Paris. 1881-2.
Lacombe, C. de. Vie de Berryer. 3 vols. Paris. 1894-5.
Lacordaire, J. Frederic Ozanam, sa vie. Paris. 1855.
Lagrange, F., Abhe. Vie de Mgr. Dupanloup. 3 vols. Paris. 1883-4.
Lecauuet, E. Berryer, sa vie, ses oeuvres. Paris. 1893.
Montalembert. 3 vols. Paris. 1895-1902.
Meaux, C., Vicomte de. Montalembert. Paris. 1897.
Montalembert, C. de. Le pere Lacordaire. Paris. 1862.
Ponleroy, A. de. Vie du Reverend Pere Ravignan. Paris. 1860.
Sainte-Beuve, C. A. M. Mold. (Portraits litteraires.) Vol. in, p. 324.
Paris. 1864.
Simon, J. Thiers, Guizot, Rdmusat. Paris. 1885.
Thirria, H. Napoleon III avant l’Empire. 2 vols. Paris. 1895-6.
La Dnchesse de Berry. Paris. 1900.
Trognon, A. Vie de Marie Amelie. Paris. 1876.
Vitet, L. M. Mold. Revue des Deux Mondes, Dec. 1, 1861.
IV. SPECIAL WORKS.
A. Political.
Daudet, E. Le proces des ministres. Paris. 1877. ,
Debidour, A. Histoire des rapports de l’lijg'lise et de 1’Etat de 1789 a
1870. Paris.
1898.
La Hodde, L. de. Histoire des socidtds secretes depuis 1830. Paris.
1850.
Laity, A. Le prince Napoleon a Strasbourg. Paris. 1838.
Leroy-Beaulieu, A. Les catholiques liberaux de 1830 a nos jours. Paris.
1885. Mantoux, P. Talleyrand en 1830 d’apres les memoires contemporains. (Revue
Historique, 1902, p. 266.)
Mathiez, A. Le prince Napoleon a Strasbourg. (Revue de Paris, 1899, p.
294.) Meniere, P. Captivite de la Ducbesse de Berry. 2 vols. Paris. 1881.
Villeneuve-Bargemont, B. I. de. Les journees de juillet 1830. (Le
Correspondant,
1902, p. 217.)
B. Commercial and Colonial.
Archives statistiques. (Agriculture, Industrie, commerce.) Paris. 1837.
Burat, J. Exposition de l’industrie franyaise en 1841. Paris. 1845.
Calmon, A. Histoire des finances de la monarcbie de juillet. 4 vols.
Paris. 1890 a 1899.
Enfantin, B. P. Colonisation de l’Algerie. Paris. 1843.
Montrond, C. Fourcheux de. Histoire de la conquete de l’Algerie. Paris.
1848. Rousset, C. La conquete d’Alger et l’Algerie jusqu’en 1840. 2 vols.
Paris. 1879-87-
Statistique agricole de la France. Paris. 1840-1.
Viallate, A. La France economique de 1815 a 1848. In
Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire Generale, vol. x, chapter xii. Paris. 1898.
C. Literary.
Brandes, G.
Main currents in xixth century literature. (Eng. Trans.) Vol. v.
The Romantic
School in France. London. 1904.
Brunetiere, F. L’evolution de la poesie lyrique au xixe
siecle. 2 vols. Paris. 1894.
Etudes critiques. 2nd series. Paris. 1887.
Histoire et litterature. Vol. in. Paris. 1886.
L’evolution des genres dans l’histoire de la
litterature. 2 vols. Paris. 1890.
Faguet, ]5. Etudes litteraires sur le xix° siecle. 4th edn. Paris. 1887.
Lanson, G. Histoire de la litterature franifaise. 4th edn. Paris. 1896.
Nettement, A. F. Histoire de la litterature fra^aise sous le gouvernement de
juillet. 2 vols. Paris. 1854.
Pellissier, G. Le mouvement litteraire au xixe siecle. Paris.
1893.
Essais de literature contempora:ae. Paris.
1894.
Petit de Julleville, L. Histoire generale de la litte'rature fran^aise.
Vol. vm. Paris. 1899.
Sauvageot, D. Le realisme et le naturalisme dans la litterature et dans
l’art. Paris. 1889.
I. DOCUMENTS.
Barthels, A. Documents historiques sur la Revolution Beige. Brussels. 1836. Falck, A. R. Brieven 1795-1845 met
levensberigt d. O. W. Hora Siccama.
The Hague.
1861.
Amstsbrieven, 1802-42. The Hague. 1878.
Handelingen van de Staten Generaal (1“ en 2' Kamer) 1815-47. 31 vols. The Hague. 1863-97.
Histoire parlementaire du traits de paix du 19 Avril, 1839, entre la
BeLjique et la Hollande, contenant tous les discours. 2 vols. Brussels. 1839.
Huyttens, E. Discussions du Congres national de Belgique, 1830-1. 5 vols.
Brussels. 1844-5.
Journal officiel du Gouvernement de la Belgique, 1814-15. Journal
officiel du royaume des Pays-Bas, 1816-29. 27 vols. Brussels.
Lebeau, J. Souvenirs personnels et correspondance diplomatique
(1824-41). Ed.
Fr&on. Brussels. 1883.
Lipman, S. P. Nederlandsch constitutioneel archief van alle koninklijke
aanspraken en parlementaire adressen, 1813-63. 2 vols.
Amsterdam. 1846-64.
Reports
relating to the re-establishment of the fortresses in the Netherlands,
1824r-30. Ed. A. D. Jones. London. 1861.
Soelen, Verstolk van. Recueil de pieces diplomatiques relatives aux
affaires de la Hollande et de la Belgique, 1830-2. 3 vols.
Hague. 1831-3.
Thorbecke, J.
R. Brieven aan Groen v. Prinsterer, 1830-2. Amsterdam. 1873.
H. WORKS ON THE HISTORY OF THE PERIOD 1814-40.
A. Contemporary
Works.
Barthels, A. Les Flandres et la Revolution Beige. Brussels. 1836.
Bylandt, W. B. Verhaal van het oproer te Brussel, 25 Aug. 1830 en volg.
dagen, voornamelijk met betrekking tot mijn gehouden gedrag. The Hague. 1834.
Constant, B. Tableau politique du royaume des Pays-Bas. Paris. 1817.
Dagboek van het beleg der Citadel van Antwerpen. Milit. Spectator. 1863. i, 5. Froment, C. Coup d’ceil au royaume des
Pays-Bas. Ghent. 1833.
Gerlacbe, E. C. de. Histoire du royaume des Pays-Bas depuis 1814
jusqu’en 1830.
3 vols.
Brussels. 1842.
Gogel, 1. J. A. Memorien en correspondentien betrelck. den Staat van 's
Rijks geldmiddelen in 1820. Amsterdam. 1844.
Hallo, F. J. Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis der Niederlanden, 1830-7. 4
vols.
Amsterdam.
1831-7.
Hogendorp, G.
K. van. De Ontwikkeling, 1830-1. The Hague. 1831.
Keverberg, C. L. G. J., Baron de. Du Royaume des Pays-Bas. Origine,
developpement, crise actuelle, pieces justificatives. 2 vols. The Hague.
1834.
Kort verhaal van de voornaamste gebeurtenissen voorgevallen binnen Brussel,
benevens proclamation, adviesen en dagorders uitgekomen tusschen 25 Augustus en
2 September 1830, door een oogtuige. Amsterdam. 1830. Lastdrager, A. J.
Nieuwste geschiedenis v. Nederland in jaarlijksche overzigten (1815-38). 9
vols. Amsterdam. 1839-48.
• De 24
Artikelen ter scheiding van Nederland en Belgie. Amsterdam.
1839.
Lefevre de Becour, C. La Belgique et la revolution du Juillet. Paris.
1835. Libri-Bagnano, G. La ville rebelle, ou les Beiges au tribunal de
l’Europe. The Hague. 1831.
Meulen, J. B. v. d. Willem den koppigen, ingedrongen
koning der Nederlanden, aanleiding gevende tot het opstand der Belgen in 1830. 2 vols. Brussels. 1833. '
Moens, G. Considerations sur la revolution beige de 1830. Liege. 1836.
Munch, E. Ueber die Verwickelungen in den Niederlanden
vom Jahre 1828-30. Jahrb. der Geschichte. 1830. i, 332. ,
Die Sitzung der General-Staaten vom 1829-30.
Aletheia. 1830. ii, 113.
Versuch einer Geschichte der Regierung Konig
Willem I der Niederlande
und der Opposition in diesem Reiche. Allg. Polit.
Annalen. 1830. i, 227. iv, 271.
Nothomh, Baron J. B. Essai historique et politique sur la revolution
beige. 4th edn.
3 vols. Brussels. 1876.
Pays-Bas, les, sous l’administration de Guillaume d’Orange, 1815-40.
Revue Britannique. 1840. ii, 346.
Pletinckx, K. Souvenirs revolutionnaires. Brussels. 1857.
Potter, L. de. Revolution Beige, 1828 a 1839. Souvenirs personnels avec
des pieces a l’appui. 2 vols. Brussels. 1839.
Schets der militaire gebeurtennissen in Belgie in 1831. Milit. Spectator.
1833.
i, 49.
Siegenbeek, M. Geschiedenis der hurgerwapening in Nederland. Leiden. 1831. Souvenirs du Siege d’Anvers. (Milit. Spectator.) 1838. vi, 246.
Tiendagsche veldtogt, de (2-12 Aug. 183l), uit een krijskundig oogpunt
geschouwd. (Military Spectator.) 1833. i, 2.
Ungewitter, F. H. Geschichte der Niederlande und der Belgischen Revolution.
Leipzig.
1832.
White, C. The
Belgian Revolution. 2 vols. London. 1835.
Belgium and the Twenty-Four Articles. London.
1838.
B. Later Works.
Balau, S.,
Abbe. Soixante-dix ans d’histoire contemporaine de la
Belgique, 1816-34. Louvain. 1891.
Bavay, C. V. de. Histoire de la Revolution Beige de 1830. Brussels. 1873. Beaufort, W. H. de. De eerste
regeeringsjaren van Koning Willem I. Amsterdam. 1886.
Bergson, J. La Hollaude depuis 1815. Hev. des Deux Mondes. 1851. xii, 39. c. M. h. x. OH. xvi.
64
Boetzelaar, C. T. van. Schets der handelingen van de Londensche Conferentie
ter vereffening der geschillen tusschen Nederland en Belgie. Utrecht. 1866.
Boissevain, J. H. G. De Limburgsche questie. Tiel. 1848.
Bosch Kemper, J. de Staatkundige geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830. Met
letterkundige aanteekeningen en onuitgegevene stukken. 5 vols. Amsterdam.
1873-82.
Colenhrander, H. T. De Belgische Omwenteling. The Hague.
1905.
Hartog, L.
de. Van 1830 tot 1840. De Gids. 1875. iv, 177.
Huybrecht, P. A. Histoire politique et militaire de la Belgique, 1830-1.
Brussels. 1872.
Le regne de Guillaume I en Belgique. Rev.
Trimestrielle. Vol. xm, p. 232.
Hymans, L. Histoire politique et parlementaire de la Belgique de 1814 a
1830. Brussels. 1869.
Histoire parlementaire de la Belgique,
1831-80. 6 vols. Brussels. 1877-80.
Cinquante ans de la liberte. 4 vols. Brussels.
1881.
Juste, T. Histoire de la Belgique. 2 vols. Brussels. 1853.
Le soulevement de la Hollande en 1813 et la
fondation du royaume des Pays-
Bas. Brussels. 1870.
— La revolution beige de 1830, d’apres des doc. ined. Brussels. 1872.
Le Congres national de Belgique. 2 vols. Brussels. 1880.
Knoop, W. J. Herinneringen aan de Belgische omwenteling van 1830. Tijd-
spiegel. 1884, iii, 167, 229, 354.
1885, n, 68, 171, 261, 392.
Herinneringen aan de Belgische omwenteling van
1831. De Gids. 1857.
ii, 145.
Koopman, J. C. Zijner Majesteits Zeemagt voor Antwerpen, 1830-2. Utrecht. 1853.
Niellon, General C. Histoire des evenements militaires et des
conspirations orangistes de la revolution en Belgique de 1830 a 1833. Brussels. 1868. Nijhoff, D. C. Staatkundige geschiedenis
van Nederland. 2 vols. Zutphen.
1891-2.
Nuyens, W. J. Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk van 1810 tot op onze
dagen. 4 vols. Amsterdam. 1883-6.
Polimont, C. La Belgique depuis 1830 jusqu’en 1848. Brussels. 1852.
Thonissen, J. J. La Belgique sous le regne de Leopold Ier. 3
vols. Louvain.
1861.
La constitution beige annot£e. Brussels. 1879.
Vreede, G. W. Beschouwing van den loop der onderhandelingen over de
Scheiding van Holland en Belgie. Aanteekeningen. Prov. Utr. Genootschap.
1863-4.
Witkamp en Craandijk. Vereeniging en Schieding. Geschiedenis van Norrd-
Nederland en Belgie van 1813-80. Doesborgh. 1881.
Wiipperman, W. E. A. Geschiedenis van den Tiendagschen Veldtocht. Amsterdam.
1880.
*
C. Biographical
Works.
Abbink, J. J.
Leven van Koning Willem II. Amsterdam. 1849
Amoldi, J. van. Leven en Karakter-Schets van Koning Willem I. Zutphen.
1818.
Bas, F. de. Prins Frederik der Nederlanden. 4 vols. Schiedam. 1857-99.
Bosscha, J. Het leven van Willem den Tweede, Koning der Nederlanden, 1793-1849.
Amsterdam. 1852.
Brink, J. ter. Prins Frederik der Nederlanden. The Hague. 1881.
Camp, W. J, Leven en Krijgsbedrijven van D. H., Baron Chasse.
Hertogenbosch,
1849.
Chasse, de. M. de Gerlache. Revue Trimestrielle. Vol. xiv, p. 6.
Discailles, E. Charles Rogier d’apr&s des doc. ined. Brussels. 1892.
Gagern, H. von. Das Lehen des Generals F. v. Gagem. 3 vols. Leipzig.
1850-7. Gerrits, G. E. Leven en regeering van Koning Willem I. Amsterdam. 1848. Goblet, General A. J. Memoires historiques. 2 vols. Brussels.
1864.
Juste, T. Les fondateurs de la monarchie beige. 22 vols. Brussels.
1868-78. [Biographies.]
^
Alexandre Gendebien, membre du gouvernement
provisionnel et du Congres
national, d’apres doc. ined. 1789-1869. Brussels. 1877.
Souvenirs du Baron Nothomb, 1806—71. Brussels.
1882.
Leopold I, Roi des Beiges, d’apres des doc.
ined. 1793-1866.
2 vols.
Brussels.
1868.
Memoirs of Van de Weyer. Eng. transl. London. 1871.
Leopold I et Leopold II, leur vie et leur
regne. Brussels. 1872.
Koning, J. Leven van J. C. J. van Speijk. Hague. 1833.
Mees Az, G. Levenschets van G. K. Hogendorp. Amsterdam. 1864.
Thonissen, J. J. Vie du Comte Felix de Me'rode. Louvain.
1861.
I. UNPUBLISHED AUTHORITIES.
Of the vast
mass of material preserved in the various archives but a fraction has hitherto
been published. The Foreign Office papers at the Record Office are, of course,
of great interest. Besides the usual diplomatic correspondence, they include
very valuable detailed accounts of the political, social and economic
conditions and of the state of opinion in the countries included under the
heading “Eastern Question,” embodied in consular reports, etc. Most valuable
are the volumes marked F. O. Turkey. To and from Sir Stratford Canning (April
to December, 1832); F. O. Turkey. To and from Mr Mandeville (December, 1832 to
May, 1833); F. O. Turkey. To and from Lord Ponsonby (May, 1833 to 1841). The
important memorandum o Stratford Canning on the Egyptian Question, mentioned in
the text, is in F. O. Turkey. From Sir Stratford Canning (August to December,
1832); it is elaborately annotated in pencil (part already obliterated) in
Palmerston’s handwriting. References cannot possibly be given here in detail;
but special attention may be called to the despatch (No. 86) of Mandeville to
Palmerston, dated May 4, 1833, which gives the ultimate reasons why Sultan
Mahmud yielded on the question of the cession of Adana; to that of Lord
Ponsonby of August 27, 1833 (marked “separate and secret”), on the attitude of
the Sultan after Unkiar Skelessi towards Russia and Mehemet Ali, and Mahmud's
system of government; and to the secret despatch of Ponsonby, dated January 2,
1834, in which he reports his employment of the court jester to remonstrate
with the Sultan about his relations to Russia. Among the reports of dragomans,
consuls, etc. may be mentioned those of Kennedy (in Lord Ponsonby’s of May 24,
1832, No. 6), givng an interesting account of an interview with Ibrahim; of the
dragoman Alexander Pisani (in Lord Ponsonby’s of March 11, 1833, marked
“separate”), a most valuable memorandum of a long conversation with Ibrahim as
to his views and intentions; of Richard Wood (in Lord Ponsonby’s unnumbered
despatch of September 13, 1834) on the condition of Syria under Ibrahim, with a
description of his administrative system, containing also some details of the
battle of Konieh, the credit of the victory being ascribed to Suleiman Pasha
(Colonel Seve); of Henry Suter, vice-consul at Trehizond, and Consul Brant (in
Lord Ponsonby’s of July 8, 1834, No. 83) on Russian designs on the Euphrates
Valley; and the numerous reports of Consul Yeames from Odessa, which throw much
light on the internal situation in Russia, and on the military and other causes
which determined Russia’s attitude towards the Eastern Question (see especially
that enclosed in Lord Ponsonby’s of July 24, 1834, No. 97). Of great importance
are also the reports of the British consuls at Alexandria, especially those of
Colonel Campbell.
In the
British Museum (Add. mss. 25,663)
are copies of a curious correspondence of Jeremy Bentham with Mehemet Ali, of
the year 1828. Bentham urges the Pasha to declare his independence, to proclaim
a constitution (for which he volunteers suggestions), and to entrust the
education of his grandson Abhas to himself. The very forcible arguments adduced
in favour of independence may conceivably have had some effect.
II. PUBLISHED SOURCES.
For
Treaties, etc. see General Bibliography.
A. Bibliography.
Ibrahim-Hilmy,
Prince. Literature of Egypt and the Soudan. A bibliography from the earliest times
to the year 1885 inclusive. 2 vols. London. 1886.
B. Correspondence,
Speeches, Reports, eto.
No papers
relating to the situation in the Ottoman Empire were laid before Parliament
until the crisis of 1839, from which date the correspondence published is very
comprehensive. See Pari. Papers, 1839, t, 299: Papers relating to the
arrangement made between the Porte and Mehemet Ali, i.e. extracts from eight
despatches of Mandeville to Palmerston (between February 23, and May 4, 1833)
relating to the negotiations with IbraJbim at Kiutayeh; Pari. Papers, 1839, l, 213: Comr lunication- with Mehemet
Ali, i.e. despatches to and from Colonel Campbell, during 1838, on Mehemet
Ali’s intention to proclaim his independence; Pari. Papers, 1841, xxix, and
Sess. 2, vm: Correspondence relative to the Affairs of the Levant—two bulky
volumes of diplomatic despatches.
Many letters,
etc. are published in the biography of Lord Palmerston and other works
mentioned below. A very important letter by Palmerston on the Egyptian Question
of 1840, dated Jnly 17, 1843, and addressed to Sir John Cam Hobhouse (Lord
Broughton), and preserved among the Broughton papers in the British Museum
(Add. mss. 36,471, f. 211), was
published in the English Hist. Rev. for January, 1903; No. 69, vol. xviii.
Letters from
Alexandria, etc. of Count Prokesch-Osten, with others to him from Mettemich and
Gentz, are published by Count Anton Prokesch-Osten (the younger) in: Aus dem
Nachlasse des Grafen Prokesch-Osten; Briefwechsel mit Herm von Gentz und
Fiirsten Mettemich. 2 vols. (Vienna. 1881.) See also Mettemich’s Memoirs (cited
in the bibliography to Chapter I above).
Of special interest are the Briefe fiber Zustande und Begebenheiten der
Tfirkei ans den Jahren 1835 bis 1839 by Helmuth C. B. von Moltke (5th edn. Berlin,
1891); French translation, Lettres...snr l’Orient, by A. Marchand (Paris,
1877). Moltke was one of the Prussian officers engaged in the reform of the
Turkish army. He took part in the campaign of 1839-40 and was present at the
defeat of Nessib.
For political
speeches, besides Hansard’s Pari. Debates for England, see Discours
parlementaires de M. Thiers: ed. A. Calmon. 16 vols. Paris. 1879-89. The
critical debates on the Address in the French Chamber in November, 1840, are
reported very fully in The Times of that month. ■
As to the
Euphrates Valley expedition, see
Chesney, F.
R. Reports on the Navigation of the Euphrates, submitted to Government. London.
1833.
Narrative of the Euphrates
Expedition...carried on by order of the British
Government in
1835, 1836, 1837. London. 1868.
C. Histories,
Treatises, etc.
Of the
numerous books on the Egyptian Question published during, or soon after, the
critical period 1831-41, many are still very useful as the work of writers who
had personal knowledge of the events and countries described. On the diplomatic
side, however, they must of course be read with great caution.
Barker, J.,
Consul-General at Aleppo. Syria and Egypt‘under the last five Sultans of
Turkey; experiences during fifty years. 2 vols.
London. 1876.
Cadalvene, E. de, and B. J. de. L’Egypte et la Turquie de 1829 a 1836. 2
vols. Paris. 1836.
and Barrault, E. Histoire de la Guerre de
M£h£med-Ali contre la Porte
Ottomane, en Syrie et en Asie-Mineure (1831-3). Ouvrage enrichi de
cartes, de plans et de documens officiels. Paris. 1837. [Contains a fine
lithograph portrait of Ibrahim.]
Deux annees de 1’histoire
d’Orient, 1839-40. Paris. 1840. [Contains
documents: Ibrahim’s bulletins, etc.]
Cameron, D.
A. Egypt in the Nineteenth Century. London. 1898.
Cleron, J. O. B. de, Comte d’Haussonville. Histoire de la politique
exterieure du Gouvemement Francais, 1830-48. Paris. 1850. [Includes documents.]
Clot, A. B. (Clot Bey). Aperyu general sur l’J^gypte. Brussels. 1840.
Mehemet-Ali, Vice-Roi d’Egypte. Marseilles.
1862.
Cocheris, J. Situation Internationale de 1’lSgypte et du Soudan
(jnridique et politique). Paris. 1903. [Discusses the
significance of the “ hattisherifs ” of February 13, and June 1, 1841.]
Engelhardt, E. La Turquie et le Tauzimat, ou Histoire de Reformes dans
l’Empire Ottoman depuis 1826 jusqu’a nos jours. Paris. 1882.
Freycinet, C.
de. La Question d’Jigypte. Paris. 1905. [An admirable account of the diplomatic
developments, with many letters, etc.]
Gouin, E. L’Egypte au xixme Siecle. Histoire Militaire,
Politiqne, Anecdotique et Pittoresque de Mehemet-Ali, Ibrahim-Pacha,
Soliman-Pacha (Colonel Seve). Illustree de gravures peintes a l’aquarelle,
d’apres les originaux de M. J. A. Beaucd. Paris. 1846-8.
Hamont, P. N. L’Egypte sous Mehemet-Ali. Paris. 1843.
Jomard, E. F. Coup-d’oeil impartial sur l’etat present de l’l^gypte.
Paris. 1836.
fitudes gdographiques et historiques sur
l’Arabie...; suivis de la relation du
Voyage de Mohammed-Aly dans le Fazoql, avec des observations sur l’dtat
des affaires en Arabie et en ISgypte. Two maps. Paris. 1839.
[Included in the 2nd edn. of Mengin’s Histoire'.]
Macarthy, J. W. and Karathdodore, C. Relation officielle de la maladie
et de la mort du Sultan Mahmoud II, en reponse aux allegations pnbliees par MM.
de Cadalvene et E. Barrault. 1841. [This narrative, by Mahmud’s
doctors, contains interesting personal matter about the Sultan.]
Mengin, F. Histoire de l’JSgypte sous le gouvemement de Mohammed-Aly...
depuis le depart des Franijais jusqu’au 1823. Ouvrage enrichi de notes, par MM.
Langld et Jomard, etc. 2 vols, Paris. 1823-4.
Histoire sommaire de l’figypte sous le
gouvemement de Mohammed-Aly...
depuis 1’an 1823 a l’an 1839. Paris. 1839.
Mouriez, P. Histoire de Mehemet-Ali, Vice-Roi d’Egypte. 4
vols. Paris. 1857.
[Contains
original documents and many valuable notes.]
Napier, Sir
C. The War in Syria. London. 1842.
Prokesch-Osten,
Count A. (the elder). Erinnerungen aus Aegypten
und Klein-Asien.
3 vols. Vienna. 1829-31. [The writer was
Austrian agent in Alexandria.]
Mehmed-Ali, Vize-Konig von Aegypten. Aus
meinem Tagebuche. 1826-41.
Vienna. 1887.
Scott, C. R.
Rambles in Egypt and Candia; observations on the system of Mohammed Ali, etc.
London. 2 vols. 1837- St John, J. A. Egypt and Mehemet Ali. London. 1834.
Walpole, R.
Travels in various countries of the East, etc. London. 1820. (See as to
Massacre of the Mamelukes, p. 32.)
D. Biographies,
Memoirs, etc.
(Dalling and
Bulwer, Lord.) Bulwer, Sir H. L. E. The Life of H. J. Temple, Viscount
Palmerston; with selections from his Diaries and Correspondence.
3 vols. London. 1871-4.
Guizot, F. P. G. Memoires pour servir a l’histoire de mon temps. 8
vols. Paris. 1858-67.
Reid, S. J.
Life and Letters of the First Earl of Durham. 1792-1840.
2 vols. London. 1906.
Vingtrinier, A. Soliman-Pacha (Colonel Seve), G^n^ralissime des Armees
lllgyp- tiennes, ou, Histoire des Guerres de 1’Egypte de 1820 a 1860. Avec un
portrait. Paris. 1886.
I. ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES.
A. Archives.
At the
British Museum, London :
Place and
Bentham mss. and correspondence.
[A vast collection of valuable materials for history, first revealed in Graham
Wallas’ Life of Place.] Correspondence of Sir Robert Wilson (1807-30), especially
Add. mss. 30,111-5. Contains
valuahle correspondence of Brougham, Grey, Erskine and other leading Whigs, and
also of Radicals.
At the Record
Office, London :
Foreign
Office Department.
F. O. America 191-2 contain much information
about our Colonies and commerce. Despatch No. 3 in F. O. 192, dated May 31,
1824, comprises instructions from George Canning to Huskisson and Stratford
Canning. It is of enormous length but proportionate interest, has much
commercial information, and deals in masterly style with every phase of our
colonial policy.
F. O. Holland 140-52 detail the commercial
policy pursued towards the Continent.
B. Contemporary
Documents and Records of an Offioial Character.
Brougham and
Vaux, Henry, Lord. Speeches. Vols. i, n. 4 vols. London. 1857.
Canning, G.
Correspondence. Edited by E. J. Stapleton. 2 vols. London.
1887.
Speeches. Edited by R. Therry. Vols. m-vi.
London. 1836.
Castlereagh,
Viscount. Memoirs and Correspondence. Edited by Charles Vane, Marquess of
Londonderry. 3rd series. Vols. i-iv.
London. 1853.
Grey, C.,
Earl, Correspondence of William IV and. Edited by Henry, Earl Grey. 2 vols.
London. 1867.
Hansard’s
Parliamentary Debates. London. 1815-32.
Melbourne, W.
L., Viscount. Papers. Edited by Lloyd C. Sanders. London. 1889.
Parliamentary
Papers and Reports, 1815-32.
Wellington,
A., Duke of. Supplementary Despatches. Vols. i-vm. London. 1867.
Parliamentary Speeches. Edited by Lieut.-Col.
Gurwood. London. 1854.
C. Contemporary
Authorities, Diaries, Memoirs, and Private Correspondence.
Althorp, J.
C., Viscount. By Sir Denis Le Marchant. London. 1876.
Bentham, J.,
Memoirs of. By John Bowring. Vols. x and xi of complete edition of Bentham’s
works. Edinburgh. 1843.
Brougham and
Vaux, Henry, Lord. Memoirs of his own times. Edinburgh. 1871. Buckingham and
Chandos, Duke of. Memoirs of the Regency. 2 vols. London. 1856.
Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 2 vols.
London. 1859.
Canning, G.,
Political Life. By A. G. Stapleton. 3 vols. London. 1831.
Life and Times of. By A. G. Stapleton. London.
1859.
2*irtwright,
J., Major. Life and Correspondence. Edited by F. D. Cartwright. London. 1826.
Colchester,
C. A., Lord. Diary and Correspondence. Edited by Charles, Lord Colchester. 3
vols. London. 1861.
Creevey, T.
Papers. Edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell. 2 vols. 3rd edn. London.
1905.
Croker, J. W.
Correspondence and Diary. Edited by Louis J. Jennings. 2nd edn. 3 vols. London.
1885.
Ellenborough,
Lord. Political Diary. Edited by Charles, Lord Colchester. London.
1881.
Greville, C.
G. Journal of reigns of George IV and William IV. Edited by Henry Reeve.
London. 1888.
Grey, C.,
second Earl. Some account of his life and opinions, by General Charles Grey.
London. 1861.
Correspondence with Princess Lieven. Edited by
Gny le Strange. Vols. i, n.
London. 1890.
Herries, J.
C., Memoir of. Edited by Edward Herries. London. 1880.
Holland,
Lord. Further Memoirs. Edited by Lord Stavordale. London. 1905. Hunt, H.
Memoirs by himself. London. 1820.
Trial of H. H. State Trials, xxxn. 1820. ‘
Melbourne, W.
L., Viscount. Memoirs. Edited by W. M. Torrens. London. 1890.
Palmerston,
H., Lord. Life. By Lord Dalling. Vols. i and ii.
London. 1870. Peel, Sir R. Private Papers. Edited by C. Parker. 3 vols.
London. 1891-9. Sidmouth, H. A., Lord. Life. By Dean Pellew. Vols. ii and hi.
London. 1847.
II. SECONDARY AUTHORITIES AND SUBSIDIARY WORKS.
A. General
Wores, covering the whole Period.
Brodrick, G.
C. and Fotheringham, J. K. Political History of England. VoL xi (1801-37).
London. 1906.
Martineau, H.
History of the Thirty Years’ Peace (1816-46). 4 vols. London. 1877.
Walpole, Sir
S. History of England from the conclusion of the Great War.
6 vols. London. 1890. Vols. i-iu.
B. Biographies.
Bentham, J. Life. By C. M. Atkinson. London. 1905.
Canning, G.
Life. By F. H. Hill. London. 1887.
Life. By H. W. V. Temperley. London. 1905.
Castlereagh,
Lord. Life, and of Sir Charles Stewart. By Sir Archibald Alison.
London. 1861.
Cobhett, W.
Life. By B. I. Carlile. London. 1904.
Durham, J. G.
Lambton, Earl of. Life and Letters. By Stuart J. Reid. London.
1906.
Mill, J.
Life. By Alexander Bain. London. 1882.
Place, F.
Life. By Graham Wallas. London. 1891.
Russell,
Earl. Life. By Spencer Walpole. 2 vols. London. 1898.
Wellington,
A., Duke of. Life. By Sir Herbert Maxwell. 3rd edn. London. 1900.
C. Works
dealing with the Rise and Fall op Political Parties.
Harris, W.
History of the Radical Party in Parliament. London. 1885.
Kebbel, T. E.
History of Toryism. London. 1886.
Kent, C. B.
R. The English Radicals. London. 1899.
Lewis, Sir G.
C. Essays on the Administrations of Great Britain. Edited by Sir Edmund Head.
London. 1864.
Roebuck, J.
A. History of the Whig Party. 2 vols. London. 1852.
D. Political
Philosophy of the Period.
Beccaria, C., Marquis. Dei Delitti e delle pene. 6
vols. Florence. 1830.
Translated by
J. A. Farrer. London. 1886. bentham, J. Works. Edited by John Bowring. Vols.
i—vi. Edinburgh. 1843. Birks, T. R. Modern Utilitarianism. London. 1874.
Coleridge, S.
T. The Friend. Essays to aid in the formation of fixed principles in politics,
morals, and religion. London. 1904.
Dicey, A. V.
Relations between Law and Public Opinion in England in the Nineteenth Century.
London. 1905.
Halevy, E. La formation du radicalisme philosophique. Paris. 1901-4.
Macaulay, T. B., Lord. Articles on James Mill and
Utilitarianism. Edinburgh Review, March—June, October, 1829.
Mill, James.
Essay on Government. Encyclopaedia Britannica. London. 1820. Mill, John Stuart.
Articles on Bentham and Coleridge in “Dissertations and Discussions.” Vols. ii,
m. London. 1859-75.
Stephen, L.
The English Utilitarians. Vols. i, n. London. 1900.
E. The
Reform Movement.
(i) Account of the Reform Agitation.
Grego, J.
History of Parliamentary Elections in Old Times. London. 1886. Hobhouse, J. C.
Diary privately printed. Extracts in Edinburgh Review. Vol.
oxxxin.
Edinburgh. 1871.
Molesworth,
W. N. History of England. Vol. i. London. 1874.
Porritt, E.
and A. G. The Unreformed House of Commons. 2 vols. Cambridge. 1903.
(ii) Literature and Pamphlets.
Alison, Sir
A. Reform. Essays. Vol. i, pp. 1-71. London. 1850.
Bentham, J.
Plan of Parliamentary Reform in a Catechism. London. 1818. (Broughton, Lord.)
Hobhouse, J. C. A trifling mistake in Lord Erskine’s defence. London. 1819.
Cartwright,
Major J. Comparison, Mock Reform, Half Reform, Constitutional Reform. London.
1810.
Grey, H., 3rd
Earl. Parliamentary Reform. London. 1866.
Grote, G.
Essentials of Parliamentary Reform. In Minor Works, ed. A. Bain, pp. 1-55.
London. 1873.
Macaulay, T.
B., Lord. Speeches on Parliamentary Reform (March 2, Dec. 16, 1831). London.
1870.
Reports from
Parliamentary Committees on Elections at Penryn, Barnstaple, Grampound,
Worcester, Camelford. Vol. iv. London. 1819.
Roake and
Varty. Twenty-five Pamphlets on Reform. London. 1832.
Russell, Lord
J. Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution. New
edition. London. 1873.
F. Economic,
Social, and Colonial History.
Browning, G.
Domestic and financial conditions of Great Britain. London. 1834. Cato Street
Conspiracy. Trial of Thistlewood, etc. Proceedings reported by W. B. Gnrney.
London. 1820.
Cobbett, W.
Rural Rides. Edited by P. Cohbett. London. 1885.
Held, A. and Knapp, G. F. Zwei Bucher zur socialen Geschichte Englands. Leipzig.
1881.
Hertz, G. B.
The Old Colonial System. Manchester. 1905.
Huskisson, W.
Speeches. 3 vols. London. 1831.
Levi, L.
History of British Commerce. 2nd edn. London.
1880.
Levy, H. Entstehung und Ruckgang des landwirtschaftlichen Grossbetriebes in
England. Berlin.
1904.
Report on the
Bank of England resuming Cash payments. Parliamentary Reports, m. London. 1819.
Reports.
Select Committee on Agriculture. Parliamentary Reports. Vol. ix. London. 1821.
Committee on Agricultural Distress. Parliamentary Reports. Vol. v. London.
1822.
Select
Committee to inquire into Mendicity and Vagrancy (1815-16). Parliamentary
Reports. London. 1816.
See
also Bibliographies to Chapters XIX, XX, XXI and XXIL
I. MANUSCRIPT SOURCES.
A. Irish.
A number of
important documents relating to the Catholic Association are preserved in the
Record Tower at Dublin Castle. They are calendared in the Official Index under
headings (State of the Country, R. C. Claims, R. C. Association, R. C. Clergy),
or in the Supplementary Index under the years to which they belong. Amongst
these papers are verbatim reports of meetings, letters from informers and
official reporters, reports of military officers, police inspectors, etc. They
throw considerable light npon the Irish movement during the years 1805-29. Papers
of an earlier date are kept at the Public Record Office, in the Four Courts,
and have been more generally utilised by Irish historians, especially by the
late W. E. H. Lecky.
Reference has
also been made to a manuscript diary of the years 1828-30 which is now in the
possession of Professor Wardell of Trinity College, Dublin. The author (G. H.
Ross-Lewin), who was at Ross Hill and Kilkee, co. Clare, during Sept and Oct.
1828, supplies some interesting details as to the state of the country.
B. English.
The mss. of the British Museum contain many
papers relating to the Catholics of England. Of those touching the Emancipation
movement the following may be mentioned: Stowe mss.
No. 121 and Add. mss. 28,252
(negotiations of 1719 between Craggs and the Catholics); Add. mss. 6402, fol. 119 (order to enforce
the laws against R. C.’s in 1743); ib. 33,053, fol. 298 (case of the R. C.
merchants in London, 1760); ib. 5811, fol. 127 (the clamour against the R. C.’s
in 1767); ib. 5826 and 6400 (correspondence of Alban Butler with W. Cole,
1766-7); ib. 28,252 (miscellaneous tracts and papers); ib. 5798 A. B. foil.
369,420 (proceedings of 1780 in House of Lords); ib. 7961-2 (the Three Blue
Books of the R. C. Committee and their original minute-book 1782-92); ib.
14,422 (Letter of Charles Butler to the Vicars Apostolic; with the replies of
the Universities of the Sorbonne, Louvain, etc. to certain questions); ib.
25,127-9 (letter-books of C. Butler 1808-18).
The Hardwicke
Papers (in the Add. mss.) contain
a number of papers relating to the Irish Catholics in the years 1801-6; also
some letters of Sir Robert Peel to Lord Hardwicke between 1814 and 1829.
II. NEWSPAPERS.
The best
collection of Irish newspapers is that at the Chief Secretary's Office, Dublin
Castle. The Dublin Evening Post, the Dublin Chronicle and the Freeman’s Journal
are the most useful for the history of the Catholic agitation between 1823 and
1829.
III. PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES, REPORTS, STATUTES,
ETC.
Commons,
Journals of the House of, of the Kingdom of Ireland (1613-1800). Dublin.
1796-1800.
Parliamentary
Register, the; or, History of the proceedings and debates of the House of
Commons of Ireland (1781-95). 15 vols. Dublin. 1784-95.
A full and
accurate report of the debates in the Parliament of Ireland in the session
1793. Dublin. 1793.
Lords, Irish,
House of, Journal of.the, 1634-1800. Dublin. 1779-1800.
Parliamentary
History of England (to 1803). 36 vols. London. 1806-20. Parliamentary Debates,
the, 1st and 2nd series (1803-30). 66 vols. London. 1812-30.
Mirror, the,
of Parliament. Ed. J. H. Barrow, 1828-9. 5 vols. London. 1828-9. Protests of
the Lords, a complete collection of, with historical introductions. Ed. J. E.
Thorold Rogers. 3 vols. Oxford. 1875.
Report of
Committee of Secrecy on the papers presented to the House of Commons by the Rt.
Hon. Lord Castlereagh. London. 1799.
Two reports
of the Commons Committee of Secrecy. London. 1801.
Report of
Commons’ Committee on the nature and extent of the disturbances in the
districts of Ireland now subject to the provisions of the Insurrection Act.
London. 1824.
Report of
Commons’ Committee on the same subject. London. 1825.
Report of
Lords’ Committee on the same subject. London. 1825.
Statutes at
Large passed in the parliaments held in Ireland. Dublin. 1765-1801. Statutes at
Large (preface by O. Ruffhead). London. 1769-1800.
Statutes of
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IV- PAMPHLETS
AND SPEECHES, ETC. RELATING TO THE CATHOLIC MOVEMENT.
Address, the,
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Dublin. 1810.
Address to
the Roman Catholics of Ireland on the propriety of an immediate petition for
Emancipation. By an English Roman Catholic. Dublin. 1809.
Burke,
Edmund. Works and Correspondence of. 12 vols. Boston, U.S. 1865-7. Butler, C.
Letter on the proposed repeal of the penal laws against Irish Catholics.
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Cranmer, R.
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Declaratio
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Doyle, James
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Letters on the State of Ireland. By J. K. L.
1825.
Ensor, G.
Lachrymae Hibemicae. 1822.
Faction
unmasked; or, A letter to the Roman Catholics of Ireland on the conduct of
certain men who compose the Catholic junta. Dublin. 1815.
For our
religion and laws: address to the electors of Great Britain. London. 1807.
Grattan, H.
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vols. London. 1822.
Hippisley,
Sir J. C. Speech on seconding motion of Grattan to refer the petition of the
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Lawless, J.
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constitution. Dublin. 1753.
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appointing Catholic bishops in Ireland. Buckingham. 2 vols. 1810-13.
O’Leary, A.
Remarks on the Rev. John Wesley’s letter. 1780.
Peel, Sir R.
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V. LEGAL WORKS AND EFFECTS OF PENAL LAWS.
Anstey, T. C.
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The Queen’s Supremacy considered in its
relation with the Roman Catholic
Church in
England. London. 1850.
Berington, J.
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London. 1780.
Butler, C.
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Reformation. 3 vols. London. 1822.
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Roman Catholics and of the Laws
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their relief. London. 1793.
Cawley, W.
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Gibson, E.
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Howard. Cases
on the Popery Laws. 1775.
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service of France. Dublin. 1845.
Scully, D. A
statement of the penal laws. In Ireland’s Grievances Political and Statistical.
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State Trials.
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Stephen, Sir
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VI. WORKS DESCRIPTIVE OF IRELAND 1770—1840.
Beaumont, G.
de. Ireland, social, political, religious. Edited by W. C. Taylor.
2 vols. London.
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Bonn, M. J. Die Englische Kolonisation in Irland. Vol. n. Stuttgart. 1906.
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View of society and manners in the north of
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Glassford, J.
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Macartney,
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kingdom. 1773.
Martin, R. M.
Ireland before and after the union. Dublin. 1848.
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O’Driscol, J.
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Otway, C.
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Tighe, R. S.
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Young,
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VII. HISTORIES AND TREATISES.
{Works
marked with an asterisk contain documents of importance.)
Amherst, W.
J. History of Catholic Emancipation, etc. 1771-1820. 2 vols. London. 1886.
Barrington,
Sir J. Historic Anecdotes of Ireland. 2 vols. London. 1833.
Rise
and Fall of the Irish Nation. Paris. 1833.
Brenan, M. J.
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Bryce, J. Two
Centuries of Irish History, 1691-1870. With Introduction by James Bryce, M.P.
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Canning, Hon.
A. S. 6. Revolted Ireland, 1798 and 1803. London. 1886. Cobbett, William.
History of the Regency and Reign of George IV. London. 1830. Connell, A. K. The
Irish union. London. 1888.
*Ciisack, M.
F. The Liberator, his life and times. London. 1872.
Daunt,
W. J. O’N. Ireland and her agitators. 1867
Eighty-five years of Irish History. London. 1886.
Detail of
Facts relating to Ireland for the last forty years. Dublin. 1822.
Froude, J. A.
The English in Ireland in the eighteenth century. 3 vols. 1872-4. Ingram, T. D.
History of the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland. Westminster.
1890.
Lecky, W. E.
H. A history of England in the eighteenth century. 8 vols. London. 1878-90.
Democracy and liberty. 2 vols. London. 1899.
MacCarthy, J.
H. Ireland since the union. London. 1887.
MacNeven, W.
J. Pieces of Irish history illustrative of the condition of the Catholics of
Ireland, of the united Irishmen, etc. New York. 1807. MacNevin, T. History of
the Volunteers of 1782. Dublin. 1845.
Madden, D. O.
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Ireland and its rulers since 1829. London.
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Madden, R. R.
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The United Irishmen. Dublin. 1858.
History of Irish periodical literature from
the end of the seventeenth to the
middle of the
nineteenth century. London. 1867.
Mullalla, J.
A view of Irish Affairs. Dublin. 1795.
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J. C. History of the Irish brigades in the service of France.
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Palliser, F.
W. The Irish rebellion of ’98. London. 1898.
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* History of Ireland from its union with
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Sheil, R. L.
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VIII. BIOGRAPHIES, MEMOIRS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.
{Works marked with an asterisk contain documents of importance.)
Bell, R. Life
of George Canning. London. 1846.
Beresford, W.
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years of the Irish Parliament. Selected and edited by his grandson.
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H. and Gleig, G. R. History of the life of Arthur, Duke of Wellington. 4 vols.
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Buckley, M.
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Lord, Diary and correspondence of. Edited by C., Lord Colchester.
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♦Cornwallis
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Croker
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Dunlop, R.
Life of Henry Grattan. London. 1889.
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W. J. Life, times, and correspondence of Dr Doyle, Bp of Kildare.
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* Correspondence of Daniel O’Connell.
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vols. London. 1888.
Life, times, and contemporaries of Lord
Cloncurry. Dublin. 1855.
♦Gilbert,
J. T. Documents relating to Ireland, 1795-1804. Dublin. 1893. Gordon, Lord
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Hamilton, J.
A. Life of O’Connell. London. 1888.
Hardy, F.
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Kenyon
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Carlisle
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Husenbeth, F.
C. Life of J. Milner, Bishop of Castabala. Dublin. 1862.
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La Faye, J. de. O’Connell. Paris. 1896.
Lecky, W. E.
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M. (the younger). Bishop Doyle. London. 1896.
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♦Milner,
J. Supplementary memoirs of the English Catholics. London. 1820. Nemours, Godre. Daniel O’Connell. Paris. 1893.
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W. Collectanea Politica. 3 vols. Dublin. 1803-4.
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Watson, R.
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Webb, A.
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Wills, J.
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Carlyle, T.
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II. SECONDARY AUTHORITIES.
A. General.
Ashton, J.
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Atlay, J. B.
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Bagehot, W.
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Kent, C. The
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Ashley, E.
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Blomfield, A.
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Hardcastle,
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Hardy, T. D.
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Hill, G. B.
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Hill, R. D.
Memoir of M. D. Hill. London. 1878.
Holland, S.,
Lady. Memoir and Letters of Sydney Smith. 2 vols. London. 1855. Lee, Sidney.
Queen Victoria, a Biography. London. 1902.
Marchant, Sir
D. Le. Viscount Althorp. London. 1876.
Martin, Sir
T. Life of the Prince Consort. Vol. i. London. 1874.
Life of Lord Lyndhurst. London. 1883.
Maxwell, Sir
H. Life of Wellington. 2 vols. London. 1899.
Morley, J.
Life of Richard Cobden. Vol. i. London. 1881.
Life of W. E. Gladstone. Vol. i. London. 1903.
Myers, E.
Lord Althorp. London. 1890.
Parker, C. S.
Sir Robert Peel. Vol. ii. London.
1899.
Reid, S. J.
Lord John Russell. London. 1895.
Life and Times of Sydney Smith. London. 1884.
Rosebery, A.
P., Lord. Sir Robert Peel. London. 1899.
Sadler, M.
T., Life of. Anon. London. 1842.
Scrope, G. P.
Life of Lord Sydenham. London. 1843.
Sprigge, S.
S. Life of Thomas Wakley. London. 1897.
Stockmar, E.
von. Memoirs of Baron Stockmar. Engl. Tr. 2 vols. London. 1872. Thursfield, J.
R. Peel. London. 1891.
Torrens, W.
M. Life of Sir James Graham. 2 vols. London. 1873.
Memoirs of Lord Melbourne. 2 vols. London.
1878.
Trevelyan, G.
O. Life of Lord Macaulay. 2 vols. London. 1876.
Walpole, Sir
S. Life of Lord John Russell. Vol. i. London. 1891.
C. The
Workinq Classes.
“
Alfred.” History of the Factory Movement. 2 vols. London. 1857.
Brentano, L. Die Euglische Chartistenbewegung. Preussische Jahrbiicher. VoL
XXXIII.
Bucher, L. The Chartists. Kleine Schriften. Stuttgart. 1893.
Gonner, E. C.
K. Early History of Chartism. Eng. Hist. Review, October, 1889. Hodder, E. Life
of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. London. 1887.
Holyoake, G.
J. History of Cooperation. Vol. i. London. 1875.
Life of J. R. Stephens. London. 1881.
Hutchins, B.
L. History of Factory Legislation. London. 1903.
Jephson, H.
The Platform. Vol. n. London. 1892.
Jones, L.
Life of Owen. Ed. W. C. Jones. 2 vols. London. 1890.
Linton, W. J.
James Watson. New Haven. 1879.
Sargant, W.
L. Robert Owen and his Social Philosophy. London. 1860. Tildsley, J. L. Die Chartistenbewegung. Jena.
1898.
Wakefield, C.
M. Life of Attwood. London. 1885.
Wallas,
Graham. Life of Francis Place. London. 1898.
Webb, S. and
B. History of Trade Unionism. London. 1894.
D. Ireland.
Blackburne,
E. Life of Francis Blackbume. London. 1874.
Maguire, J.
F. Life of Father Mathew. London. 1863.
Moore, H. V.
An Unwritten Chapter in the History of Education. London. 1904. O’Brien, R. B.
Thomas Drummond. London. 1889.
Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland. Vol. i.
London, (n. d.)
J’Flanagan,
J. R. Lives of the Irish Chancellors. Vol. n. London. 1870. O’Reilly, B. Life
of Archbishop MacHale. 2 vols. New York. 1890.
Porter, J. L.
Life and Times of Dr Cooke. London. 1871.
Whately, E.
J. Life of Archbishop Whately. Vol. i. London. 1866.
Wyse, W.
Memoirs of Sir Thomas Wyse. Waterford. 1901.
See
also Bibliographies to Chapters XVIII and XIX.
I. BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
Bryce, G.
Critical Essay on the sources of information for the history of Canada,
1763-1867. In J. Winsor’s History of America. Vol. vm. London.
1889.
Faribault, G. B. Catalogue d’ouvrages sur l’histoire de l’Amerique et en
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Gagnon, P. Essai de Bibliographic Canadienne. Quebec. 1895.
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Lamed, J. N.
(Editor). The Literature of American History. Part v: Canada. London. 1902.
Morgan, H. J.
Bibliotheca Canadensis. Ottawa. 1867.
II. DOCUMENTS.
Acts of the
General Assemhly of New Brunswick, 1786-1805. St John. 1805.
The Revised
Acts and Ordinances of Lower Canada. Montreal. 1845.
British and
Foreign State Papers. Vols. i-xxix. 1814-41.
Index Vol. xliij.
Canadian Archives,
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Census and
Statistical Returns of Lower Canada, 1831. Quebec. 1831.
Collection of
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Doucet, N. B.
Fundamental Principles of the laws of Canada. Text and literal translation of
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Hodgins, J.
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Imperial
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Correspondence
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1839.
Correspondence
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Correspondence
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An account of the proceedings of the inhabitants
of Quebec. London. 1775.
Additional Papers. London. 1776.
The Canadian Freeholder, a dialogue. 3 vols.
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A
review of the government and grievances of the province of Quebec since
the Conquest. 1788.
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l’histoire du Canada. 9 vols. Montreal. 1859-80.
Ontario,
Second Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of. By Alexander
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(2) Historical documents published under the
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Report of the
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III. CONTEMPORARY AUTHORITIES.
A. Colonial
Policy.
Brougham,
Henry, Lord. Colonial Policy of the European Powers. 2 vols. Edinburgh. 1803.
Buller,
Charles. Responsible Government for the Colonies. London. 1840. Egerton, H. E.
Selected Speeches of Sir William Molesworth. London. 1903. Merivale, H.
Lectures on Colonization. 2 vols. London. 1841-2. 2nd edn. 1861. Wakefield, E.
G. View of the Art of Colonisation. London. 1849.
B. The
Provinces in general.
Affairs of
the Canadas, the. In a series of letters. By a Canadian. London. 1837.
Anderson, D. Canada: or a view of the importance of the British American
Provinces. London. 1814.
Backwoods of
Canada, the. (Library of Entertaining Knowledge.) London. 1836.
Bell, W.
Hints to Emigrants. Edinburgh. 1824.
Bliss, H.
Statistics of the Trade, Industry, and Resources of Canada. London. 1833.
An Essay on the Reconstruction of Her
Majesty"s Government in Canada.
London. 1839.
Bonnycastle,
R. H. Excursions in Canada. 2 vols. London. 1841.
Bouchette, J.
The British Dominions in North America. 2 vols. London. 1831. Buckingham, J. S.
Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and other British Provinces. London. 1843.
Du Calvet, P.
The Case of Peter Du Calvet, Esq. of Montreal.... London. 1784. Campbell, P.
Travels in the interior inhabited parts of North ■ America. Edinburgh.
1793.
Canadian
Controversy, the; its origin, nature and merits. London. 1838. Douglas, H.
Considerations on the value of the British North American Provinces. London.
1831.
Gore, M.
Observations on the disturbances in Canada. London. 1838.
Gray, H.
Letters from Canada during 1806-8. London. 1809.
Haliburton,
T. C. The Bubbles of Canada. London. 1839.
A
Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham. London. 1839.
Hall, B.
Travels in North America, 1827-8. Edinburgh. 1829.
Hall, F.
Travels in Canada and the United States, 1816-7. London and Boston. 1818-9.
Head, Sir F.
B. An address to the House of Lords against the Canada Reunion Bill. London.
1840.
Head, G.
Forest Scenes...in North America. London. 1829,
Heriot, G.
Travels through the Canadas. London. 1807.
Horton, R. W.
Ireland and Canada. London. 1839.
Lambert, J.
Travels through Canada and the United States, 1806-8. London.
1814.
McTaggart, J
Three Years in Canada, 1826-8. 2 vols. London. 1829.
Murray, H.
Historical and Descriptive Account of British America. 3 vols.
London.
1839-40.
Picken, A.
The Canadas. London. 1832.
Preston, T.
R. Three Years’ Residence in Canada, 1837-9. London. 1840. Proceedings between
Sir Guy Carleton...and Peter Livius, Esq. By Peter Livius. London 1779.
Roebuck, J.
A. Existing difficulties in the government of the Canadas. London. 1836.
Rolph, T. A,
Comparative advantages between the United States and Canada. London. 1842.
Shortt, W. T.
P Journal of the Principal Occurrences during the Siege of Quebec, 1775-6.
London. 1824.
Smith,
W. History of Canada to 1796. 2 vols.
Quebec. 1815.
Strachan, J.
Remarks on Emigration from the United Kingdom. London. 1827. Talbot, E. A. Five
Years’ Residence in Canada. London. 1824.
Theller, E. A
Canada in 1837-8. 2 vols. Philadelphia. 1841.
Weld, I.
Travels in North America, 1795-7. 2 vols. London. 1800.
C. Lower
Canada.
Bouchette, J.
A topographical description of the Province of Lower Canada. London. 1815.
A topographical dictionary of the Province of
Lower Canada. London'. 1832.
Christie, R.
Memoirs of the administration of Lower Canada...1807-15. Quebec.
1818.
Fleming, J.
British Settler’s Political Annals of Lower Canada. Montreal. 1828. Sansom, J.
Sketches of Lower Canada. New York. 1817.
Stuart, A. An
account of the endowments for Education in Lower Canada and of the
legislative...acts for the advancement thereof from 1763 to the present time.
London. 1838.
D. Upper
Canada.
Bettridge, W.
A brief history of the Church of England in Upper Canada. London. 1838.
Boulton,
D’Arcy. Sketch of Upper Canada. With Map. London. 1805. Boulton, H. J. A short
sketch of the Province of Upper Canada. London. 1826. Doyle, M. Hints on
Emigration to Upper Canada. Dublin. 1834.
Dunlop, W.
Statistical Sketches of Upper Canada. London. 1832.
Gourlay, R.
F. Statistical Account of Upper Canada. 2 vols. London. 1822.
Head, Sir F.
B. Narrative of the Government in Upper Canada. Toronto and London. 1838, 1839.
Howison, J.
Sketches of Upper Canada, 1818-20. Edinburgh. 1821.
Jackson, J.
M. View of the Political Situation of the Province of Upper Canada. London.
1809.
Magrath, T.
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Neilson, J.
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geographical view of...Upper Canada and promiscuous remarks upon the
Government. Philadelphia, 1813.
Smyth, D. W.
A short topographical description of Upper Canada. Loudon.
1813.
Strachan, J.
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E. The
Maritime Provinces.
Anspach, L.
A. History of Newfoundland. London. 1827.
Baillie, T.
An account of the Province of New Brunswick. London. 1832. Bonnycastle, R. H.
Newfoundland in 1842. 2 vols. London. 1842.
Cooney, R. A
Compendious History of the Northern Parts of New Brunswick.... Halifax. 1832.
Haliburton,
T. C. Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia. 2 vols. Halifax. 1829.
The Clockmaker, The Attache, Letter Bag of the
Great Western, The Old
Judge: [for
pictures of social conditions in the maritime provinces]. Hollingsworth, S. The
present state of Nova Scotia. 2nd edn. Edinburgh. 1787. Llewellin, J. L. A
faithful account of Prince Edward’s Isle. 1834.
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Martin, R. M.
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Moorsom, W.
Letters from Nova Scotia. London. 1830.
Reeves, J.
History of the Government of Newfoundland. London. 1793. Stewart, J. An account
of Prince Edward’s Isle. London. 1806.
IV. LATER WRITERS.
A. Colonial
Policy.
Adderley, C.
B. On colonial policy and history. London. 1869.
Egerton, H.
E. A short history of British colonial policy. London. 1897.
Grey, Henry,
Earl. Colonial policy of Lord John Russell’s administration. London. 1853.
Leroy-Beaulieu, P. De la colonisation chez les peuples modernes. 5th
edn. Paris. 1902.
B. The
Provinces in general.
Bethune, A.
N. The Clergy Reserve Question in Canada. London. 1853.
Bibaud, Max. Les institutions de l’histoire du Canada. Montreal. 1855.
Biband, Michel. Histoire du Canada sous la domination anglaise. Montreal.
1844.
Bigsby, J. J.
The Shoe and Canoe. 2 vols. London. 1850.
Bourinot, J.
G. The Constitutional History of Canada...to 1888. Montreal. 1888.
Local Government in Canada. Baltimore. 1887.
Canada. (Story of the Nations Series.) London.
1897.
Canada under British Rule, 1760-1900.
Cambridge. 1900.
Bradshaw, F.
Self-government in Canada. London. 1903.
[Bryce, G.]
Remarkable History of the Hudson’s Bay Company. London. 1887.
Bryce, G.
Short History of the Canadian People. London. 1887.
Canniff, W.
Canadian Nationality: its growth and development. Toronto. 1875. Carrier, L. N. Les ^v^nements de 1837-8. Quebec.
1877.
Coffin, V.
The Province of Quebec and the Early American Revolution. Wisconsin.
1896.
David, L. O.
Les Patriotes de 1837-8. Montreal. 1884.
Dawson, S. E.
North America. Vol. i. (Stanford’s Compendium.) London.
1897.
Denison, E.
T. Soldiering in Canada. London. 1900.
Dugas, G.
L’Ouest Canadien...jusqu’a l’ann^e 1822. Montreal. 1896.
Duncan, D. M.
The story of the Canadian people. Toronto.
1904.
Ferland, J. B. A. Cours d’Histoire du Canada. 2 parts. Quebec. 1861-5.
Garneau, F. X. L’Histoire du Canada. 3 vols. 4th edn. Montreal.
1882. Greswell, W. P. History of Canada. Oxford.' 1890.
Haw, W.
Fifteen Years in Canada. Edinburgh. 1850.
Head, Sir F.
B. The Emigrant. London. 1846.
Hopkins, J.
C. Progress of Canada in the century. London. 1902.
(Editor). Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the
Country. 5 vols. Toronto.
1898.
Kingsford, W.
History of Canada (1608-1841). 10 vols. Toronto. 1888-98.
The Canadian Canals, their history and cost.
Toronto. 1865.
Lindsey, C.
The Clergy Reserves: their history and present position. Toronto.
1851.
MacMullen, J.
History of Canada. 2nd edn. London. 1869.
McCord, F. A.
Handbook of Canadian dates. Montreal. 1888.
Moodies, S.
Roughing it in the Bush. London. 1854. New York. 1877. Munro, J. E. C. The
Constitution of Canada. Cambridge. 1889.
Parker, G.
and Bryan, C. G. Old Quebec. London. 1903.
Quarterly
Review, vols. lxjii (1839), p. 223
sqq., and lxiv (1839), p. 462 sqq.
Articles
referring to Lord Durham and Sir F. B. Head.
Read, D. B.
The Canadian rebellion of 1837. Toronto. 1896.
Roberts, C.
G. D. History of Canada. London. 1898.
Ryerson,
Egerton. The Loyalists of America. 2 vols. Toronto. 1880.
Sharp, J.
Sketches of Canadian Life, Lay and Ecclesiastical. London. 1849. Short, A.
Early History of Canadian Banking and Currency and Exchange after the Conquest.
Toronto. 1896.
Todd, A.
Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies. London. 1894. Turcotte, L. P. Invasion du Canada...en 1775-6. Quebec. 1876.
Tyne, C. H. van. The Loyalists in the American
Revolution. New York. 1902. Walker, B. E. History of Banking in Canada. New
York. 1896.
Warburton,
Major G. D. Hochelaga, or England in the New World. 2 vols.
London.
1846. .
Watson, S. J.
Constitutional History of Canada. Toronto. 1874.
Willson,
Beetles. The Great Company. 2 vols. London. 1900.
C. Lower
Canada.
Barthe, J. G. Souvenirs d’un demi-siecle. Montreal. 1885.
Bedard, T. P. Histoire de Cinquante Ans (1791-1841). Quebec.
1869.
Christie, R.
A history of the late Province of Lower Canada. 6 vols. Quebec. 1849-55.
Day, C. M.
Pioneers of the Eastern Townships. Montreal.
1863.
Gagnon, Ernest. Chansons populaires du Canada. Quebec. 1865.
Globensky, C. A. M. La rebellion de 1837 a Saint Eustache. Montreal.
1884. Meilleur, J. B. Memorial de l’education du bas-Canada. Montreal. 1860.
Suite, B. Histoire des Canadiens Fran^ais, 1608-1880. 8 vols. Montreal. 1882-4.
Thomas, C. Contributions to the history of the Eastern townships. Montreal.
1886.
D. Upper
Canada.
Canniff, W.
Settlement of Upper Canada. Toronto. 1872.
The Centennial of the Settlement of Upper
Canada.... Containing a copy of
the United
Empire Loyalist List. Toronto. 1885.
Dent, J. C.
The story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion. 2 vols. Toronto. 1885. Edgar,- M.
Ten Years of Upper Canada in peace and war. London. 1891.
Haight,
Canniff. Country life in Canada fifty years ago. Toronto. 1885. Kennedy, D.
Incidents of Pioneer days at Guelph. Toronto. 1903.
King, J. The
other side of the story. Toronto. 1886.
Lizars, R.
and MacFarlane, K. In the days of the Canada Company. Toronto.
1896.
Scadding, H.
Toronto of Old. Toronto. 1878.
E. The
Maritime Provinces.
Akins, T. B.
History of Halifax city. Halifax. 1895.
Atkinson, W.
C. A historical and statistical account of New Bruuswick. Edinburgh.
1844. .
Bourinot, J.
G. Historical and descriptive account of Cape Breton. Toronto. 1895.
Builders of Nova Scotia. Toronto. 1900.
Brown, R.
History of the island of Cape Breton. London. 1869.
Campbell, D.
Nova Scotia in its Historical, Mercantile and Industrial Relations.
Montreal.
1873.
Gesner, A.
New Brunswick. London. 1847.
—— The
industrial resources of Nova Scotia. Halifax. 1849.
Harper, J.
History of New Brunswick and the other maritime provinces. St John. 1876.
Harvey, M.
and Hatton, J. Newfoundland, the oldest British Colony.... London. 1883.
Harvey, M.
History of Newfoundland. London and Glasgow. 1890.
Hatheway, C.
L. The history of New Brunswick from its first settlement.
Fredericton.
1846.
Murdoch, B.
History of Nova Scotia to 1828. 3 vols. Halifax. 1865-7,
Pedley, C.
History of Newfoundland to 1860. London. 1863.
Prowse, D. W.
History of Newfoundland. London. 1896.
V. BIOGRAPHIES.
Bethune, A.
N. Memoir of the Right Rev. John Strachan. London. 1870.
Celles, A. D. de. Papineau, Cartier. Toronto. 1904.
David, L. O. Biographies et Portraits. Montreal. 1876.
Les Patriotes de 1837-8. Montreal. 1884.
L. J. Papineau. Montreal.
1872.
Dent, J. C.
Canadian Portrait Gallery. 4 vols. Toronto. 1875-82. Ermatinger, E. Life of
Colonel Talbot. St Thomas. 1859.
Galt, J.
Autobiography. 2 vols. London. 1833.
Gourlay, R.
The banished Briton and Neptunian: a record of the life, writings, principles,
etc. of R. Gourlay, Esq. Boston. 1843.
Lindsey, C.
The Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie. Philadelphia. 1862.
Toronto.
1863.
Mcllwraith,
J. N. Sir Frederick Haldimand. Toronto. 1904.
Martin, A. P.
Memoir of Sir J. Sherhrooke. In Life and Letters of Viscount Sherbrooke. 2
vols. London. 1893.
Morgan, H. J.
Sketches of Celebrated Canadians. Quebec. 1862.
Read, D. B.
Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada and Ontario, 1792-1899. Toronto. 1900.
Robinson, C.
W. Life of Sir John Beverley Robinson. Toronto. 1904.
Rogers, C.
Memorials of the Earl of Sterling. 2 vols. Edinburgh. 1877.
Rose, G. M.
Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography. Toronto. 1886.
Smith, G. C.
M. Life of John Colborne. London. 1903.
Stone, W. L.
Life of Brant. New York. 1838.
Tupper, F. B.
Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. London. 1847.
* VI. MAPS.
Bouchette, J.
Topographical Map of Lower Canada. Published by Faden. London.
1815.
Map of the Provinces of Upper and Lower
Canada. London. 1815.
General Chart or Map of the Canadas and the
Maritime Provinces. London.
1831.
Carver, J.,
Captain. Map of the Province of Quebec according to the Proclamation of 1763.
London. 1776.
Fairplay, F.
A Map of the Canadas. London. 1834.
Lockwood, A.
A Map of Nova Scotia. London. 1818.
Plan of the
Island of St John, surveyed by Capt. S. Holland, ms. at Record Office. Smith, D. W. A Map of the Province of
Upper Canada. Published by Faden. London. 1800.
See
also above Hall’s Travels, 1818; Haliburton’s Historical and Statistical
Account of Nova Scotia, 1829; Bouchette’s British Dominions in North America,
1831; Baillie’s Account of the Province of New Brunswick, 1832; and Kingsford’s
History of Canada.
THE
REVOLUTION IN ENGLISH POETRY AND FICTION.
I. PRINCIPAL EDITIONS, ETC.
The
editions mentioned are, except when otherwise described, the standard or
definitive editions of the works of the author named.
Anti-Jacobin,
The Poetry of the. (Carisbrooke Library.) London. 1889.
Burns, R. The
Poetry of Robert Burns. Edited by W. E. Henley and T. F.
Henderson.
The Centenary Burns. 4 vols. Edinburgh. 1896-7.
Byron, G. G.,
Lord. The Works of Lord Byron. Poetry. 7 vols. Edited by Ernest Hartley
Coleridge. Letters and Journals. 6 vols. Edited by Rowland
E. Prothero. London. 1898-1904.
Campbell, T.
Poetical Works. Edited by W. A. Hill, with a sketch of his life by W.
Allingham. (Aldine Poets.) London. 1875.
Chatterton,
T. Poetical Works. With an essay on the Rowley Poems by the Rev. W. W. Skeat,
and a memoir by Edward Bell. 2 vols. (Aldine Poets.) London. 1875.
Coleridge, S.
T. Poetical Works. Edited with a biographical introduction by James Dykes
Campbell. London. 1893.
The Friend. (Bohn’s Standard Library.) London.
1866.
Aids to Reflection, and the Confessions of an
Inquiring Spirit. (Bohn’s
Standard
Library.) London. 1884.
Biographia Literaria. (Bohn’s Standard
Library.) London. 1866.
Literary Remains. Edited by H. N. Coleridge. 4
vols. London. 1836-9.
Letters. . Edited by E. H. Coleridge. 2 vols.
London. 1895.
Cowper, W.
Works, comprising his poems, correspondence, and translations. With a life of
the author by R. Southey. 15 vols. London. 1835-7.
’ Correspondence. Arranged in
chronological order with annotations by
T. Wright. 4
vols. London. 1904.
Crabbe, G.
Poetical Works : with his letters and journals, and his life, by his son. 8
vols. London. 1834.
Poems. Edited by A. W. Ward. 3 vols.
(Cambridge English Classics.)
Cambridge.
1905-7.
Darwin, E.
The Botanic Garden. 2 vols. London. 1799.
Dryden, J.
Works. Edited by Sir W. Scott; revised by G. Saintsbury. 18 vols.
Edinburgh.
1882-93.
Fergusson, R.
Poetical Works. With biographical introduction, notes, and glossary, etc. by R.
Ford. Paisley. 1905.
Fielding’, H.
Works. Edited, with a biographical essay, by Leslie Stephen.
10 vols.
London. 1882.
Gifford, W.
The Baviad and the Maeviad. London. 1794.
Godwin, W.
Enquiry concerning Political Justice and its influence on general virtue and
happiness. 2 vols. London. 1796.
Things as they are: or, the adventures of
Caleb Williams. London. 1794.
The
Enquirer. New edition. London. 1823.
Journal. 2 vols. Edinburgh. 1890.
Familiar Letters. 2 vols. Edinburgh. 1894.
Hunt, Leigh.
Poetical Works. Edited by Thornton Hunt. London. 1860.
A
Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla. London. 1848.
Lord Byron and some of his contemporaries.
London. 1828.
Keats, J.
Poetical Works and other writings. Edited by H. Buxton Forman.
4 vols. London. 1889.
Poetical Works. Edited by H. Buxton Forman.
Oxford. 1906.
Landor, W. S.
Works and Life. 8 vols. London. 1876.
Lewis, M. G.
The Monk. A romance. First edition. 3 vols. London. 1795.
Tales of Terror and Wonder. With an
introduction by H. Morley. London.
1887.
The Bravo of Venice, translated from the
German. London. 1805.
Romantic Tales. 4 vols. London. 1808.
Macpherson,
James. The Poems of Ossian in the original Gaelic, with a literal translation
into English and a dissertation on the authenticity of the poems by A. Clerk,
together with the English translation by Macpherson. 2 vols. Edinburgh. 1870.
Maturin, C.
R. Bertram: or, the Castle of St Aldobrand; a tragedy. First edition. London.
1816.
Melmoth the Wanderer. New edition, with a
memoir and bibliography of
Maturin’s
Works. 3 vols. London. 1892.
Moore, T.
Poetical Works. 10 vols. London. 1840-1.
The Epicurean. With an introduction by Justin
Hannaford. London.
1900.
Percy, T.
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Edited by H. B. Wheatley.
3 vols. London. 1876-7.
Pope,
Alexander. Works. Ed. W. Elwin and W. J. Courthope. 10 vols.
London.
1871-89.
Radcliffe,
Mrs Ann. The Italian. 3 vols. London. 1797.
The Mysteries of Udolpho. 4 vols. London.
1794.
Ramsay,
Allan. Works. With life of the author by G. Chalmers, and an essay on his
genius and writings by Lord Woodhouslee. 3 vols. London. 1851. Richardson, S.
Works. With a prefatory chapter of biographical criticism by Leslie Stephen. 12
vols. London. 1883.
Scott, Sir W.
The Waverley Novels. 48 vols. Edinburgh. 1829-33.
Poetical Works. 12 vols. Edinburgh. 1853-4.
Miscellaneous Prose Works. 28 vols. Edinburgh.
1834-6.
Shelley,
P. B. Poetical Works. Edited by H. Buxton Forman. 4 vols. London. 1876-7. „
Poetical Works. Edited by T. Hutchinson.
London. 1905.
Prose Works. Edited by H. Buxton Forman. 4
vols. London. 1880.
Southey, R.
Poetical Works. 10 vols. London. 1837-8.
Walpole, H.
The Castle of Otranto. London. 1883.
Wordsworth,
W. Poetical Works. Edited by W. Knight. 8 vols. London. 1896.
Poetical Works. Edited by T. Hutchinson.
London. 1904.
Prose Works. Edited by W. Knight. 2 vols.
London. 1896.
II. BIOGRAPHIES.
Bums, R.
Life. By J. S. Blackie. Bibliography by J. P. Anderson. (Great Writers.)
London. 1888.
Life. By J. G. Lockhart. Edinburgh. 1828.
Robert Burns. By J. C. Shairp. (English Men of
Letters.) London. *1898.
Robert Bums. By Gabriel Setoun (T. N.
Hepburn). (Famous Scots Series.)
Edinburgh.
1896.
Byron, G. G.,
Lord. Letters and Journals. With notice of his life. By T. Moore. 2 vols.
London. 1830.
Byron. By J. Nichol. (English Men of Letters.)
London. 1880.
Trelawny, E. J. Records of Shelley, Byron, and
the author. 2 vols.
London. 1878.
Campbell,
Thomas. Life and Letters. By W. Beattie. 3 vols. London. 1849.
Thomas Campbell. By J. C. Hadden. (Famous
Scots Series.) Edinburgh.
1899.
Coleridge, S.
T. The Life of S. T. C. By J. Gillman. Vol. i (no more published). London.
1838.
Coleridge. By H. D. Traill. (English Men of
Letters.) London. 1878.
Coleridge. By R. Garnett. London. 1904.
Cowper, W.
Life. By Thomas Wright. London. 1892.
Crabbe, G.
Life. By A. Ainger. (English Men of Letters.) London. 1903.
■ George Crabbe and his times. By B. Huchon.
Trans, from the French by F. Clark. London. 1907.
Godwin, W.
Life. By C. K. Paul.
Godwin, his friends and contemporaries. By C.
K. Paul. 2 vols. London.
1876.
Hunt, J. H.
Leigh. Life. By W. C. Monkhouse. London. 1893.
Autobiography. Edited by R. Ingpen. 2 vols.
Westminster. 1903.
Keats, J.
Life. By W. M. Rossetti. Bibliography by J. P. Anderson. (Great Writers.)
London. 1889.
Keats. By Sidney Colvin. (English Men of
Letters.) London. 1887.
■ Keats. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. By A.
C. Swinburne.
Moore, T.
Life. By James Burke. Dublin. 1852.
Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence. Edited
by Lord John Russell.
8 vols.
London. 1853-6.
Scott, Sir W.
Life. By J. G. Lockhart. 10 vols. Edinburgh. 1902-3.
Shelley, P.
B. Life. By E. Dowden. 2 vols. London. 1886.
Memoir. By W. M. Rossetti. London. 1886.
Shelley. By J. A. Symonds. (English Men of
Letters.) London. 1878.
Southey, R.
Southey. By E. Dowden. (English Men of Letters.) London. 1876.
Life and Correspondence. Edited by his son C.
C. Southey. 6 vols. London.
1849-50.
Wordsworth,
W. Life. By F. W. H. Myers. (English Men of Letters.)
Memoirs. By C. Wordsworth. 2 vols. London.
1851.
III. CRITICISM.
Ackermann, R.
Lord Byron. Sein Leben, seine Werke, sein Einfluss auf die Deutsche
Litteratur. Heidelberg.
1901.
Addison, J.
Works. Ed. G. W. Greene. 6 vols. New York. 1856.
Arnold, M.
Wordsworth. (Essays in Criticism, Second Series.) London. 1888.
Brandes, G.
M. C. Shelley und Lord Byron. Leipzig. 1894.
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century
Literature. Eng. trans. Vol. v
(Naturalism
in England). London. 1905.
Brandi, A.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge und die Engl. Romantik. Berlin. 1886. bridges, R.
Keats: a Critical Essay, s. L 1895.
Brooke, Stopford
A. Theology in the English Poets. London. 1874.
Courthope, W.
J. A History of English Poetry. Vol. v. London. 1905. Herford, C. H. The
Romantic and Classical Styles. Cambridge. 1880.
Hutton, R. H.
Literary Essays. 3rd edn. London. 1888.
Legouis, E.
The Early Life of William Wordsworth. Translated by J. W.
Matthews.
London. 1897.
Masson, D.
Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and other Essays. London. 1874. Mathias, T. The
pursuits of Literature. London. 1794.
Raleigh, W. The English Novel. London. 1894.
Sarrazin, Gabriel. Les poetes modernes de l’Angleterre. Paris. 1885.
La renaissance de la poesie anglaise. Paris.
1889.
Shairp, J. C.
Studies in Poetry and Philosophy. Edinburgh. 1886.
Stephen,
Leslie. Hours in a Library. 3 vols. London. 1892.
Swinburne, A.
C. Studies in poetry and philosophy. 4th edn. Edinburgh. 1886. “
Sketches in History and Poetry. Edinburgh.
1887.
Warton,
Joseph. Essay on the genius and writings of Pope. London. 1806. Warton, Thomas,
Observations on the Faery Queene of Spenser. London. 1762. Weddigen, F. H. O. Lord Byron’s Einfluss auf die europaischen
Litteraturen der Neuzeit. Hanover. 1884.
For reasons
that will be apparent, no complete bibliography of original sources for thia
chapter can be attempted here. The list given below contains selected
histories, many in part contemporary, and a certain number of primary
authorities. The latter have, as a rule, only been inserted when they contain
the evidence for definite statements in the text. No bibliography is given for
topics treated only incidentally, e.g. economic doctrine, economic legislation.
I. BOOKS OF REFERENCE AND GENERAL HISTORIES.
Dictionary of
Political Economy. Ed. R. H. I. Palgrave. 3 vols. London. 1894-9. Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. Edd.
Konrad, Elster, Lexis, Loenig.
7 vols. Jena.
1898-1901.
Schmoller, 6. Grundriss der Allgemeinen Volkswirthschaftslehre. 2 vols.
Leipzig. 1901-4.
Beer, A. Allgemeine Geschichte des Welthandels. 3 vols.
Vienna. 1860-84. Giilich, G. von. Gesch. Darstellung des Handels...der
bedeutendsten handels- treibenden Staaten unsrer Zeit. [Continued under other titles.] 5 vols. 1830-45. .
Morean de Jonnes, A. Le commerce au 19® siecle. 2 vols. Paris. 1825.
Noel, O. Histoire du commerce du monde. 3 vols. 1891-1906.
Macpherson,
D. Annals of Commerce. 4 vols. London. 1805.
Scherer, H. Allgemeine Geschichte des Welthandels. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1852.
Leroy Beaulieu, P. De la colonisation chez les peuples modernes. 2 vols. Paris. 1902.
Zimmermann, G. Die europaischen Kolonien. [Portugal, Spain, Great Britain,
France, Holland.] 5 vols. Berlin. 1896-1903.
Babbage, C.
On the economy of machinery and manufactures. London. 1832. Kulischer, J. Die Ursachen des Uebergangs von der Handarbeit
zur maschinellen Betriebsweise. Leipzig. J. fur Gesetzgebung. 1906.
Marx, H. K. Das Kapital. Kritik der polit. Oeconomie. 2
vols. Hamburg. 1883-5. Transl. Capital, a critical analysis of capitalist
production. 2 vols. London. 1886.
Sombart, W.
Der modeme Kapitalismus. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1902.
Ure, A.
Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines. London.
1843.
^ Levasseur, E. Histoire de la population fran^aise avant 1789 et de la
demographie de la France Comparee.a celle des autres nations au 19“ siecle. 3
vols. Paris.
1889-92.
Weber, A. F.
The growth of cities. New York. 1899.
II. HISTORIES AND STUDIES OF SINGLE COUNTRIES.
A. Great
Britain.
Bremner, D.
The industries of Scotland: their rise, progress and present condition.
Edinburgh. 1869.
Cunningham,
W. The growth of English industry and commerce. (Modern Times.)
2 vols.
Cambridge. 1903.
Eden, Sir F.
M. The state of the poor. London. 1797.
Faucher, L. Etudes sur l’Angleterre. 2 vols. Paris. 1845.
Held, A. Zwei Bucher zur socialen Geschichte Englands. Leipzig.
1881.
Levi, L.
History of British Commerce. London. 1880.
Mantoux, P. La Revolution Industrielle au 18e siecle. Paris.
1906.
Porter, J. R.
Progress of the nation in its various social and economic relations. London.
1851.
Sinclair, Sir
J. The statistical account of Scotland. 21 vols. Edinburgh. 1791-9.
Analysis of the statistical account of
Scotland [with supplementary matter],
2 vols. Edinburgh. 1825.
Steffen, G. Studien zur Geschichte der englischen Lohnarbeiter. 3
vols. Stuttgart.
1901-5.
Toynbee, A.
Lectures on the industrial revolution of the 18th century in England. London. 1896.
B. France.
Avenel, Vicomte G. de. Histoire economique de la propriete, des
salaires, des denr&s et de tous les prix en general depuis l’an 1200
jusqu’en l’an 1800.
4 vols. Paris. 1894-8.
La fortune privee a travers sept siecles.
Paris. 1895.
Paysans et ouvriers depuis sept cent ans.
Paris. 1899.
Chaptal, J. A. C., Comte de Chanteloup. De l’industrie framjaise. 2
vols. Paris.
1819.
Chevalier, M. Des interets materiels en France. Paris. 1838.
Levasseur, E. Histoire des classes ouvrieres et de l’industrie en France
avant 1789. 2 vols. Paris. 1900-1.
Histoire des classes ouvrieres et de
l’industrie en France de 1789 a 1870.
2 vols. Paris. 1903-4.
Noel, O. Histoire du commerce exterieur de la France depuis la
Revolution. Paris. 1879.
C. Belgium and Holland.
Barlet, E. Histoire du commerce et de l’industrie de la Belgique.
Malines. 1885. Briavoinne, N. De l’industrie en Belgique. 2 vols. Brussels.
1839.
Bruyssel, E. van. Histoire du commerce et de la marine en Belgique. 3 vols.
Brussels. 1861-4. ,
Pringsheim, D. Beitrage zur wirthschaftlichen Entwickelungsgeschichte der
Vereinigten Niederlande im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Leipzig. 1890.
Rooy, E. W. de. Geschiedenis van den Nederlandsche Handel. Amsterdam.
1854.
D. Germany and Austria.
Banfield, T.
C. Industry of the Rhine. 2 vols. London. 1846-8.
Bowring, J.
Report on the Prussian Commercial Union. London.
1840. Dieterici, K. F. W. Der Volkswohlstand im Preussischen Staate. Berlin.
1846. Falke, J. Die Geschichte des deutschen Handels. Leipzig. 1858.
Keess, S. von. Darstellung des Fabriks- und Gewerbs-wesens.. .unit steter
Beriick- sichtigung...des Zustandes...im osterr. Kaiserstaate. 4 vols. Vienna.
1824. Schmoller, G. Studien iiber die wirthschaftliche Politik Friedrichs des
Grossen.
J. fur Gesetzgebung. Leipzig. 1884r-7.
Sombart, W. Die deutsche Volkswirthschaft im 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin. 1903.
Wiedfeldt, O. Statistische Studien zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Berliner
Industrie von 1720 bis 1890. Leipzig. 1898.
E. Spain.
Block, M. L’Espagne en 1850. Paris. 1851.
Moreau de Jonnes, A. Statistique de l’Espagne. Paris. 1834.
F. Italy.
Bowring, J.
Report on the statistics of Tuscany, Lucca, the Pontifical and the
Lombardo-Venetian States. London. 1839.
Raumer, F. L. G. von. Italien. Beitrage zur Kenntniss dieses Landes. 2
vols. Leipzig. 1840.
Serristori,
Count L. Statistica dell’ Italia. Florence. 1842.
G. Switzerland.
Wartmann, H. Industrie et commerce. (La Suisse au 19° siecle.) 3 vols. Lausanne.
1901.
Industrie und Handel des Kantons St Gallen.
-St Gallen. 1875.
H. Russia.
Haxthausen, A. F. von. Studien iiber die inneren Zustande...und
insbesondere die landlichen Einrichtungen Russland’s. 3 vols. Hanover. 1847-52.
Schulze-Gavemitz, G. von. Volks wirthschaftliche Studien aus Russland. Leipz.b
1899.
Wittschewsky, V. Russlands Handels-, Zoll-, und Industrie Politik von der
Zeit Peter des Grossen bis auf die Gegenwart. Berlin. 1904.
III. AGRICULTURE, RURAL CONDITIONS AND LABOUR.
Cobbett, W.
Rural Rides. New edn. London. 1853.
Gamier, R. M.
History of the English landed interest. (Modem
Period.) London.
1893.
Hasbach, W. Die englischen Landarbeiter in den letzten hundert Jahren nnd
die Einhagungen. Leipzig. 1894.
Levy, H. Entstehung und Riickgang des landwirthschaft. Grossbetriebes in
England. Berlin.
1904.
Marshall, W.
The rural economy of Norfolk. 2 vols. London. 1787.
The rural economy of the Midland counties. 2
vols. London. 1790.
The rural economy of the Southern counties. 2
vols. London. 1798.
Prothero, R.
E. Pioneers and progress of English farming. London. 1888.
Rogers, J. E.
T. A history of agriculture and prices in England. 7 vols. Oxford. 1866-1902.
Young, A. A
six weeks’ tonr through the southern counties. London. 1768.
A
six months’ tour through the north of England. 4 vols. London. 1770.
— The farmer’s tour through the east of
England. 4 vols. London. 1771.
Foville, A. de. Le morcellement. Paris. 1885.
Gilhaud de Lavergne, L. Economie rurale de la France deptds 1789. Paris.
1861. Sagnac, P. La legislation civile de la revolution franfaise. Paris.
1898. [Sections dealing with land legislation.]
Young, A.
Travels in France. 2 vols. London. 1794.
Laveleye, E. L. V. de. Essai sur l’£conomie rurale de la Belgique.
Paris. 1863. La Neerlande. Paris. 1865.
Vandervelde, E. La propriety fonciere en Belgique. Paris. 1900.
Goltz, T. von der. Geschichte der deutschen Landwirthschaft 2 vols.
Stuttgart.
1902-3.
Griinherg, K. Die Bauembefreiung und die Aufldsung der
gutsherrlich-bauerlichen Verhaltnisse in Bohmen, Mahren und Schlesien. 2 vols.
Leipzig. 1899. Knapp, G. F. Die Bauembefreiung und der Ursprung des
Landarbeiters in den alteren Theilen Preussens. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1887.
Meitzen, P. A. Der Boden und die landwirthschaftlichen Verhaltnisse des preussischen
Staates. 4 vols. and atlas. Berlin. 1868-71.
Schlitte, B. Die Zusammenlegung der Grundstiicke in ihrer
volkswirthschaftlichen Bedeutung und Durchfiihrung. 3 parts. Leipzig. 1886.
Simkhowitsch, W. G. Die Feldgemeinschaft in Russland. Jena. 1898.
IV. MEANS OF COMMUNICATION AND TRANSPORT.
Colson, C. Transports et tarifs. Paris. 1898.
Foville, A. de. La transformation des moyens de transport et ses
consequences economiques et sociales. Paris.
1880.
Gotz, W. Die Verkehrswege im Dienste des Welthandels. Stuttgart. 1888.
Hadley, A. T. Railroad transportation. New York. 1885.
Huber, F. C. Die geschichtliche Entwickelung des modernen Verkehrs. Tubingen.
1893.
Lindsay, W.
S. History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce. 4 vols. London. 1874r-6.
Sax, E. Die Verkehrsmittel in Volks- und Staatswirthschaft. 2
vols. Vienna. 1878-9.
Cornewall-Jones,
R. J. The British merchant service. London. 1898.
Smiles, S.
Lives of the engineers...comprising also a history of inland communication in
Britain. 3 vols. London. 1861-2.
Williams, F.
S. Our iron roads, their history, construction and social influences. London. 1852.
Guillaumot, G. L’organisation des chemins de fer en France. Paris. 1899.
Picard, G. Les chemins de fer fran^ais. 6 vols. Paris. 1884-5.
Laveleye, A. de. Histoire des vingt-cinq premieres annees des
chemins-de-fer beiges. Brussels. 1862.
Cohn, G. Die Anfange des deutschen Eisenbahnwesens. Z. fiir
Staatswissenschaft. 1891.
Lotz, W. Die Verkehrsentwickelung in Deutschland. Leipzig. 1900.
V. HISTORIES OF
SINGLE INDUSTRIES.
Baines, E.
History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain. London. 1835. Chapman, S.
J. The Lancashire cotton industry. Manchester.
1904.
Houdoy, J. La filature de coton dans le nord de la France. Paris. 1903.
Konig, A- Die sachsische Baumwollindustrie am Ende des vorigen Jahrhunderts
und wahrend der Kontinentalsperre. Leipzig.
1889.
Reybaud, M. R. L. Le coton, son regime, ses problemes, son influence en
Europe. Paris.
1863.
Schulze-Gavernitz,
G. von. The cotton trade in England and on the Continent. London. 1895.
Bischoff, J.
A comprehensive history of the woollen and worsted manufactures.
2 vols.
London. 1842.
Burnley, J.
The history of wool and wool-combing. London. 1889.
James, J.
History of the worsted manufacture in England. London. 1857. Quandt, G. Die Niederlausitzer Schafwollindustrie. Leipzig.
1895.
Reybaud, M.
R. L. La laine. Paris. 1867.
Woollen
manufacture of England, report of committee on the state of the. London. 1806. .
Pariset, E. Histoire de la fabrique lyonnaise. Lyon. 1901.
Reyband, M. R. L. Condition des ouvriers en soie. Paris. 1859.
Schmoller, G. Die Entwickelung und die Krisis der deutschen Weberei im 19.
Jahrhundert. Berlin. 1873.
Beck, L. Die Geschichte des Eisens. 4 vols. Brunswick. 1891-9.
Jeans, J. S.
Steel; its history, manufacture, properties and uses. London. 1880. Reybaud, M. R. L. Le fer et le houille. Paris.
1874.
Swank, J. M.
History of the manufacture of iron in all ages. Philadelphia. 1892.
Matschoss, C. Geschichte der Dampfmaschine. Berlin. 1901.
Smiles, S.
Lives of Boulton and Watt...comprising also a history of...the steam engine. London. 1865.
VI. ECONOMIC CHANGE AND THE
INDUSTRIAL LABOURERS.
Audiganne, A. Les populations ouvrieres et les industries de la France.
2 vols. Paris. 1854.
Ducpetiaux, E. De la condition physique et morale des jeunes ouvriers. 2
vols. Brussels. 1843.
oh. xxm.
Employment
and condition of children in mines and manufactories, reports of the
commissioners on the. London. 1842-3.
Employment of
children in factories, report of commissioners on the. London. 1833.
Engels, F.
The condition of the working classes in England in 1844. [Trans.] London. 1888.
Gaskell, P.
The manufacturing population of England. London. 1833. Hand-loom weavers
commissioners, reports from the assistant. London. 1839-40. Large towns and
populous districts, reports of the commissioners on the state of. London. 1844-5.
Somljart, W. Studien zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des italienischen
Proletariats.
Archiv f. soc. Gesetzgebung. Berlin. 1893.
Villerme, L. R. Tableau de l’etat physique et moral des ouvriers
employes dans les manufactures de coton, de laine, et de soie. 2 vols. Paris.
1840.
VII. INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION.
Cilleuls, A. des. Histoire et regime de la grande Industrie en France
aux 17° et 18° siecles. Paris. 1898.
Martin-Saint, Leon E. Histoire des corporations de metiers...suivie
d’une etude sur ' revolution de l’idee corporative au 19° siecle et sur les
syndicats professionels. Paris. 1897.
Le compagnonnage. Paris. 1901.
Mascher, H. A. Das deutsche Gewerbewesen von der friihesten Zeit bis auf
die Gegenwart. Potsdam. 1866.
Schmoller, G. Zur Geschichte der deutschen Kleingewerbe im 19. Jahrhundert.
Halle.
1870.
Taylor, R. W.
C. The modem factory system. London. 1891.
Webb, S. and
B. The history of trade unionism. London. 1902.
VIII.
COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL POLICY, BANKING, AND COMMERCIAL ORGANISATION.
Am6, L. Etudes sur les tarifs des douanes et sur les traites de
commerce. 2 vols. Paris. 1876.
Brandt, A. von. Beitrage zur Geschichte der franzos. Handelspolitik.
Leipzig. 1896. Buxton, S. Finance and politics, an historical study. 2 vols. London. 1888. Stourm, R. Les finances de l’ancien regime et de
la revolution. 2 vols. Paris. 1885.
Les finances du consulat. Paris. 1902.
Weber, W. Der deutsche Zollverein. Leipzig. 1869.
See also Bibliography to Chapter XI.
Courtois, A. Histoire de la banque de France et des principales
institutions fran^aises de credit depuis 1716. Paris. 1875.
Kerr, A. W.
History of banking in Scotland. Edinburgh. 1902.
Macleod, H.
D. The theory and practice of banking. 2 vols.
London. 1892. Mees, W. C. Proeve eener geschiedenis van het bankwezen in
Nederland. Rotterdam. 1838.
Poschinger, H. von. Bankwesen und Bankpolitik in Preussen. 3 vols. Berlin. 1878-9.
Bonnassieux, P. La question des foires au 18e siecle. Paris.
1891.
Les grandes compagnies de commerce. Paris.
1892.
Duguid, C.
The story of the Stock Exchange. London. 1901.
Ellison, T.
The cotton trade of Great Britain. London. 1886.
Frignet, E. Histoire de l’association commerciale. Paris. 1868.
Goldschmidt, L. Alte und neue Formen der Handelsgesellschaft. In vol. n of
Vermischte Schriften. Berlin. 1901.
Universalgeschichte des Handelsrechts.
Stuttgart. 1891.
Hasse, E. Geschichte der Leipziger Messen. Leipzig.
1885.
Huvelin, P. Essai historique sur le droit des marches et des foires.
Paris. 1897. Jannet, C. Le capital, la speculation et la finance au 19e
siecle. Paris. 1891. Juglar, C. Des crises commerciales et de leur retour
periodique en France, en Angleterre, et aux Etats-Unis. Paris.
1889.
Martin, F.
The history of Lloyd’s and of marine insurance in Great Britain. London. 1876.
Senkel, W.
Wollproduktion und Wollhandel im 19. Jahrhundert. Tubingen. 1901. Tooke, T. A
history of prices and of the state of the currency. 4 vols. London. 1838-48.
Wirth, M.
Geschichte der Haudelskrisen. Frankfort. 1890.
See
also Bibliography to Chapter XXIV.
I. BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
Cunningham,
W. Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times. Vol. u, Part 2.
Bibliographical Index. Cambridge. 1903.
Foxwell, H.
S. Catalogue of the Goldsmiths’ Economic Library in the University of London.
(Not published.)
McCulloch, J.
R. The Literature of Political Economy: a classified Catalogue of select Publications
in the different Departments of that Science, with historical, critical and
bibliographical notices. London. 1845.
Palgrave, R.
H. Inglis. Dictionary of Political Economy. 3 vols. London. 1894-9.
II. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.
Barbon, N. A Discourse
of Trade. London. 1690.
Bray, J. F.
Labour’s Wrongs and Labour’s Remedy; or the Age of Might and the Age of Right. Leeds. 1839.
Cantillon, R. Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en general, traduit de
1’Anglais. London.
1750. Reprinted for Harvard University, 1891.
Chalmers, T.
On Political Economy in connection with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of
Society. London. 1832.
Eden, Sir F.
M. The State of the Poor, an History of the Labouring Classes in England from
the Conquest to the present period, in which are particularly considered their
domestic economy with respect to diet, dress, fuel, and habitation, and the
various plans which from time to time have been proposed and adopted for the
relief of the poor, together with Parochial Reports relative to the
administration of Workhouses, and Houses of Industry; the State of Friendly
Societies, and other public institutions, in several agricultural, commercial,
and manufactuiing districts, with a large appendix. London. 1797.
Godwin, W.
Enquiry concerning Political Justice. London. 1793. Second edition with
material alterations, 1796.
Hall,
C. The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States. London. 1805. '
Hodgskin, T.
Labour defended against the Claims of Capital; or the Unproductiveness of
Capital proved with reference to the present Combinations amongst Journeymen.
London. 1825.
Hume, D.
Political Discourses. London. 1752.
Jones, R. An
Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and the Sources of Taxation.
• London.
1831.
McCulloch, J.
R. Principles of Political Economy; with a Sketch of the Rise and Progress of
the Science. London. 1825.
An Essay on the Circumstances which determine
the Rate of Wages and the
Condition of
the Labouring Classes. London. 1826.
A
Dictionary, Practical, Theoretical and Historical, of Commerce and Navigation.
London. 1832.
Treatise on the Principles and Practical
Influence of the Taxation and the
Funding
System. London. 1845.
Literature of Political Economy. London. 1845.
Macpherson,
D. Annals of Commerce, Fisheries and Navigation. 4 vols. London. 1805. *
A
history of European Commerce with India. London. 1812.
Malthus, T.
R. An Essay on the Principles of Population as it affects the Future
Improvement of Society, with remarks on the Speculations of Mr Godwin, M.
Condorcet and other Writers. (Published anonymously.) London. 1798.
An Essay on the Principle of Population, or a
view of its past and present
Effects on
human Happiness. New edition very much enlarged with name of author. London.
1803.
3rd edition in 2 vols. with appendix
containing replies to critics. 1806.
6th edition
(1826), last edition in the author’s lifetime. ,
Principles of Political Economy considered
with a view to their practical
application.
London. 1820.
Observations on the Effects of the Com Laws
and of a rise or fall in the price
of Corn on
the Agriculture and Wealth of the Country. London. 1814. .
An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of
Rent and the Principles by
which it is
regulated. London. 1815.
Mill, James.
Elements of Political Economy. London. 1821.
North, Sir
Dudley. Discourse on Trade. London. 1691.
Owen, R. New
View of Society. London.. 1813. ■
The Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the
Human Race; or the
Coming Change
from Irrationality to Rationality. London. 1849.
Autobiography. London. 1857.
•
Porter, G. R.
The Progress of the Nation in its Social and Commercial Relations, from the
Beginning of the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day. London.
1836. New editions bringing the figures down to
date in 1843, 1846, and 1851. Ricardo, D. The High Price of Bullion a Proof of
Depreciation of Bank Notes.
London. 1809.
On Protection to Agriculture. London. 1822.
Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.
London. 1817. 3rd edn
altered,
London, 1821. Ed. E. C. K. Gonner (with introduction, bibliography, and notes).
London. 1891.
Senior, N. W.
An Outline of Political Economy. In the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. London.
1836.
Statement of the Provision for the Poor in a
considerable portion of America
and Europe,
being a Preface to the Foreign Communication contained in the Appendix to the
Poor Law Report. London. 1835.
Letters on the Factory Act as it affects the
Cotton Manufacture. London.
1837.
Smith, Adam.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments. London and Edinburgh. 1759. 6th edn altered and
enlarged. 2 vols. London. 1790.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations. 2 vols.
London. 1776.
5th and last in the author’s lifetime. 3 vols. London. 1789. Ed. E. Cannan.
Collated with the first, and the history of the alterations traced. 2 vols.
London. 1904.
Smith, Adam.
Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms, delivered in the University of
Glasgow, reported hy a student in 1763, edited with an introduction and notes
by E. Cannan. Oxford. 1896.
Steuart, Sir
James. An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, being an Essay on
the Science of Domestic Policy in Free Nations, in which are particularly
considered Population, Agriculture, Trade, Industry, Money, Coin, Interest,
Circulation, Banks, Exchange, Public Credit and Taxes. 2 vols. London. 1767. 3
vols. Dublin. 1770.
Stewart, D.
Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith. In Vol. hi of Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Edinburgh. 1793. Thompson, W. An Inquiry into the Principles of the
Distribution of Wealth most Conducive to Human Happiness. London. 1824.
III. GENERAL WORKS.
Bonar, J. B.
Malthus and his Work. London. 1885.
Philosophy and Political Economy. London.
1893.
Catalogue of the Library of Adam Smith.
London. 1894.
Cannan, E. A
History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political
Economy from 1776 to 1848. London. 1893.
Cossa, L.
Introduction to the Study of Political Economy. Historical Part. Translated by
L. Dyer from the Italian and revised hy the author. London. 1893.
Foxwell, H.
S. Introduction and Bibliography to the English Translation of A. Menger’s
Right to the whole Produce of Labour. London.
1899.
Held, A. Zwei Bucher zur socialen Geschichte England’s. Leipzig. 1881.
See
also Bibliography to Chapter XXIII.
LEADING
EVENTS MENTIONED IN THIS VOLUME.
1542
Publication of the New Laws for the Spanish Indies.
1569 Francisco Toledo Viceroy of Peru.
1570 The Inquisition established in Mexico and Lima.
1609
Beginning of the Jesuit missions in Guaira (Paraguay)
1655 English
capture of Jamaica.
1752 Hume’s
Political Discourses.
1755
Cantillon’s Essay on the Nature of Commerce at large.
1763 Febronius’ [Hontheim’s] De statu ecclesiae et de legitima potestate
Romani pontificis.
1767 Expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish
dominions in America.
1768 Priestley’s Essay on Government.
1769 Turgot’s Reflexions on the Formation and
Distribution of Wealth.
1773 Goethe’s GiStz
von Berlichingen.
1774 -Quebec Act. Treaty
of Kutchuk Kainardji between Russia and Turkey.
Abortive
rising in the Morea.
1776 Adam
Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Bentham’s Fragment on Government. 1778 The Savile
Act passed.
1781
Schiller’s Die Rauber.
1790 Goethe’s Faust (Part i).
1791 The Constitutional Act for Canada. Mitford’s
Act passed.
The Society
of United Irishmen established.
1793 Hobart’s Act in Ireland.
1794 Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister.
1797 Publication of Eden’s State of the Poor.
1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, and
Malthus’ Essay on, the
Principle
of Population.
1799 Schiller’s Wallenstein.
1801—Georgia
united to Russia.
1806 Beresford’s capture of Buenos Aires.
1807 The Portuguese Regent Dom John leaves Portugal
for Brazil.
-»Bialystok
united to Russia.
Wordsworth’s
Ode on Intimations of Immortality.
1808 Mexico declares war against Napoleon.
1809 Grand Duchy of Finland formally annexed by
Russia.
Revolutionary
movements in Upper Peru and in Quito.
1809-24
Revolution in Spanish America.
1810 Revolution in Buenos Aires.
—Imeretia
conquered by Russia.
1810-17
Mexican revolt.
1811 Proclamation of independence by the Congress of
Caracas.
1812 -^Treaty of Bucharest hetween Russia and
Turkey.
Fall of the
first Venezuelan Repuhlic.
Byron’s GhUde
Harold, Cantos i and ii, published.
1812-14 The
Anglo-American War.
1813 Treaty of Valen^ay between Napoleon and
Ferdinand VII.
1814 Return of Pius VII to Rome.
Reconstitution
of the Society of Jesus.
Organisation
of the Society of True Poles.
Foundation of
the Hetairia Philike.
Waverley.
1815 March. William VI of Orange becomes William I,
King of the Netherlands. June. Germanic Confederation constituted.
July-August.
The “White Terror” in France.
September.
Promulgation of the Holy Alliance.
,, Resignation of the Talleyrand Ministry.
Richelieu prime
Minister.
November.
Second Peace of Paris.
,,
Alexander I grants a Constitution to Poland.
„ The
Treaties of Paris.
English Corn
Law passed.
1816 January-March. Brazil erected into a kingdom
under John VI.
July.
Motuproprio of Pius VII.
November.
Opening of the Diet of the Germanic Confederation. Proclamation of the
independence of the Argentine Provinces.
Haller’s
Restoration of Political Science.
1816-17
Economic distress and Luddite riots in England.
1817 March. Establishment of the Prussian Council of
State.
—May.
Conventions between Great Britain and Turkey. Parga handed over to Ali of
Janina.
July.
Bolivar’s capture of Angostura.
September-
Anglo-Spanish treaty.
October. The
Wartburg Burschenschaft Festival.
—Grant of
autonomous government to Servia.
Bentham’s
Catechism of Parliamentary Reform and Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy
and Taxation.
1818 April. San Martin’s victory at Maipu.
"October.
Meeting of the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle.
- Octoher-Novemher. Evacuation of France by
the troops of the Allies. —November. Renewal of the Quadruple Alliance.
Papal
Concordats with Bavaria and Russia.
Keats’
Endymion.
1819 March. Assassination of Kotzehue.
July.
Conference between Frederick William of Prussia and Metternich at Teplitz.
August.
Settlement between Pius VII and the French Church.
„ The
“Manchester Massacre,” and the “Six Acts.”
September.
“The Carlsbad Decrees.”
October.
Tariff-treaty between Prussia and Schwarzhurg-Sondershausen. November.
Conference at Vienna.
Bolivar’s
victory of Boyaca. Liberation of New Granada and proclamation of the Republic
of Colombia.
Count Joseph de Maistre’s Du, Pape. '
1820 January. Accession of George IV.
—January-March.
Revolution in Spain.
February.
Murder of the Duke of Berry.
—May.
Supplementary Act of Vienna.
—July.
Outbreak of revolt in Naples.
—October.
Meeting of Conference of Troppau.
,, The
Floridas ceded to the United States.
James Mill’s Essay
on Government; Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound; Keats’ Lamia and other Poems.
1820-22—War between the Porte and Ali of Janina.
1821—January. Meeting of the Conference of Laibach.
—March. End
of the Neapolitan Revolution.
_ jj Insurrection in Piedmont. Abdication of Victor
Emanuel.
— „ Ypsilanti’s rising in the Danubian
Principalities.
April. King
John VI returns to Portugal. Dom Pedro Regent in Brazil. «. „ Revolt in the
Morea. Outbreak of the War of Greek Independence. Execution of the Patriarch
Gregorios.
May.
Foundation of the Polish Patriotic Society.
June. Greek
defeat at Dragashan. Collapse of Ypsilanti’s rising. December. Resignation of
the Richelieu Ministry. Villele and Corbiere take office.
„ Arrest of
Count Federico Confalonieri.
Guatemala proclaims
its independence.
1821-2
Mexican Revolution.
1822 —April. Massacre of Scio.
—August.
Death of Castlereagh.
September.
Proclamation of the independence of Brazil. Dom Pedro of Portugal
Constitutional Emperor.
—October.
Opening of the Congress of Verona.
The
United States recognise the independence of Colombia, Chile, Buenos Aires, and
Mexico. '
Famine in
Ireland.
1823 -March. Recognition of the Greeks as
belligerents by,Great Britain.
—April.
French invasion of Spain. Absolutist reaction in Madrid. Great Britain abandons
the Concert of Powers.
August. Death
of Pius VII and (September) accession of Leo XII. —October. Meeting of the
Emperors Alexander and Francis at Czemovitz. December. President Monroe’s
message to the American Congress.
1823-5 Formation of Catholic Associations in
Ireland.
1824 April. Miguelist rising in Portugal.
September.
Death of Louis XVIII. Accession of Charles X.
November.
Battle of Ayacucho secures the independence of Peru and of other South American
States.
December.
Great Britain recognises the independence of Buenos Aires, Colombia, and
Mexico.
—Intervention
of Mehemet Ali in the Greek war.
1824-5 Legislation in connexion with the English
Combination Laws.
1825 February. Goulbum’s Irish Act passed.
August.
Portugal recognises the independence of Brazil.
December.
Death of Tsar Alexander I. Accession of Nicholas I.
Risings in
Russia.
Congress of
Panama.
1825-6 "May-April. Defence of Missolonghi.
1825-8 War
between the Argentine Provinces and Brazil.
1826 March. Death of John VI of Portugal.
—-April.
Protocol of St Petersburg.
May.
Abdication of Pedro IV of Portugal in favour of Maria II.
August.
Return of the Jesuits to France.
—October.
Treaty of Akkerman between Russia and Turkey.
—Russia
declares war on Persia.
Railway from
Stockton to Darlington opened.
1827 April. Canning Prime Minister.
—July. Treaty
of London between Great Britain, Russia, and France.
August. Death
of Canning.
—October.
Battle of Navarino.
December.
Resignation of Villele.
Manzoni’s Promessi Sposi and Heine’s Buck der lAeder.
1828 January. Ministries of Wellington and Martignac
formed.
,,
South-German Customs-treaty between Bavaria and Wiirttemberg. —February. Treaty
of Turkmanchay between Russia and Persia.
— March. Capodistrias President in Greece.
-May. War
between Russia and the Porte.
June. Dom
Miguel proclaimed King of Portugal.
—July.
Protocol of London.
— August. Ibrahim agrees to evacuate the
Morea.
September.
Saxony negotiates a Mid-German commercial union.
Revolt in
Catalonia.
Repeal of
Test and Corporation Acts.
1828-9—November-March.
Conference of London places a large part of Greece under the guarantee of the
Powers.
1829 April. Catholic Relief Bill passed.
May. Customs’
treaty between North and South German Customs’ Unions. August. Polignac’s
Ministry formed.
— September. Treaty of Adrianople between
Russia and Turkey.
1830 June. Death of George IV and accession of
William IV.
July-August.
Revolution in Paris. Louis-Philippe called to power. Establishment of the
Orleans monarchy.
August-September.
Revolt of the Belgians against King of Holland. November. Outbreak of the
Polish Revolution.
,,
Resignation of Wellington. Lord Grey’s Ministry formed. December. Death of
Bolivar.
Revolutions
in Germany.
Risings in
Central Italy.
Victor Hugo’s
Bernani.
1830-3
Beginnings of French colonisation in Algeria.
1830-44
Completion of the German Zollverein.
1831 January. Protocols of London recognising the
independence of Belgium. February. Battle of Grochov near Warsaw.
,, Election
of Pope Gregory XVI.
February-March.
Rising in the Papal States.
March. The
ministry of Casimir Perier takes office.
April.
Abdication of Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, and accession of Pedro II.
,, Accession
of Carlo Alberto in the Sardinian Kingdom.
May. Polish
defeat at Ostrolenka.
July. Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg becomes King of the Belgians. August. Dutch invasion of
Belgium. French intervention.
September.
Entry of Russian troops into Warsaw. End of the Polish Revolution, and of the
constitutional kingdom of Poland.
1831 October. Treaty of the Twenty-four Articles.
—November.
Revolt of Mehemet Ali and invasion of Syria by his sou Ibrahim.
Mazzini
founds the society of “Young Italy.”
1832 —May. European recognition of the new Greek
State.
„ Death of
Casimir Perier.
June. The
English Reform Bill passed.
July. Dom
Pedro’s expedition lands in Portugal.
November.
French expedition to Antwerp.
Publication of Ranke’s Histonsch-politische Zeitschrift begun.
Rosmini’s Cinqae Piaghe della Santa Chiesa and Silvio Pellico’s Mie
Prigioni. 1832-3
Siege of Oporto.
1832-8 French
troops in Ancona.
1833 —January. Otto, King of the Hellenes, lands in
Nauplia.
—April-May.
Convention of Kiutayeh between the Sultan and Mehemet Ali. May. Convention of
London between Holland and Belgium.
- July. Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi between
Russia and the Porte.
„ Napier
destroys the fleet of Dom Miguel off Cape St Vincent. Miguelist defeat at
Piedade. Dom Pedro enters Lisbon.
•» September.
Convention of Munchengratz betw. Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
„ Death of
Ferdinand VII of Spain.
—October.
Convention of Berlin between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Chile establishes a
presidential system of government.
First English
Factory Act, and Act for the Abolition of Slavery, passed.
1834 —April. Quadruple Alliance between Great
Britain, France, Spain, and
Queen Maria
II of Portugal.
May. Dom
Miguel leaves Portugal.
July. Carlist
war begins in Spain.
November.
Dismissal of Melbourne, and formation of Peel’s Ministry. English Poor Law
Amendment Act passed.
1835 March. Death of Francis I of Austria and
accession of Ferdinand I. April. Melbourne’s return to office.
June. French
defeat on the Macta.
December.
French victory at Mascara.
English
Municipal Reform Act.
Strauss’
Leben Jem.
1836 September. Revolution in Lisbon.
December.
French victory at Tlemcen.
Tithe
Commutation. Establishment of the Ecclesiastical Commission. 1836-7 Risings in
Canada.
1837 June. Death of William IV and accession of
Queen Victoria. Separation
of Great
Britain and Hanover.
„ Treaty of
the Tafna.
October.
French capture of Constantine.
November.
Religious struggle in Germany. Arrest of Archbishop of Cologne.
1838 Publication of the Charter. Irish Poor Law
passed.
Lord Durham
Governor-General of Canada.
1839 '“April. Final recognition of the independence
of Belgium.
— „ Turkish invasion of Syria.
May. Peel
resigns on the Bedchamber Question.
•June. War
between the Sultan and Mehemet Ali.
July. Death
of the Sultan Mahmud.
Completion of
the French conquest of Algeria,
1839 Beginnings of State-control of Education in
England.
1840 June. Death of Frederick William III of
Prussia.
,,
End of the Carlist War in Spain.
.—July-Ang.
Convention of London and intervention of the Powers against Mehemet Ali.
October.
Abdication of the Spanish Regency by Queen Cristina.
Marriage of
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Act for the
Government of Canada passed.
1841 May-Jnne. Regency of Espartero in Spain.
—June. Peace
between the Porte and Mehemet Ali.
July. Protocole de Cloture and Protocole des DUroits.
August. Peel
Prime Minister.
1842 January. Revolution in the Portuguese
government.
November.
Treaty of the Hague between Holland and Belgium.
1843 Gioberti’s Primato morale e civile degli
Italinni and Balbo’s Speranze d’Italia.
1845 The Protest of Rimini.
Gioberti’s
Prolegomeni al Primato.
1846 May. Revolution in Portugal.
June.
Accession of Pope Pius IX.
1847 July. Convention of Gramido ends the civil war
in Portugal.
Abbas Pasha,
550
Abbot,
Charles, Speaker of the House of Commons, 634 Abd-el-Kader, Algerian chief, 503
sqq.
Abdy Bey,
Turkiah Court jester, 556 Abdullah, Pasha of Acre, 549 Abd-ul-Mejid, Sultan,
562 Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon, fourth Earl of, and the Greek Question,
200, 203; and the agreement with France (1830), 482 aq.; Colonial Secretary,
667 Aboukir, Mehemet Ali at, 547 Achaltsik, acquired by Bueaia, 444 A’Court,
Sir William, see Heytesbury Acre, the divan meshnra at, 559; surrender of, 571
Adair, Sir Robert, 542 Adama, John, President of the United States, and Spanish
America, 280 Adana, occupied by the Egyptian army, 550; 553 sq.
Addison,
Joaeph, /696; 699 Adelaide, Madame(Princeaa Eug&ne-Louise- Adelaide of
Orleana), aistcr of Louis- Philippe, 479; 484 Adelft, aecret society, in Lecce,
111 Adrianople, Treaty of, 98; 200; 202 sq.;
444; 481; 545
Adriatic Sea, Greek piracy in, 186 Aegean Sea, Greek piracy in, 186 Ahmed
Pasha, Turkiah admiral, 562 Aix-la-Chapelle, Congreea of, 12; 14 aqq.;
56; 69; 353;
and Baden, 362; 364 Akkerman, Treaty of, 192 sq.; repudiated by the Sultan, 198
Alag6n, Duke of, 208 Albani, Joseph, Cardinal, Papal Secretary of State, 154
aq.
Albania,
successes of Ali Pasha in, 176;
177; 549;
revolt in, 560 Albert, Prince, of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, married to Queen
Victoria, 681 Albrecht, C., professor at Gottingen, 379 Alemtejo, the Duke of
Terceira in, 333 Aleppo, 550; revolt in, 559 Alessandria, revolt at, 116
Alexander I, Taar, and the general Alliance, 3, 15-18, 25, 30, 36; and the
Treaty of Tilait, 3; 7; character and policy of, 8 aq.; and the Holy Al
liance, 9
aq.; and the Treaty of Paris, 11; at Aix-la-Chapelle, 14-20; and the
Slave-trade, 19; and Austria’s German policy, 22 aq.; change of opiniona of, 23,
25, 27, 364 sq., 438 sq.; at Troppau, 27, 438; and the Turkiah Question, 32; influenced
by Mettemich, 34; and Spanish affairs, 35, 211, 222 aqq.; hostile to France,
45; and the Due de Bichelieu, 47; 50; favours the evacuation of France by the
Allies, 56; 69; 74; a)nd Cardinal Consalvi, 141; and the Treaty of Bucharest,
169; and the disputes with the Porte, 175; and the Ionian Islands, 177; 179;
and the execution of Gregorios, 183; 199; and the Eastern Question, 187 sqq.;
at Czernovitz, 187; and the St Petersburg Conference, 188; 349; influence of,
upon the King of Prussia, 352; and Stourdza’s pamphlet, 364; and the Germanic
Federal constitution, 368; 370; wars of, prior to 1815, 413; the military
colonies of, 415 sq.; and the navy, 417 ; and Jeremy Bentham, 418; and the
Senate, ibid.; and the Committee of Ministers, 419; and provincial administration,
420; and the prisons, 422; and the Church, 424; dismisses Galitzin, 425; and
the abolition of serfdom, 428; and the secret societies, 432, 439; and Finland,
434 aq.; and the imperial family, 436; and the succession to the throne, 437;
schemes of (1815-19), 437 sq.; and Poland, 445 sq., 448; enters Warsaw, 446;
signs the Polish Constitution, ibid.; Concordat of, with Pius VII (1818), 449;
at the Diets at Warsaw, 450 sqq., 455 sq.; and the Polish bishops, 452; and
Polish aecret sooieties, 453 sq.; 458; and the Lithuanian provinces, 459, 464;
and. the Bepublio of Cracow, 460; death of (1825), 190, 435, 439
Alexander II,
Tsar, 436; at Warsaw, 458; visits England (1839), 558
Alexandra
Feodorovna (Princess Charlotte of Prussia), consort of the Tsar Nicholas X, 436
Alexandretta,
Turkiah fleet at, 550
Alexandria,
Turkish fleet at, 562; 565; Sir Charles Napier at, 571; 572
Alfieri,
Vittorio, 10C Algeciras, Freemasons of, 215 Algeria, France and, 98 eq.; 502
sqq.
Ali, Pasha of
Drama, 181; 185
Pasha of Janina, 172 sq.; the successes
of, 176;
claims Parga, 177; deposed by the Sultan, ibid.; death of, 178; 181; 547 Allen,
William, visits Bussian prisons, 422 Almada, captured by the Duke of Terceira,
334
Almoster,
victory of Saldanha at, 336 Alsace, the cotton industry in, 753; 758
Altenstein, Earl von Stein zum, Prussian statesman, 351; educational system of,
355; 370; 372; 382 Althorp, John Charles Spencer, Viscount (afterwards third
Earl Spencer), 593; 603; 678; and the Beform Bills, 609 sqq.; 614; 655; 657;
emancipates the Crown slaves, 659; and the Factory Act, 660; and the house-tax,
ibid.', and thePoorLaw, 662; resigns, 663 sq.; takes office in the Melbourne
ministry, 664; succeeds to the earldom, 665; and municipal reform, 670; 673;
676 sq.
Alvear,
Supreme Director of the Argentina Provinces, 301 Amarante, Count of, 316 Amat,
Cardinal-Legate at Bavenna, 156 America, North, emigration to, 762
Spanish, under Spanish rule,
Chap. VIII
passim; the establishment of independence in, Chap. IX passim, 31, 34, 38; 19;
and the Congress of Verona, 33 sq.; 186; and Great Britain, 212; revolutionary
agents from, 213; and the United States, ibid.; foreign trade with, 586, 761
Amiens,
Jean-Pierre de Gallien de Chalons, Bishop of, 85 Amp&re, Jean-Jacques, 101
Amsterdam, risings in (1813), 517; 518; 533; and European finance, 728, 742
sq.; 745; the Bank of, 746; and the Eastern trade, 761 Anahuac, the Indians of,
260 sq.
Anapa,
acquired by Bussia, 202, 444 Anatolia, 553; Beshid Pasha in,, 559 sq. Ancillon,
Johann Peter Friedrich, Prussian Minister, 350 sq.; 376 Ancona, 150; occupied
by Frenoh troops,
155 sq., 488, 506 Andalusia, 228; ths French in,
285 Andrada, Jose Bonifacio de, and the independence of Brazil, 314 sq.; 317
sq.; guardian of Pedro II, 325
Martin Francisco de, Brazilian
statesman,
315; 317 sq.
Andrade, Gomez Freire de, Portuguese general, 312 Andrd de Puyraveau,
Frenoh deputy, 476;
491
Anglesey,
Henry William Paget, Marquess of, Viceroy of Ireland, 648; 650 sq.; and reforms
in Ireland, 657; 663
Angostura,
Bolivar in, 293 sq.
Angouleme,
Louis-Antoine de Bourbon, Due de, enters Spain with a French army (1823), 36;
46; in Spain, 80, 228, 230; return of, 80
Marie-Th6rise-Charlotte, Duchesse
de, 62
Angra,
garrison of, 323 sq.; English mercenaries at, 326 Anhalt-Bemburg, extinction
of House of,
343
Alexius, Duke of, 373
Anhalt-Dessau,
and the Germanic Confederation, 344
Leopold, Duke of, 373
Anhalt-Kothen,
343; and the Prussian tariff-treaty, 372 sq.
Ferdinand, Prince of, 373
Anna
Feodorovna of Coburg, consort of the Tsarevich Constantine, 436 Anson, George,
Lord, 273 Anti-Eugeniani, secret society, in Milan, 111
Anti-Jacobin,
the, 580; 700
Antilles,
the, administration of, 248; 257;
Spanish trade
with, 275 Antologia, the, Italian review, 128 Antonelli, Giacomo, Cardinal,
Papal Secretary of State, 156 Antony, King of Saxony, 374 Antwerp, 522;
prosperity of, 533; Prince of Orange at, 535, 537; plots at, 539; siege of,
543; 759 Apodaca, Juau Buiz de, Viceroy of Mexico, 304 Apostolato popolare, 106
Apponyi, Anton Budolf, Count, at Bome, 139; at Paris, 495 Arago,
Dominique-Franijois, 499 Aragon, Carlist forces in, 239 sq. Arakcheieff,
Alexis, Russian general, 416; supports Archbishop Seraphim, 425 ; oppressive
rule of, 427; 428; 437 Aranjuez, absolutist demonstrations in,
224
Araujo de
Lima, Pedro, Begent of Brazil,
325
Arcos, revolt at, 216 Arenales, Juan Antonio Alvarez de, 293 Argenson,
Marc-Ken6 de Voyer de, 45; 61; 65; and the plots of 1820-2, 68, 76; 485; 491
Ben6-Louis, Marquis de, 770
Argentine
Bepublic, independence of, 287, 301; war of, with Brazil, 301, 325 Arguelles,
Augustin, 218; 222; appointed guardian to Queen Isabel, 242 Atkuright, Sir
Bichard, 735 Arlangi g General de, in Algeria, 504 Armenia, Bussia and, 545
Armfelt, Count Gustaf, Governor-General of Finland, 433; 435 Arndt, Ernst
Moritz, 352; 365; 403 sq. Arnim, Ludwig Achim von, 401 sqq.; goes to Berlin,
404; 405 sqq.
Arta-Volo
frontier, 202; 204 Artigas, Jos6, 300 Artista, El, Spanish periodical, 241
Artois, Charles-Philippe, Comte de, see Charles X, King of France Asooli,
Trojano Marulli, Duke of, 112 Ashburton, Alexander Baring, Lord, 355; 615
Ashley, Lord,
see Shaftesbury Asia, Central, rivalry of Great Britain and Bussia in, 556, 558
Asssirceira, the Miguelists defeated at, 336 Astrakhan, system of reoruiting
in, 415 Aeturias, Liberalism in, 214; revolt in, 216; Biego banished to, 221;
the Junta of, 282, 303 Asuncion, government of, 246; 269 Atahualpa, Head-chief
of the Inca people, 299
Atalaya,
the, Spanish periodical, 207 Attwood, Thomas, and the Birmingham Political
Union, 612, 615; in Parliament, 656; 675; and the Chartist movement, 683
Auher,
Daniel-Franijois-Esprit, 103 Augustov, Polish province, 449; 470 Austin, John,
jurist, 598 Australia, the wool trade with, 751, 759 sq. Austria, policy and
rule of, in Italy (181546), Chap, IV passim; position of, after 1815, 7;
disputes of, with Bavaria, 19, 22, 346; and the Barbary pirates, 19; and the
Naples revolt (1820), 24 sqq., 113 sq.; supports Spanish policy of France, 36;
relations of the Papacy with, 132, 137, 144 sq., 158, 155 sq.; and the San-
fedists, 135; and the demand for reforms in Italy, 150; and the Eastern Question,
170, 184 sq., 187 sqq.; refuses to sign Treaty of London, 195; offers mediation
to Turkey,i&id.; and German unity, 340 sq.; Germanic policy of, 342 sq.;
and the Germanic Confederation, 343 sq.; 349; the financial system of, 354;
conservative policy in, 355 sqq.; and a national German Church, 362; 365 sq.;
loses influence in the Levant, 371; loses influence with Prussia, 372; treaty
of, with Prussia and Bussia (1833), 376; and the Zollverein, 379; literature
in, 406 sq.; and Spanish affairs, 222, 226 sq., 230, 234 sq.; and Portuguese
affairs, 321, 323; and the province of Tarnopol, 413, 445; and the Bepublic of
Cracow, 460; and Galicia,
461 sq.; and the question of intervention against
Bussia, 462; and Louis-Philippe, 465; and Poland, 472 sq.; 494; and the French
occupation of Ancona, 506; and the union of Holland and Belgium, 520; and
Belgian independence, 538, 542; and the Turko-Egyptian Question (1831-41), 545
sq., 551 sq., 554, 557, 560, 563 sq., 566, 571; roadB in, 729, 745; industrial
undertakings in, 732; land tenure in, 748
Avellino,
rsvolt at, 112 Avenir, Le, founded by Lamsnnais, 163; 164
Avignon, Pius
VII and, 144 Ayacucho, battle of, 295 sq., 307 Azeglio, Massimo Taparelli,
Marquis da, the Rieordi of, 108-9; other publications of, 127; 156; 167 sq.
Azores, 323;
Villa Flflr in, 326; Dom Pedro in, 327
“Back-lane
Parliament,” the, 628 Baden, succession of, and the Allied Powers, 19 ; 22; 31;
relations of the Papacy with, 148 sq.; and German unity, 342 sq.; and the
Germanic Confederation, 344; and Bavaria, 346, 359, 361 sq.; 358; the political
position of, 361; Constitution of (1818), 362; 363; and the Carlsbad meeting,
366; and the Triasidee, 369 ; and customs reform, 372 ; constitutional
concessions in, 375 ; and the press laws, 377; 380; and the Protestant
Churches, 382
Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of,
361
Charles Louis Frederick, Grand Duke
of, 145 sq.;
361 sq.
Leopold, Grand Duke of, 375
Louisa Caroline (Countess von Hoch-
berg), Grand
Duchess of, 361 Baghdad, Bussia and, 545 Bagot, Sir Charles, 32; 37; at the Conference
of St Petersburg, 189 Bahia, Portuguese troops in, 312, 314 sq.;
blockade of,
316 Bakewell, Bobert, agriculturist, 731 Balbo, Cesare, 109 ; 115; writings of,
167; 168
Balkan
Peninsula, the, 1812-33, Chap. VI passim
Ballanche,
Pierre-Simon, 101 Ballesteros, Francisco, Spanish general, 217 ; 227 eq.; 231
Ballybay, Catholic demonstration at, 647 sq. Balzac, Honors de, 102; 516 Banda
Oriental, 281; 286; independence of, 300 sq.; 316 Bandiera, Attilio, 122 sq.
Emilio, 122 sq.
Baour-Lormian,
Pierre-M.-F.-L., French poet, 88
Barante,
Amable-Guillaume-Prosper Bru- gidre, Baron de, 48; 51; and the Doctrinaires,
52-5 ; created a peer, 58; 67; resigns office, 68; action of, in the Chambsr of
Peers, 81; opposes the “ law of sacrilege,” 87 ; 502 Barbados, 587; 658 .
Barbary pirates, the, 19 sq. Barb^-Marbois, Franijois, Marquis de, 47;
49
Barbes,
Armand, French socialist, 511 Barbon, Nicolas, the Discourse of Trade of, 770
Barcelona,
Carbanaro agent sent to, 213; revolt in, 216; 223; insurrections in,
241 Bq.
(Venezuela), Bolivar’B flight to,
289 .
Baring,
Alexander, see Ashburton, Lord Barings, the financial house of the, 743 Barnes,
Thomas, editor of the Times, 667 Barrot, Camille-Hyaointhe-Odilon, 507 sqq.
Barth61emy, Francois, Marquis de, 58 Barthels, Jean Theodore, Belgian journalist,
532 Bartolucei, Vincent, 138 Basque Provinces, occupied by the Carlists, 235;
239; emigration from, to Spanish America, 276 Bassano, Hughes-Bemard Marat, Duo
de, 494
Batuecas,
Ostolaza imprisoned at, 209 Baumann, Governor of Posen, 464 Baur, Ferdinand,
382 Bavaria, disputes of, with Austria, discussed by the Allied Powers, 19; 22
; 32; ecclesiastical affairs in, 146 sq.; and , German unity, 342 sq.; and the
Germanic Confederation, 343 sq.; disputes of, with Austria and Baden, 346, 361
sq.; Moutgelas’ rule in, 359; Constitution of (1818), 359 sq.; 363; and the
Carlsbad meeting, 366; and the Vienna Conference (1819), 368; and the
Triasidee, 369; 370; Liberal measures by Ludwig I,
371 sq.; and the customs treaties, 372 sq., 378
sq.; 374; 380; banking in, 746; 751 j industries in, 753 sq.
Bazard,
Amand, 485
Beauharnais,
EugSne de, Duke of Leuchten- berg, Prince of Eiohstedt, 338
Stephanie, 361
Beauregard,
Sylvain Costa de, 114 Beckford, William, 698; 709; 716 Bedchamber Plot, the,
678 Beirout, bombarded, 569; 571 Bekos, Bussian force at, 553 Belemzada,
Portuguese plot, 338 Belfort, military arrests at, 76; rising at,
492
Belgium,
Chap. XVI passim; 39; and Bhenish Prussia, 381; revolt (1830) in, 480; France
and, 482 sqq.; Casimir Perier and, 487 sq.; 489; French intervention in, 490;
independence of, 505 sq.; industries in, 744, 753 sq., 755 sqq.; roads, oanals,
and railways in, 744 sqq. joint-stock companies in, 747; the oom- mon lands of,
749; the customs tarifl in, 752; 762; see also Netherlands Belgrano, and the
revolution in Buenos Aires, 278 Belle-Isle, Portuguese vessels at, 326 sq.
Bellew, Sir Edward, 634 Bellini, Vincenzo, the musio of, 129 sq. Beliuno,
Claude Perrin, dit Viotor, Duo de, Marshal of Franoe, 74; 80 Benbow, John,
Admiral, 272
Benckendorff,
General von, and the Bussian seoret societies, 439 ; 443 Benedetti, Francesco,
the Cola di Rienzo of, 125
Benevento,
olaimed by Naples, 132; 150 Bennett, Bichard, and O’Connell, 630 Bentham,
Jeremy, influence of, 4; and the American republics, 38; 229; and the Tsar,
418; 585 ; achievements and political views of, 594 sqq.; and parliamentary
reform, 602 ; 609; 661; and James Mill, 778; and Bobert Owen, 780; and William
Thompson, ibid.
Benvenuti,
Cardinal, taken prisoner, 155 Beobaehter, the, Austrian journal, 357; 365
(Stuttgart), suppressed, 369
Beranger,
Pierre-Jean de, 88; and the fall of Mol£, 510 B6rard, Auguste-Simon-Lonis,
French politician, 477 sq.
Berbice,
ceded to Great Britain, 520 Berchet, Giovanni, 124; 126 Beresford, Lord George,
and the Waterford election, 644
William Carr, Viscount Beresford,
in Buenos
Aires, 281; in Portugal, 312 Berlin, Convention of (1833), 39, 376; 349; 353;
the literary circle in, 404; industrial undertakings in, 732, 744, 754, 757
sq.; the open plough-fields of, 749; the Gewerbeinstitut at, 752 Bernard,
Martin, Frenoh revolutionist, 511 Bernburg, see Anhalt-Bemburg Bemetti,
Tommaso, Cardinal, Papal Secretary of State, 154; 155 ; 156 Bemstorff,
Christian Gunther, Count von, at the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, 14; 366;
Mettemich and, 372; succeeded by Anoillon, 376 Berry, Caroline de Bourbon,
Duchess of, 286; 288 sq.; imprisonment of, 490 : 495
499
Charles-Ferdinand d’Artois,
Duo de,
assassination of, 23, 63, 71, 438 Berryer, Pierre-Antoine, 508 sq.
Berstett, W.
L. L. B., Baron von, Baden Minister, 362; 372 Bertin de Vaux, Louis-Franpois,
91 Berton, Jean-Baptiste, Frenoh general, 76 Beshir, Emir, ohief of the
Lebanon, 550 Bessarabia, annexed to Bussia, 413 Bessborongh, John William
Ponsonby (Lord Duncannon), fourth Earl of, 603; 610; 655; 669
Bessidres, Jorje, 221; in Spain, 223, 227,
230
Bestuzheff, Alexander (“Marlinski”). 427; 431 '
-Biumin, Miohael, 442 sq.; 454
Beugnot, Jacques-Claude, Comte, 44; and the Doctrinaires, 52; 55 ; 63
Beyle, Marie-Henri (Stendhal), 101 sq. Beyme, K. F.
B., Prussian statesman, 349: 351; 366 B6ziera, Cardinal Consalvi at, 133
Bialystok,
annexed by Eussia, 413 ; 420; 427; Russian administration of, 459: 469
Bibliotheque
Catliolique, the, Royalist journal, 72 Bislany, secret society founded at, 453
Bielineki, Count Peter, 457 Bignon, Louis-Pierre-Edouard, 91 Bilbao, siege of,
235, 238 Birmingham, parliamentary representation of, 601 sq., 613; the
National Convention at, 683; Political Union, 612; 615; the metal trades in,
737 Blacas, Pierre-Louis-Jean-Casimir, Duo de, 44 sq.; mission of, to Bome, 143
Blaok, James Bobert, and the Working Man’s Association, 682 Black Sea, the,
170; 173; Bussian claims on, 175; 202; Russia and, 546 sq.; 572 Blanc, Louis,
485; 499; 509; 573 Blandford, Marquess of, tee Marlborough Blanqui,
Louis-Auguste, French revolutionist, 511 Blomfield, Charles James, Bishop of
London, 660; 673; 679 Bliicher, Gebhard Lebrecht, Prince von, Prussian
Field-Marshal, 349 Bodmer, Johann Jakob, 384 sqq.
Bohl de Faber, J. N.( 210 Borne, Ludwig, 375, 410 sq.
Bogota, 285;
288; 230; entered by Bolivar, 294; 296 Boileau-Despr6aux, Nicolas, 384 Bolivar
y Ponte, Simon, in Venezuela, 288sqq., 293sq.; personal characteristics of,
289; in New Granada, 290, 294; 291; and the Republic of Colombia, 294, 296; in
Peru, 294 sqq.; and the Republic of Bolivia, 296; returns to Colombia, ibid.',
death of, ibid.; estimate of, 297; policy of consolidation of, 298; 300; 302;
306 Bolivia, native insurrection in, 267; 296 sq. Bologna, Carbonari meeting
at, 21; the Raggi in, 111; revolt at, 120; Univer. sity of, 137; 154; rebellion
at, 135 Bomfim, Jos<; Luie Travassos Valdes, Count of, Portuguese statesman,
339 Bon Sens, Le, Frenoh journal, 499 Bonald, Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise, Vicomte
de, 43; 47; 94; political theories of, 161; 162 Bonn, University of, 355; 381
Bordeaux, Henri-Charles-Ferdinand, Duo de, 68
Borgo, Count
Pozzo di, tee Pozzo di Borgo Borgo, Diet at, 433 Borsieri, Pietro, 119
Bosanquet,
Charles, Bicardo’s controversy with, 772
Bosnia,
unrest in, 549 _ _
Bosphorus,
Bussian rights in, 444; Bussian squadron in, 552 sq., 558; Great Britain and,
562; 564; 572 Bossnet, Jacques-Bfinigne, Bishop, the Exposition de la Foi
Catholique of, 160
Bouillon,
duchy of, added to the Netherlands, 524 Boulton, Matthew, manufacturer, 734
Bourges, Bishop of, see Fontenay Bourmont, Louis-Auguste-Victor, Comte de
Ghaisne de, Marshal of France, 97; in Portugal, 335; 486; 488 Bourne, William
Sturges-, 660 Boves, Tom&s, 289sq.; 293 Bowring, Sir John, 755 Boyaca,
victory of Bolivar at, 294 Boyen, L. H. L. von, Prussian Minister, 365 sq.
Brabant,
agriculture in, 731, 750 Bradford, and the yarn trade, 736 Bramah, Joseph, and
the planing-machine,
734
Braschi, Giovanni Angelo, tee Pius VI
-Onesti, Romuald, Cardinal, 133
Bravo,
Gonzalez, Spanish journalist, 241 Bray, John Francis, economio theories of, 782
Brazil and
Portugal, Chap. Xpattim,; 212; contraband trade in, 257; 586; trade and industries
in, 761 Breitinger, Johann Jakob, 384 Bremen, 341; and the Customs’ Union, 373
Brentano,
Clemens, 401 sq.; 404 sqq. Breslau, 364; University of, 355 Bright, John, 680
Bristol,
Reform disturbances at, 613 Britanny, disaffection in (1829), 97 Brockes,
Barthold Heinrich, 385 Brofferio, Angelo, 126 Broglie,
AchUle-L6once-Victor-Charles, Due de, 52; 53; 54; and the electoral law, 57, 60
sq.; and the liberty of the press, 58; and the SociitS det Amis de la Preste,
61; declines office, ibid.; 64; 65; 67; goes into Opposition, 68; 81; opposes
compensation for the emigrSt, 86; opposes the “law of sacrilege,” 87; and the
Revolution of 1830, 478; 480; Minister of Foreign Affairs, 489; foreign policy
of,
494 sq.; fall of, 495 sq.; and Algiers, 502; 503;
508
Albertine-Ida-Gustavine
de Stael,
Duchesse de, 52; 53
Maurice de,
Bishop of Ghent, 525 sq.
Brougham,
Henry Peter, Lord Brougham and Vaux, influence of, 574; and the income tax,
575; 580; opposes the King’s divorce hill, 583; 585; and Canning, 591; 598;
601; and parliamentary reform, 603; 604; and the Beform Bills, 610 sq., 614
sq.; and the Irish Catholic Association, 642; supports the antislavery
movement, 658, 677; and the Poor Law, 660, 662; 663 sq.; Scottish political
tour of, 665; 666; Melbourne and, 668; 673; and Thomas Drummond, 677; 679
BroukSre, Charles de, Belgian deputy, 480; 531
Bruns,
Guillaume-Marie-Anne, Marshal, assassinated, 46 Brunnow, Ernst Philipp, Baron
von, Bus- sian envoy at London, 558; 564 Brunswick, 344; and the Customs’
Union, 373; 374
Charles, Duke of, deposed, 374
Brussels,
provisional Government at (1814), 520 ; 524; indust) ial exhibition at, 533;
the revolution in, 534 sqq.; the National Congress at, 538; Leopold I in, 540
Bubna-Littiz, Ferdinand, Count von, Austrian Field-Marshal, 118 Bucharest,
Treaty of, 169; 175; 185 Buchez, Philippe-Joaeph-Benjamin, 485 Buckingham and
Chandos, Bichard F. T.
N. B. C.
Grenville, second Duke of, 614 Buda-pest, bridge at, 744 Busnos Aires, 248 sq.;
trade of, 255; 268; viceroyalty of, 274; 275; 278; 280; captured by Beresford,
281; 282; the revolution in, 285 sq.; and San Martin, 291 sq.; 298; 800 sq.;
negotiations of, with Spain, 306; and Great Britain, 807, 309; and the United
States, 308 Burger, Gottfried August, the poetry of, 387; 396; 710; 716 Bugeaud
de la Piconnerie, Thomas-Bobert, Due d’lsly, Marshal of France, 496; 503 sq.
Buller,
Charles, and the Badical party, 676 Bulwer Lytton, see Lytton Bunsen, Christian
Karl JosiaB, Baron von, 360; 381 sq.
Buol-Schauenstein,
Count Johann Budolf von, president of the Federal Diet, 344 sqq.; 348; 367;
succeeded by Miinoh- Bellinghausen, 370 Buonarotti, Michel, 485; 491 Burdett,
Sir Francis, Bart., 574; 599 sq.; and the dissolution of Parliament (1831),
611; 613; and Catholic Emancipation, 642 >
Burns,
Robert, poet, 701 sq. Surschenscha/t, 363 sqq.; 375 Bute, parliamentary
election in, 606 Butler, Charles, secretary of the committee for Catholio
relief, 625; 632
Simon, chairman of the United
Irishmen, 628
Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, 658 sq. Bylandt, Willem Frederik, Count van, military
Governor of Brabant, 534 Byron, George Gordon Nosl, Lord, 100; 126; supports
the Greek revolt, 182; influence of, in Germany, 405; influence of, in Bussia,
432; 580; and Southey, 709; the poetry of, 710 sqq.; and Shslley, 713 sq.; 715;
722; influence of, upon continental literature, 725 sq.
Cabet,
Etienne, 491 Cabezas de San Juan, revolt at, 216 Cabral, Costa, see Thomar,
Count of Cabrera, Bam6n, Carlist leader, 237 sqq.
Cadaval,
Nunho C. A. Pereira de Mello, Duke of, defeated by the Duke of Terceira,
334 sq.
Cadiz, arrest
of deputies in, 208; and the revolutionary movement, 213 sqq.; 220; the Cortes
at, 228; blockade of, ibid.; and the Indian trade, 256; the Central Junta at,
282; and Spanish America, 292, 305; 308
Caen, strike
suppressed at, 491 CaffS, Italian review, 124 Cairo, British troops prisoners
at, 547 Calabria, 120; insurrection in, 122
Duke of, see Francis I, King of the
Two Sicilies
Calatrava, Jos£ Maria, Spanish statesman, 234; the ministry of, 238 sq.
Calderon,
Felix del Bey Calleja, Conde de, Spanieh general, 216; Viceroy of Mexico,
304
Calderon de
la Barca, Pedro, Spanish dramatist, 407 California, progress in, 271 Callao,
255; 273; attacked by Coohrane, 292; 295
Calleja,
Felix del Bey, see Calderon Calomaide, F. T., Spanish statesman, Minister of
Justice, 232 Calonius, Finnish lawyer, 434 Camhrai, Louis XVQI at, 44, 48
Cambridge, Byron at, 711 Campbell, ThomaB, poet, 700 Canada, Chap. XXI passim;
the Catholio Church in, 625; the export wheat trade of, 760 Canga Arguslles,
Jos£, 218 Canning, George, statesman, 12; 33, 34; policy of, 36 sqq., 584 sq.;
and the Greek revolt and Eastern Question, 184 sqq.; 197 sq.; 200; and the
Spanish question, 226; and Spanish America, 308 sq.; and the United States, 309;
and Portuguese affairs, 319, 321; and the European System, 371; 573; enters the
Ministry (1816), 575; 580; Foreign Secretary (1822), 583; 587; 589 sq.; Prime
Minister (18271, 591; and the Corn Law, 591 sq.; death of, 195,592; aud Tory
principles, 600 sq.; 602; 604; 618; and Catholic emancipation, 634, 642, 645;
and the abolition of slavery, 658; and the Anti-Jacobin, 700
Stratford, Viscouut Stratford de Bed-
cliffe, at St
Petersburg, 189 sq.; 191; at Constantinople, 549; 551 Canosa, Prinoe of, 110
Canova, Antonio, sculptor, 151 Canterbury, Archbishop of, see Howley, William
Cantillon,
Biohard, his book, The Nature of Commerce, 770 Cantfi, Cesare, 106; 125 Canuel,
Simon, Baron, French general, 54 Cape Breton, and the Peaoe of Paris (1763),
685; 687
Colony, the wool trade with, 759
Cape of Good
Hope, oeded to Great Britain, 520
Capellari,
Mauro, see Gregory XYI Capo d’ Istria, Count John, see Capodistrias
Capodistrias, at the Conference of Aix- la-Chapelle, 14, 16; 21; 23; 25; at the
Conference of Troppau, 27; at the Conference of Laibach, 29; 34; and the Ionian
Islands, 177; refuses leadership of the Greek revolt, 178; and Yptsilanti, 179;
decline of the influence of, 184; 188; elected Greek President, 200; and the
Greek settlement, 203; and the Spanish secret mission, 212 sq.; and Metternich,
370 ; 420; assassination of,
204
Capponi, Gino
A. G. G., Marchese, 108; 128
Carabobo,
battle of, 294 _
Caracas, and
the succession to the Spanish throne, 283; 285; revolution of, 288 sq.; 294;
Bolivar in, 296; 297 sq.; the cabildo of, 246 6q.; 243 Carbonari, meeting of,
at Bologna, 21; 111 sqq.; in Piedmont, 114; 123; condemned by the Papacy, 135;
138; Pius VII and, 150; persecution of, by Cardinal Bivarola, 152; and American
revolutionaries, 213; in Spain, 221; excommunicated, 452 Cardoso, Governor of
Villa-de-Conde, 328 sq.
Carducci,
Giosne, 115 Carleton, Sir Guy, afterwards Baron Dorchester, Governor of
Quebec, 687 Carlisle, George William Frederick Howard, seventh Earl of, 677
Carlo Alberto, King of Sardinia, 114 sqq.; reforms by, 123; 129; 142
Felice, King of Sardinia, 116-7; 123
Carlos, Don,
230; and the rise of the Carlist party, 231; and the succession to the throne,
232 sq.; and the Powers, 235; 237 sq.; negotiations of, with Cristina, 239;
retires to France, 240; abdication of (1845), 243; Thiers and, 496 Carlota
Joaquina, Queen of Portugal, 310; character of, 313; 316 sq.; 322; death of,
324
of Brazil, Princess, 283; 285
Carlsbad,
meeting of Ministers at, 366; Metternich and Nesselrode at, 481; Decrees (1819),
22, 23, 356, 367, 370 Carlyle, Thomas, and Scott, 719 Carn6, Louis Marcein,
Comte de, 500 Caroline, Queen of England, 583
Queen of Naples, 110 _
Augusta, Empress of Austria, 146
Caron,
Augustin-Joseph, French colonel, 76 Carraca, arsenal of, seized by revolutionaries,
216 Carrel, Nicolas-Armand, 491 sq.; 499 Carretto, Guglielmo del, Marquis,
suppresses revolt at Cilento, 119 Cars, Due des, 486
Cartagena
(Colombia), 251; the Inquisition
in, 253 sq.;
260; 272 sq.; 285; 288 sqq.; Bolivar retires to, 296 Cartaxo, Saldanha at, 336
Cartwright, Major John, 576 sq.; 597
Thomas, Secretary of the British
Legation at
the Hague, 536 sq.
Carvajal,
Spanish general, 222 Carvalho, Jos£ da Silva, Portuguese statesman, 326; 330
Casati, Teresa, 118
Castalbajac,
French Boyalist politician, 74 Castanos, Francis Xavier de, Duke of Baylen,
Spanish general, 211 Castiglioni, Francesco Xaverio, see Pius
VIII, Pope Castillia, Gaetano, 119 Castle, informer,
578 sq.
Castlereagh,
Bobert Stewart, Viscount (afterwards second Marquess of Londonderry), 7; 9;
and the Holy Alliance, 10; and the Treaty of Paris (1815), 11; and the
“European System,” 12; 13; at the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, 14 sqq.; 21;
protests against the Carlsbad Decrees, 22; 23; 25; and the Conference of
Troppau, 27-9; discusses the Eastern Question with Metternich, 32, 184; 36; and
Consalvi, 141; 176 sq.; 186; and the Greek revolt, 187; and the Vienna
Congress
(1819),
368; 371; and the Polish question,
445 sq.; and the union of Holland and Belgium, 519
sq.; leader in the Commons, 574 sq.; and repressive measures, 578 sq.; 580;
584; election of, for county Down, 607; and tha movement for Catholic relief,
629, 634; death of, 33, 583 Catalonia, 228; absolutist revolt in, 230;
239
Catharine II,
Empress of Bussia, 172; 413; 423; 42a; and the serfs, 426; 471
Queen Consort of Wiirttsmberg, 361
Catholic
Emancipation, Chap. XIX patsirn Catholique, Le, Ghent journal, 532
Caucasus, Orthodox mission in, 422 Caussidi&re, Marc, 492 Cavaignao,
Elenore-Louis-Godefroy, 485; 491
Louis-Eugdne, 485
Cavendish, Sir Thomas, navigator, 272 Cayla, Zo6 Talon, Comtesse du, 69
Cea Bermudez, Spanish Minister, 233 Celles,Antoine-P.-F.-G. De
Visscher, Comte de, 480 ; 527 Centri, secret society, in Mantua, 111 Cesari,
Italian brigand, 138 Cesena, Pius VII at, 134; riots at, 154; 155 Cevallos,
Pedro, Spanish ambassador at Vienna, 213 Chacabuco, Boyalist defeat at, 292
Chaco, the, district of, 269 sq.
Chadwick,
Edwin, and Poor Law reform, 660 sqq.; 681 Chalmers, Thomas, economic theories
of. 775
Chamb6ry,
bishopric of, 149
Chamisso,
Adelbert you, German poet, 404 Champagny, Frani;ois-J.-M.-T., Comte de,
500
Chandos,
Marquis of, see Buckingham and Ghandos, Duke of Chaptal, Jean-Antoine, Comte de
Chante- lonp, 744
Charbonnerie
frangaise, secret society, 68,75 Charcas, province of, 249 Charles V, Emperor,
269
X, King of Francs (Comte d’Artois),
13; 41; 44;
49; and army reforms, 55; tries to force a Boyalist policy, 56; 58; decline of
the influence of, 60; 62; 65; 67; and Bichelieu, 63, 70; 65; 67; 71; accession
of (1824), 85; and compensation for the emigres, 71, 85 sq.;
, and the
Church, 87; consecration of, 87 sq.; 90; appoints Martignao to succeed Villlle,
92; and Martignac, 93 sq.; and the Polignac ministry, 96-8; character and
policy of, 97; 98; and the address of the Liberal deputies, 99; publishes the
ordinances of July 25, 1830, ib.; 162; and the Greek Question, 189,193;
Mettemich and, 371; and the Revolution of 1830, 476; 477 sq.; 481 sq.; 486
Ill, King of Spain, 142; 206; and
reforms in Spanish
America, 274 sq.
. IV, King of Spain, 232; 283; and
Mexioo, 303
XIV, King of Sweden, and the
European
concert, 19, 36
Archduke of Austria, 357; 473;
and the
Belgian throne, 539
Edward Stewart, Prinos, 625
Charlet,
Nicolas-Toussaint, 489 Charlotte Augusta, English Princess, 541 Chass6, David
Hendrik, Baron, Dutch general, 537; 643 Chateaubriand, Fran<?ois-Auguste,
Yicomte de, 4; Le genie du christianisme of, 5, 53,100; the BSfiexiam
politiques of, 43; 44; 47; 49; La Monarchie selon la Gharte of, 51; 55; and the
D6bats, 59; 60; states the demands of the Ultras, 62; 63; ambassador in Berlin,
68; influence of, 72; policy of, in Berlin, 73; ambassador in London, 74;
advocates a war polioy, 79; and the Congress of Verona, ibid.; Minister of Foreign
Affairs, ibid. ; dismissed, 80; 82; opposes Vill&e’s financial scheme, 83,
86; 89; andVilldle,
90 sq.; and the literature of the Restoration,
100 sqq.; Les Martyrs of, 100; 103; ambassador in Bome, 153 sq.; the oon-
fession of faith of, 159; and Spanish affairs, 225 sq.; 230; and Spanish
America, 309; 490; 494; 508; 514 Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of, 599; 605; 703
Ch&tillon,
Gonfsrenoea of, 9 Chatterton, Thomas, poet, 698; 710 Chaumont, Treaty of, 7, 9,
11, 16, 481,
519
Chauvslin, FranQois-Bernard, Marquis de,
91
Chaves,
Manuel de Silveyra Pinto de Fonseca, Marquis ds, 321 Chelm, diooese of, 449;
added to West Prussia, 463 Chernysheff, Bussian Minister of War, 465 Chssney,
Francis Bawdon, General, 558 Chevaliers de la LibertS, 68 Chiaramonti, Gregorio
Barnaha, see Pius VH, Pope
Chile,
administration of, 248 sq.; negroes in, 260; the Indians in, 268; Frenoh
settlers in, 276; 278; 282; revolutionary developments in, 287; 290; invasion
of, hy San Martin, 291 sq.; Lord Cochrane’s services to, 292; 295; 300 sq.;
independence of, recognised by the United States, 308
Chiloe, 277;
surrenders to the Chilians, 295
China, South
American trade with, 255;
British trade
with, 760 Chlapovski, Stanislas, Polish general, 472 Chlopicki, Joseph, Polish
general, and the Polish revolution, 465 sqq.
Chrzanovski,
Adalbert, Polish officer, 468; . 470
Chuguieff,
military insurrection in, 438 Church, Sir Bichard, 176 ; joins the Greek
insurgents, 182; 202 Cilento, revolt at, 119 Cimarosa, Domenico, 131 Cirilo,
Fray, ex-General of the Franciscans, 222
Cisalpine
Club, formation of, 626
Bepublio, 131 sq.
Cisneros,
Marques de, Spanish admiral,
285 sq.