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READING HALLTHE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE FROM 1792 TO 1878
CHAPTER XIV.THE MEDITERRANEAN MOVEMENTS OF 1820.
WHEN the
guardians of Europe, at the end of the first three years of peace, scanned from
their council-chamber at Aix-la-Chapelle that goodly heritage which, under
Providence, their own parental care was henceforth to guard against the
assaults of malice and revolution, they had fixed their gaze chiefly on France,
Germany, and the Netherlands, as the regions most threatened by the spirit of
change. The forecast was not an accurate one. In each of these countries
Government proved during the succeeding years to be much more than a match for
its real or imaginary foes: it was in the Mediterranean States, which had
excited comparatively little anxiety, that the first successful attack was made
upon established power.
Three movements
arose successively in the three southern peninsulas, at the time when
Metternich was enjoying the silence which he had imposed upon Germany, and the UltraRoyalists of France were making good the advantage
which the crime of an individual and the imprudence of a party had thrown into
their hands. In Spain and in Italy a body of soldiers rose on behalf of
constitutional government: in Greece a nation rose against the rule of the
foreigner. In all three countries the issue of these movements was, after a
longer or shorter interval, determined by the Northern Powers. All three
movements were at first treated as identical in their character, and all alike
condemned as the work of Jacobinism. But the course of events, and a change of
persons in the government of one great State, brought about a truer view of the
nature of the struggle in Greece. The ultimate action of Europe in the affairs
of that country was different from its action in the affairs of Italy and Spain.
It is now only remembered as an instance of political recklessness or stupidity
that a conflict of race against race and of religion against religion should
for a while have been confused by some of the leading Ministers of Europe with
the attempt of a party to make the form of domestic government more liberal.
The Hellenic rising had indeed no feature in common with the revolutions of
Naples and Cadiz; and, although in order of time the opening of the Greek
movement long preceded the close of the Spanish movement, the historian, who
has neither the politician's motive for making a confusion, nor the protection
of his excuse of ignorance, must in this case neglect the accidents of
chronology, and treat the two as altogether apart.
King Ferdinand
of Spain, after overthrowing the Constitution which he found in existence on
his return to his country, had conducted himself as if his object had been to
show what lengths a legitimate monarch might abuse the fidelity of his subjects
and defy the public opinion of Europe. The leaders of the Cortes, whom he had
arrested in 1814, after being declared innocent by one tribunal after another,
were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment by an arbitrary decree of the
King, without even the pretence of judicial forms. Men
who had been conspicuous in the struggle of the nation against Napoleon were
neglected or disgraced; many of the highest posts were filled by politicians
who had played a double part, or had even served under the invader. Priests and
courtiers intrigued for influence over the King; even when a capable Minister
was placed in power through the pressure of the ambassadors, and the King's
name was set to edicts of administrative reform, these edicts were made a dead
letter by the powerful band who lived upon the corruption of the public
service. Nothing was sacred except the interest of the clergy; this, however,
was enough to keep the rural population on the King's side. The peasant, who
knew that his house would not now be burnt by the French, and who heard that
true religion had at length triumphed over its enemies, understood, and cared
to understand, nothing more. Rumours of kingly
misgovernment and oppression scarcely reached his ears. Ferdinand was still the
child of Spain and of the Church; his return had been the return of peace; his
rule was the victory of the Catholic faith. But the acquiescence of the mass of
the people was not shared by the officers of the army and the educated classes
in the towns. The overthrow of the Constitution was from the first condemned by
soldiers who had won distinction under the government of the Cortes; and a
series of acts of military rebellion, though isolated and on the smallest
scale, showed that the course on which Ferdinand had entered was not altogether
free from danger. The attempts of General Mina in 1814, and of Porlier and Lacy in succeeding years, to raise the soldiery
on behalf of the Constitution, failed, through the indifference of the soldiery
themselves, and the power which the priesthood exercised in garrison-towns.
Discontent made its way in the army by slow degrees; and the ultimate
declaration of a military party against the existing Government was due at
least as much to Ferdinand's absurd system of favoritism, and to the wretched
condition into which the army had been thrown, as to an attachment to the
memory or the principles of constitutional rule.
Misgovernment
made the treasury bankrupt; soldiers and sailors received no pay for years
together; and the hatred with which the Spanish people had now come to regard
military service is curiously shown by an order of the Government that all the
beggars in Madrid and other great towns should be seized on a certain night
(July 23, 1816), and enrolled in the army. But the very beggars were more than
a match for Ferdinand's administration. They heard of the fate in store for
them, and mysteriously disappeared, so frustrating a measure by which it had
been calculated that Spain would gain sixty thousand warriors.
The military
revolution which at length broke out in the year 1820 was closely connected
with struggle the struggle for independence now being made by the American
colonies of Spain; and in its turn it affected the course of this struggle and
its final result. The colonies had refused to accept the rule either of Joseph
Bonaparte or of the Cortes of Cadiz when their legitimate sovereign was
dispossessed by Napoleon. While acting for the most part in Ferdinand's name,
they had engaged in a struggle with the National Government of Spain. They had
tasted independence; and although on the restoration of Ferdinand they would
probably have recognized the rights of the Spanish Crown if certain concessions
had been made, they were not disposed to return to the condition of inferiority
in which they had been held during the last century, or to submit to rulers who
proved themselves as cruel and vindictive in moments of victory as they were
incapable of understanding the needs of the time. The struggle accordingly
continued. Regiment after regiment was sent from Spain, to perish of fever, of
forced marches, or on the field. The Government of King Ferdinand, despairing
of its own resources, looked around for help among the European Powers. England
would have lent its mediation, and possibly even armed assistance, if the Court
of Madrid would have granted a reasonable amount of freedom to the colonies,
and have opened their ports to British commerce. This, however, was not in
accordance with the views of Ferdinand's advisers. Strange as it may appear,
the Spanish Government demanded that the alliance of Sovereigns, which had been
framed for the purpose of resisting the principle of rebellion and disorder in
Europe, should intervene against its revolted subjects on the other side of the
Atlantic, and it implied that England, if acting at all, should act as the
instrument of the Alliance.
Encouragement
was given to the design by the Courts of Paris and St. Petersburg. Whether a
continent claimed its independence, or a German schoolboy wore a forbidden
ribbon in his cap, the chiefs of the Holy Alliance now assumed the frown of
offended Providence, and prepared to interpose their own superior power and
wisdom to save a misguided world from the consequences of its own folly.
Alexander had indeed for a time hoped that the means of subduing the colonies
might be supplied by himself; and in his zeal to supplant England in the good
graces of Ferdinand he sold the King a fleet of war on very moderate terms. To
the scandal of Europe the ships, when they reached Cadiz, turned out to be
thoroughly rotten and unseaworthy. As it was certain that the Czar's fleet and
the Spanish soldiers, however holy their mission, would all go to the bottom
together as soon as they encountered the waves of the Atlantic, the expedition
was postponed, and the affairs of America were brought before the Conference of
Aix-la-Chapelle.
The Envoys of
Russia and France submitted a paper, in which, anticipating the storm warnings
of more recent times, they described the dangers to which monarchical Europe would
be exposed from the growth of a federation of republics in America; and they
suggested that Wellington, as “the man of Europe”, should go to Madrid, to
preside over a negotiation between the Court of Spain and all the ambassadors
with reference to the terms to be offered to the Transatlantic States. England,
however, in spite of Lord Castlereagh's dread of revolutionary contagion,
adhered to the principles which it had already laid down; and as the
counsellors of King Ferdinand declined to change their policy, Spain was left
to subdue its colonies by itself.
It was in the
army assembled at Cadiz for embarkation in the summer of 1819 that the
conspiracy against Ferdinand's government found its leaders. Secret societies
had now spread themselves over the principal Spanish towns, and looked to the
soldiery on the coast for the signal of revolt. Abisbal,
commander at Cadiz, intending to make himself safe against all contingencies,
encouraged for a while the plots of the discontented officers: then, foreseeing
the failure of the movement, he arrested the principal men by a stratagem, and
went off to Madrid, to reveal the conspiracy to the Court and to take credit
for saving the King's crown (July, 1819). If the army could have been
immediately despatched to America, the danger could
possibly have passed away. This, however, was prevented by an outbreak of
yellow fever, which made it necessary to send the troops into cantonments for
several months. The conspirators gained time to renew their plans. The common soldiers,
who had hitherto been faithful to the Government, heard in their own squalor
and inaction the fearful stories of the few sick and wounded who returned from
beyond the seas, and learnt to regard the order of embarkation as a sentence of
death. Several battalions were won over to the cause of constitutional liberty
by their commanders. The leaders imprisoned a few months before were again in
communication with their followers. After the treachery of Abisbal,
it was agreed to carry out the revolt without the assistance of generals or
grandees. The leaders chosen were two colonels, Quiroga and Riego,
of whom the former was in nominal confinement in a monastery near Medina
Sidonia, twenty miles east of Cadiz, while Riego was
stationed at Cabezas, a few marches distant on the great road to Seville. The
first day of the year 1820 was fixed for the insurrection. It was determined
that Riego should descend upon the headquarters
which were at Arcos, and arrest the generals before
they could hear anything of the movement, while Quiroga, moving from the east,
gathered up the battalions stationed on the road, and threw himself into Cadiz,
there to await his colleague's approach.
The first step
in the enterprise proved successful. Riego,
proclaiming the Constitution of 1812, surprised the headquarters, seized the
generals, and rallied several companies to his standard. Quiroga, however,
though he gained possession of San Fernando, at the eastern end of the
peninsula of Leon, on which Cadiz is situated, failed to make his entrance into
Cadiz. The commandant, hearing of the capture of the headquarters, had closed
the city gates, and arrested the principal inhabitants whom he suspected of
being concerned in the plot. The troops within the town showed no sign of mutiny.
Riego, when he
arrived at the peninsula of Leon, found that only five thousand men in all had
joined the good cause, while Cadiz, with a considerable garrison and
fortifications of great strength, stood hostile before him. He accordingly set
off with a small force to visit and win over the other regiments which were
lying in the neighbouring towns and villages. The
commanders, however, while not venturing to attack the mutineers, drew off
their troops to a distance, and prevented them from entering into any
communication with Riego. The adventurous soldier,
leaving Quiroga in the peninsula of Leon, then marched into the interior of
Andalusia (January 27), endeavouring to raise the
inhabitants of the towns. But the small numbers of his band, and the knowledge
that Cadiz and the greater part of the army still held by the Government,
prevented the inhabitants from joining the insurrection, even where they
received Riego with kindness and supplied the wants
of his soldiers. During week after week the little column traversed the
country, now cut off from retreat, exhausted by forced marches in drenching
rain, and harassed by far stronger forces sent in pursuit. The last town that Riego entered was Cordova. The enemy was close behind him.
No halt was possible. He led his band, now numbering only two hundred men, into
the mountains, and there bade them disperse (March 11).
With Quiroga
lying inactive in the peninsula of Leon and Riego hunted from village to village, it seemed as if the insurrection which they had
begun could only end in the ruin of its leaders. But the movement had in fact
effected its object. While the courtiers around King Ferdinand, unwarned by the
news from Cadiz, continued their intrigues against one another, the rumour of rebellion spread over the country. If no great
success had been achieved by the rebels, it was also certain that no great blow
had been struck by the Government.
The example of
bold action had been set; the shock given at one end of the peninsula was felt
at the other; and a fortnight before Riego’s band
dispersed, the garrison and the citizens of Corunna together declared for the
Constitution (February 20). From Corunna the revolutionary movement spread to
Ferrol, and to all the other coast-towns of Galicia. The news reached Madrid,
terrifying the Government, and exciting the spirit of insurrection in the
capital itself. The King summoned a council of the leading men around him. The
wisest of them advised him to publish a moderate Constitution, and, by
convoking a Parliament immediately, to stay the movement, which would otherwise
result in the restoration of the Assembly and the Constitution of 1812. They
also urged the King to abolish the Inquisition forthwith. Ferdinand's brother,
Don Carlos, the head of the clerical party, succeeded in preventing both
measures. Though the generals in all quarters of Spain wrote that they could
not answer for the troops, there were still hopes of keeping down the country
by force of arms. Abisbal, who was at Madrid, was
ordered to move with reinforcements towards the army in the south.
He set out
protesting to the King that he knew the way to deal with rebels. When he
reached Ocaña he proclaimed the Constitution himself (March 4). It was now
clear that the cause of absolute monarchy was lost. The ferment in Madrid
increased. On the night of the 6th of March all the great bodies of State
assembled for council in the King's palace, and early on the 7th Ferdinand
published a proclamation, stating that he had determined to summon the Cortes
immediately. This declaration satisfied no one, for the Cortes designed by the
King might be the mere revival of a medieval form, and the history of 1814
showed how little value was to be attached to Ferdinand’s promises. Crowds
gathered in the great squares of Madrid, crying for the Constitution of 1812.
The statement of the Minister of War that the Guard was on the point of joining
the people now overcame even the resistance of Don Carlos and the confessors;
and after a day wasted in dispute, Ferdinand announced to his people that he
was ready to take the oath to the Constitution which they desired. The next day
was given up to public rejoicings; the book of the Constitution was carried in
procession through the city with the honours paid to
the Holy Sacrament, and all political prisoners were set at liberty. The prison
of the Inquisition was sacked, the instruments of torture broken in pieces. On
the 9th the leaders of the agitation took steps to make the King fulfil his
promise.
A mob invaded
the court and threshold of the palace. At their demand the municipal council of
1814 was restored; its members were sent, in company with six deputies chosen
by the populace, to receive the pledges of the King. Ferdinand, all smiles and
bows, while he looked forward to the day when force or intrigue should make him
again absolute master of Spain, and enable him to take vengeance upon the men
who were humiliating him, took the oath of fidelity to the Constitution of
1812. New Ministers were immediately called to office, and a provisional Junta
was placed by their side as the representative of the public until the new
Cortes should be duly elected.
Tidings of the
Spanish revolution passed rapidly over Europe, disquieting the courts and
everywhere reviving the hopes of the friends of popular right. Before four
months had passed, the constitutional movement begun in Cadiz was taken up in
Southern Italy. The kingdom of Naples was one of those States which had
profited the most by French conquest.
During the nine
years that its crown was held by Joseph Bonaparte and Murat, the laws and
institutions which accompanied Napoleon's supremacy had rudely broken up the
ancient fixity of confusions which passed for government, and had aroused no
insignificant forces of new social life. The feudal tenure of land, and with it
something of the feudal structure of society, had passed away: the monasteries
had been dissolved; the French civil code, and a criminal code based upon that
of France, had taken the place of a thousand conflicting customs and jurisdictions;
taxation had been made, if not light, yet equitable and simple; justice was
regular, and the same for baron and peasant; brigandage had been extinguished;
and, for the first time in many centuries, the presence of a rational and
uniform administration was felt over all the south of Italy. Nor on the
restoration of King Ferdinand had any reaction been permitted to take place
like that which in a moment destroyed the work of reform in Spain and in
Westphalia. England and Austria insisted that there should be neither vengeance
nor counter-revolution. Queen Marie Caroline, the principal agent in the
cruelties of 1799, was dead; Ferdinand himself was old and indolent, and
willing to leave affairs in the hands of Ministers more intelligent than himself.
Hence the laws and the administrative system of Murat remained on the whole
unchanged. As in France, a Bourbon Sovereign placed himself at the head of a
political order fashioned by Napoleon and the Revolution. Where changes in the
law were made, or acts of State revoked, it was for the most part in
consequence of an understanding with the Holy See. Thus, while no attempt was
made to eject the purchasers of Church-lands, the lands not actually sold were
given back to the Church; a considerable number of monasteries were restored;
education was allowed to fall again into the hands of the clergy; the Jesuits
were recalled, and the Church regained its jurisdiction in marriage causes, as
well as the right of suppressing writings at variance with the Catholic faith.
But the legal
and recognized changes which followed Ferdinand's return by no means expressed
the whole change in the operation of government. If there were not two
conflicting systems at work, there were two conflicting bodies of partisans in
the State. Like the emigrants who returned with Louis XVIII, a multitude of
Neapolitans, high and low, who had either accompanied the King in his exile to
Sicily or fought for him on the mainland in 1799 and 1806, now expected their
reward. In their interest the efficiency of the public service was sacrificed
and the course of justice perverted. Men who had committed notorious crimes
escaped punishment if they had been numbered among the King’s friends; the
generals and officials who had served under Murat, though not removed from
their posts, were treated with discourtesy and suspicion. It was in the army
most of all that the antagonism of the two parties was felt. A medal was struck
for service in Sicily, and every year spent there in inaction was reckoned as two
in computing seniority. Thus the younger officers of Murat found their way
blocked by a troop of idlers, and at the same time their prospects suffered
from the honest attempts made by Ministers to reduce the military expenditure.
Discontent existed in every rank. The generals were familiar with the idea of
political change, for during the last years of Murat's reign they had
themselves thought of compelling him to grant a Constitution: the younger
officers and the sergeants were in great part members of the secret society of
the Carbonari, which in the course of the last few years had grown with the
weakness of the Government, and had now become the principal power in the
Neapolitan kingdom.
The origin of
this society, which derived its name and its symbolism from the trade of the
charcoal-burner, as Freemasonry from that of the builder, is uncertain. Whether
its first aim was resistance to Bourbon tyranny after 1799, or the expulsion of
the French and Austrians from Italy, in the year 1814 it was actively working
for constitutional government in opposition to Murat, and receiving
encouragement from Sicily, where Ferdinand was then playing the part of
constitutional King.
The maintenance
of absolute government by the restored Bourbon Court severed the bond which for
a time existed between legitimate monarchy and conspiracy; and the lodges of
the Carbonari, now extending themselves over the country with great rapidity,
became so many centres of agitation against despotic
rule. By the year 1819 it was reckoned that one person out of every twenty-five
in the kingdom of Naples had joined the society. Its members were drawn from
all classes, most numerously perhaps from the middle class in the towns; but
even priests had been initiated, and there was no branch of the public service
that had not Carbonari in its ranks. The Government, apprehending danger from
the extension of the sect, tried to counteract it by founding a rival society
of Calderari, or Braziers, in which every miscreant
who before 1815 had murdered and robbed in the name of King Ferdinand and the
Catholic faith received a welcome. But though the number of such persons was
not small, the growth of this fraternity remained far behind that of its model;
and the chief result of the competition was that intrigue and mystery gained a
greater charm than ever for the Italians, and that all confidence in Government
perished, under the sense that there was a hidden power in the land which was
only awaiting the due moment to put forth its strength in revolutionary action.
After the
proclamation of the Spanish Constitution, an outbreak in the kingdom of Naples
had become inevitable. The Carbonari of Salerno, where the sect had its
head-quarters, had intended to rise at the beginning of June; their action,
however, was postponed for some months, and it was anticipated by the daring
movement of a few sergeants belonging to a cavalry regiment stationed at Nola,
and of a lieutenant, named Morelli, whom they had persuaded to place himself at
their head. Leading out a squadron of a hundred and fifty men in the direction
of Avellino on the morning of July 2nd, Morelli proclaimed the Constitution.
One of the soldiers alone left the band; force or persuasion kept others to the
standard, though they disapproved of the enterprise. The inhabitants of the
populous places that lie between Nola and Avellino welcomed the squadron, or at
least offered it no opposition: the officer commanding at Avellino came himself
to meet Morelli, and promised him assistance. The band encamped that night in a
village; on the next day they entered Avellino, where the troops and
townspeople, headed by the bishop and officers, declared in their favour. From Avellino the news of the movement spread
quickly over the surrounding country. The Carbonari were everywhere prepared
for revolt; and before the Government had taken a single step in its own defence, the Constitution had been joyfully and peacefully
accepted, not only by the people but by the militia and the regular troops,
throughout the greater part of the district that lies to the east of Naples.
The King was on
board ship in the bay, when, in the afternoon of July 2nd, intelligence came of
Morelli's revolt at Nola. Nothing was done by the Ministry on that day,
although Morelli and his band might have been captured in a few hours if any
resolute officer, with a few trustworthy troops, had been sent against them. On
the next morning, when the garrison of Avellino had already joined the
mutineers, and taken up a strong position commanding the road from Naples,
General Carrascosa was sent, not to reduce the
insurgents for no troops were given to him but to pardon, to bribe, and to coax
them into submission. Carrascosa failed to effect any
good; other generals, who, during the following days, attempted to attack the
mutineers, found that their troops would not follow them, and that the feeling
of opposition to the Government, though it nowhere broke into lawlessness, was
universal in the army as well as the nation. If the people generally understood
little of politics, they had learnt enough to dislike arbitrary taxation and
the power of arbitrary arrest. Not a single hand or voice was anywhere raised
in defence of absolutism. Escaping from Naples, where
he was watched by the Government, General Pepe, who was at once the chief man
among the Carbonari and military commandant of the province in which Avellino
lies, went to place himself at the head of the revolution.
Naples itself
had hitherto remained quiet, but on the night of July 6th a deputation from the
Carbonari informed the King that they could no longer preserve tranquillity in the city unless a Constitution was granted.
The King, without waiting for morning, published an edict declaring that a
Constitution should be drawn up within eight days; immediately afterwards he
appointed a new Ministry, and, feigning illness, committed the exercise of
royal authority to his son, the Duke of Calabria.
Ferdinand’s
action was taken by the people as a stratagem. He had employed the device of a
temporary abdication some years before in cajoling the Sicilians; and the delay
of eight days seemed unnecessary to ardent souls who knew that a Spanish
Constitution was in existence and did not know of its defects in practice.
There was also on the side of the Carbonari the telling argument that
Ferdinand, as a possible successor to his nephew, the King of Spain, actually
had signed the Spanish Constitution in order to preserve his own contingent
rights to that crown. What Ferdinand had accepted as Infante of Spain he might well
accept as King of Naples. The cry was therefore for the immediate proclamation
of the Spanish Constitution of 1812. The court yielded, and the Duke of
Calabria, as viceroy, published an edict making this Constitution the law of
the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But the tumult continued, for deceit was still
feared, until the edict appeared again, signed by the King himself. Then all
was rejoicing. Pepe, at the head of a large body of troops, militia and
Carbonari, made a triumphal entry into the city, and, in company with Morelli
and other leaders of the military rebellion, was hypocritically thanked by the
Viceroy for his services to the nation.
On the 13th of
July the King, a hale but venerable-looking man of seventy, took the oath to
the Constitution before the altar in the royal chapel. The form of words had
been written out for him; but Ferdinand was fond of theatrical acts of
religion, and did not content himself with reading certain solemn phrases.
Raising his eyes to the crucifix above the altar, he uttered aloud a prayer
that if the oath was not sincerely taken the vengeance of God might fall upon
his head. Then, after blessing and embracing his sons, the venerable monarch
wrote to the Emperor of Austria, protesting that all that he did was done under
constraint, and that his obligations were null and void.
A month more
passed, and in a third kingdom absolute government fell before the combined
action of soldiers and people. The Court of Lisbon had migrated to Brazil in
1807, when the troops of Napoleon first appeared upon the Tagus, and Portugal
had since then been governed by a Regency, acting in the name of the absent
Sovereign.
The events of
the Peninsular War had reduced Portugal almost to the condition of a dependency
of Great Britain. Marshal Beresford, the English commander-in-chief of its
army, kept his post when the war was over, and with him there remained a great
number of English officers who had led the Portuguese regiments in Wellington's
campaigns.
The presence of
these English soldiers was unwelcome, and commercial rivalry embittered the
natural feeling of impatience towards an ally who remained as master rather
than guest. Up to the year 1807 the entire trade with Brazil had been confined
by law to Portuguese merchants; when, however, the Court had established itself
beyond the Atlantic, it had opened the ports of Brazil to British ships, in
return for the assistance given by our own country against Napoleon.
Both England
and Brazil profited by the new commerce, but the Portuguese traders, who had of
old had the monopoly, were ruined. The change in the seat of government was in
fact seen to be nothing less than a reversal of the old relations between the
European country and its colony. Hitherto Brazil had been governed in the
interests of Portugal; but with a Sovereign fixed at Rio Janeiro, it was almost
inevitable that Portugal should be governed in the interests of Brazil.
Declining trade, the misery and impoverishment resulting from a long war,
resentment against a Court which could not be induced to return to the kingdom,
and a foreigner who could not be induced to quit it, filled the army and all
classes in the nation with discontent.
Conspiracies
were discovered as early as 1817, and the conspirators punished with all the
barbarous ferocity of the Middle Ages. Beresford, who had not sufficient tact
to prevent the execution of a sentence ordering twelve persons to be strangled,
beheaded, and then burnt in the streets of Lisbon, found, during the two
succeeding years, that the state of the country was becoming worse and worse.
In the spring
of 1820, when the Spanish revolution had made some change in the neighbouring kingdom, either for good or evil, inevitable,
Beresford set out for Rio Janeiro, intending to acquaint the King with the real
condition of affairs, and to use his personal efforts in hastening the return
of the Court to Lisbon. Before he could recross the Atlantic, the Government
which he left behind him at Lisbon had fallen.
The grievances
of the Portuguese army made it the natural centre of
disaffection, but the military conspirators had their friends among all
classes. On the 24th of August, 1820, the signal of revolt was given at Oporto.
Priests and magistrates, as well as the town-population, united with officers
of the army in declaring against the Regency, and in establishing a provisional
Junta, charged with the duty of carrying on the government in the name of the
King until the Cortes should assemble and frame a Constitution. No resistance
was offered by any of the civil or military authorities at Oporto. The Junta
entered upon its functions, and began by dismissing all English officers, and
making up the arrears of pay due to the soldiers.
As soon as the
news of the revolt reached Lisbon, the Regency itself volunteered to summon the
Cortes, and attempted to conciliate the remainder of the army by imitating the
measures of the Junta of Oporto. The troops, however, declined to act against
their comrades,
and on the 1
5th of September the Regency was deposed, and a provisional Junta installed in
the capital. Beresford, who now returned from Brazil, was forbidden to set foot
on Portuguese soil. The two rival governing-committees of Lisbon and Oporto
coalesced; and after an interval of confusion the elections to the Cortes were
held, resulting in the return of a body of men whose loyalty to the Crown was
not impaired by their hostility to the Regency. The King, when the first
tidings of the constitutional movement reached Brazil, gave a qualified consent
to the summoning of the Cortes which was announced by the Regency, and promised
to return to Europe. Beresford, continuing his voyage to England without
landing at Lisbon, found that the Government of this country had no disposition
to interfere with the domestic affairs of its ally.
It was the
boast of the Spanish and Italian Liberals that the revolutions effected in 1820
were undisgraced by the scenes of outrage which had
followed the capture of the Bastille and the overthrow of French absolutism
thirty years before. The gentler character of these southern movements proved,
however, no extenuation in the eyes of the leading statesmen of Europe: on the
contrary, the declaration of soldiers in favour of a
Constitution seemed in some quarters more ominous of evil than any excess of
popular violence. The alarm was first sounded at St. Petersburg. As soon as the
Czar heard of Riego's proceedings at Cadiz, he began
to meditate intervention; and when it was known that Ferdinand had been forced
to accept the Constitution of 1812, he ordered his ambassadors to propose that
all the Great Powers, acting through their Ministers at Paris, should address a
remonstrance to the representative of Spain, requiring the Cortes to disavow
the crime of the 8th of March, by which they had been called into being, and to
offer a pledge of obedience to their King by enacting the most rigorous laws
against sedition and revolt. In that case, and in that alone, the Czar desired
to add, would the Powers maintain their relations of confidence and amity with
Spain.
This Russian
proposal was viewed with some suspicion at Vienna; it was answered with a
direct and energetic negative from London. Canning was still in the Ministry.
The words with which in 1818 he had protested against a league between England
and autocracy were still ringing in the ears of his colleagues. Lord
Liverpool's Government knew itself to be unpopular in the country; every
consideration of policy as well as of self-interest bade it resist the
beginnings of an intervention which, if confined to words, was certain to be
useless, and, if supported by action, was likely to end in that alliance
between France and Russia which had been the nightmare of English statesmen
ever since 1814, and in a second occupation of Spain by the very generals whom
Wellington had spent so many years in dislodging. Castlereagh replied to the
Czar's note in terms which made it clear that England would never give its
sanction to a collective interference with Spain. Richelieu, the nominal head
of the French Government, felt too little confidence in his position to act
without the concurrence of Great Britain; and the crusade of absolutism against
Spanish liberty was in consequence postponed until the victory of the
Ultra-Royalists at Paris was complete, and the overthrow of Richelieu had
brought to the head of the French State a group of men who felt no scruple in
entering upon an aggressive war.
But the shelter
of circumstances which for a while protected Spain from the foreigner, did not
extend to Italy, when in its turn the Neapolitan revolution called a northern
enemy into the field. Though the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was in itself much
less important than Spain, the established order of the Continent was more
directly threatened by a change in its
government. No
European State was exposed to the same danger from a revolution in Madrid as
Austria from a revolution in Naples. The Czar had invoked the action of the
Courts against Spain, not because his own dominions were in peril, but because
the principle of monarchical right was violated: with Austria the danger
pressed nearer home. The establishment of constitutional liberty in Naples was
almost certain to be followed by an insurrection in the Papal States and a
national uprising in the Venetian provinces; and among all the bad results of
Austria's false position in Italy, one of the worst was that in self-defence it was bound to resist every step made towards
political liberty beyond its own frontier. The dismay with which Metternich
heard of the collapse of absolute government at Naples was understood and even
shared by the English Ministry, who at this moment were deprived of their best
guide by Canning's withdrawal. Austria, in peace just as much as in war, had
uniformly been held to be the natural ally of England against the two
aggressive Courts of Paris and St. Petersburg. It seemed perfectly right and
natural to Lord Castlereagh that Austria, when its own interests were
endangered by the establishment of popular sovereignty at Naples, should intervene
to restore King Ferdinand's power; the more so as the secret treaty of 1815, by
which Metternich had bound this sovereign to maintain absolute monarchy, had
been communicated to the ambassador of Great Britain, and had received his
approval. But the right to intervene in Italy belonged, according to Lord
Castlereagh, to Austria alone. The Sovereigns of Europe had no more claim, as a
body, to interfere with Naples than they had to interfere with Spain.
Therefore, while the English Government sanctioned and even England admits
desired the intervention of Austria, as a State acting in protection of its own
interests against revolution in a neighbouring country, it refused to sanction any joint intervention of the European Powers,
and declared itself opposed to the meeting of a Congress where any such
intervention might be discussed.
Had Metternich
been free to follow his own impulses, he would have thrown an army into
Southern Italy as soon as soldiers and stores could be collected, and have made
an end of King Ferdinand's troubles forthwith. It was, however, impossible for
him to disregard the wishes of the Czar, and to abandon all at once the system
of corporate action, which was supposed to have done such great things for
Europe. A meeting of sovereigns and Ministers was accordingly arranged, and at
the end of October the Emperor of Austria received the Czar and King Frederick
William in the little town of Troppau, in Bohemia.
France had
itself first recommended the summoning of a Congress to deal with Neapolitan
affairs, and it was believed for a while that England would be isolated in its
resistance to a joint intervention. But before the Congress assembled, the firm
language of the English Ministry had drawn Richelieu over to its side; and
although one of the two French envoys made himself the agent of the
Ultra-Royalist faction, it was not possible for him to unite his country with
the three Eastern Courts. France, through the weakness of its Government and
the dissension between its representatives, counted for nothing at the
Congress. England sent its ambassador from Vienna, but with instructions to act
as an observer and little more; and in consequence the meeting at Troppau
resolved itself into a gathering of the three Eastern autocrats and their Ministers.
As Prussia had ceased to have any independent foreign policy whatever,
Metternich needed only to make certain of the support of the Czar in order to
range on his side the entire force of eastern and central Europe in the
restoration of Neapolitan despotism.
The plan of the
Austrian statesman was not, however, to be realized without some effort.
Alexander had watched with jealousy Metternich's recent assumption of a
dictatorship over the minor German Courts; he had never admitted Austria's
right to dominate in Italy; and even now some vestiges of his old attachment to
liberal theories made him look for a better solution of the Neapolitan problem
than in that restoration of despotism pure and simple which Austria desired.
While condemning every attempt of a people to establish its own liberties,
Alexander still believed that in some countries sovereigns would do well to
make their subjects a grant of what he called sage and liberal institutions. It
would have pleased him best if the Neapolitans could have been induced by
peaceful means to abandon their Constitution, and to accept in return certain
chartered rights as a gift from their King; and the concurrence of the two
Western Powers might in this case possibly have been regained. This project of
a compromise, by which Ferdinand would have been freed from his engagement with
Austria, was exactly what Metternich desired to frustrate. He found himself
matched, and not for the first time, against a statesman who was even more
subtle than himself. This was Count Capodistrias, a
Greek who from a private position had risen to be Foreign Minister of Russia,
and was destined to become the first sovereign, in reality if not in title, of
his native land.
Capodistrias, the
sympathetic partner of the Czar's earlier hopes, had not travelled so fast as
his master along the reactionary road. He still represented what had been the
Italian policy of Alexander some years before, and sought to prevent the
reestablishment of absolute rule at Naples, at least by the armed intervention
of Austria. Metternich's first object was to discredit the Minister in the eyes
of his sovereign. It is said that he touched the Czar's keenest fears in a
conversation relating to a mutiny that had just taken place among the troops at
St. Petersburg, and so in one private interview cut the ground from under Capodistrias' feet; he also humoured the Czar by reviving that monarch's own favourite scheme for a mutual guarantee of all the Powers against revolution in any part
of Europe.
Alexander had proposed
in 1818 that the Courts should declare resistance to authority in any country
to be a violation of European peace, entitling the Allied Powers, if they
should think fit, to suppress it by force of arms. This doctrine, which would
have empowered the Czar to throw the armies of a coalition London if the Reform
Bill had been carried by force, had hitherto failed to gain international
acceptance owing to the opposition of Great Britain. It was now formally
accepted by Austria and Prussia. Alexander saw the federative system of
European monarchy, with its principle of collective intervention, recognized as
an established fact by at least three of the great Powers; and in return he
permitted Metternich to lay down the lines which, in the case of Naples, this
intervention should follow. It was determined to invite King Ferdinand to meet
his brother-sovereigns at Laibach, in the Austrian province of Carniola, and
through him to address a summons to the Neapolitan people, requiring them, in
the name of the three Powers, and under threat of invasion, to abandon their
Constitution. This determination was announced, as a settled matter, to the
envoys of England and France; and a circular was issued from Troppau by the
three powers to all the Courts of Europe (Dec. 8), embodying the doctrine of
federative intervention, and expressing a hope that England and France would
approve its immediate application in the case of Naples.
There was no
ground whatever for this hope with regard to England. On the contrary, in proportion
as the three Courts strengthened their union and insisted on their claim to
joint
jurisdiction
over Europe, they drove England away from them. Lord Castlereagh had at first
promised the moral support of this country to Austria in its enterprise against
Naples; but when this enterprise ceased to be the affair of Austria alone, and
became part of the police-system of the three despotisms, it was no longer
possible for the English Government to view it with approval or even with
silence. The promise of a moral support was withdrawn: England declared that it
stood strictly neutral with regard to Naples, and protested against the
doctrine contained in the Troppau circular, that a change of government in any
State gave the Allied Powers the right to intervene. France made no such
protest; but it was still hoped at Paris that an Austrian invasion of Southern
Italy, so irritating to French pride, might be averted. King Louis XVIII endeavoured, but in vain, to act the part of mediator, and
to reconcile the Neapolitan House of Bourbon at once with its own subjects, and
with the Northern Powers.
The summons
went out from the Congress to King Ferdinand to appear at Laibach. It found him
enjoying all the popularity of a constitutional King, surrounded by Ministers who
had governed under Murat, exchanging compliments with a democratic Parliament,
lavishing distinctions upon the men who had overthrown his authority, and
swearing to everything that was set before him. As the Constitution prohibited
the King from leaving the country without the consent of the Legislature, it
was necessary for Ferdinand to communicate to Parliament the invitation which
he had received from the Powers, and to take a vote of the Assembly on the
subject of his journey.
Ferdinand's
Ministers possessed some political experience; they recognized that it would be
impossible to maintain the existing Constitution against the hostility of three
great States, and hoped that the Parliament would consent to Ferdinand's
departure on condition that he pledged himself to uphold certain specified
principles of free government. A message to the Assembly was accordingly made
public, in which the King expressed his desire to mediate with the Powers on
this basis. But the Ministers had not reckoned with the passions of the people.
As soon as it became known that Ferdinand was about to set out, the leaders of
the Carbonari mustered their bands. A host of violent men streamed into Naples
from the surrounding country. The Parliament was intimidated, and Ferdinand was
prohibited from leaving Naples until he had sworn to maintain the Constitution
actually in force, that, namely, which Naples had borrowed from Spain.
Ferdinand, whose only object was to escape from, the country as quickly as
possible, took the oath with his usual effusions of patriotism.
He then set out
for Leghorn, intending to cross from thence into Northern Italy. No sooner had
he reached the Tuscan port than he addressed a letter to each of the five
principal sovereigns of Europe, declaring that his last acts were just as much
null and void as all his earlier ones. He made no attempt to justify, or to
excuse, or even to explain his conduct; nor is there the least reason to
suppose that he considered the perjuries of a prince to require a justification.
“These sorry protests”, wrote the secretary of the Congress of Troppau, “will
happily remain secret. No Cabinet will be anxious to draw them from the
sepulcher of its archives. Till then there is not much harm done”.
Ferdinand
reached Laibach, where the Czar rewarded him for the fatigues of his journey by
a present of some Russian bears. His arrival was peculiarly agreeable to
Metternich, whose intentions corresponded exactly with his own; and the fact
that he had been compelled to
swear to
maintain the Spanish Constitution at Naples acted favourably for the Austrian Minister, inasmuch as it enabled him to say to all the world
that negotiation was now out of the question.
Capodistrias, brought face
to face with failure, twisted about, according to his rival's expression, like
a devil in holy water, but all in vain. It was decided that Ferdinand should be
restored as absolute monarch by an Austrian army, and that, whether the
Neapolitans resisted or submitted, their country should be occupied by Austrian
troops for some years to come. The only difficulty remaining was to vest King
Ferdinand's conduct in some respectable disguise. Capodistrias,
when nothing else was to be gained, offered to invent an entire correspondence,
in which Ferdinand should proudly uphold the Constitution to which he had
sworn, and protest against the determination of the Powers to force the sceptre of absolutism back into his hand.
This device,
however, was thought too transparent. A letter was sent in the King's name to
his son, the Duke of Calabria, stating that he had found the three Powers
determined not to tolerate an order of things sprung from revolution; that
submission alone would avert war; but that even in case of submission certain
securities for order, meaning the occupation of the country by an Austrian
army, would be exacted. The letter concluded with the usual promises of reform
and good government. It reached Naples on the 9th of February, 1821. No answer
was either expected or desired. On the 6th the order had been given to the
Austrian army to cross the Po.
There was
little reason to fear any serious resistance on the part of the Neapolitans.
The administration of the State was thoroughly disorganized; the agitation of
the secret societies had destroyed all spirit of obedience among the soldiers;
a great part of the army was absent in Sicily, keeping guard over a people who,
under wiser management, might have doubled the force which Naples now opposed
to the invader.
When the
despotic government of Ferdinand was overthrown, the island of Sicily, or that
part of it which was represented by Palermo, had claimed the separate political
existence which it had possessed between 1806 and 1815, offering to remain
united to Naples in the person of the sovereign, but demanding, a National
Parliament and a National Constitution of its own. The revolutionary Ministers
of Naples had, however, no more sympathy with the wishes of the Sicilians than
the Spanish Liberals of 1812 had with those of the American Colonists. They
required the islanders to accept the same rights and duties as any other
province of the Neapolitan kingdom, and, on their refusal, sent over a
considerable force and laid siege to Palermo.
The contest
soon ended in the submission of the Sicilians, but it was found necessary to
keep twelve thousand troops on the island in order to prevent a new revolt. The
whole regular army of Naples numbered little more than forty thousand; and
although bodies of Carbonari and of the so-called Militia set out to join the colours of General Pepe and to fight for liberty, they
remained for the most part a disorderly mob, without either arms or discipline.
The invading
army of Austria, fifty thousand strong, not only possessed an immense
superiority in organization and military spirit, but actually outnumbered the
forces of the defence. At the first encounter, which
took place at Rieti, in the Papal States, the Neapolitans were put to the rout.
Their army melted away, as it had in Murat's campaign in 1815. Nothing was
heard among officers and men but accusations of treachery; not a single strong
point was defended; and on the 24th of March the Austrians made their entry
into Naples. Ferdinand, halting at Florence, sent on before him the worst
instruments of his former despotism. It was indeed impossible for these men to
renew, under Austrian protection, the scenes of reckless bloodshed which had
followed the restoration of 1799; and a great number of compromised persons had
already been provided with the means of escape.
But the hand of
vengeance was not easily stayed. Courts-martial and commissions of judges began
in all parts of the kingdom to sentence to imprisonment and death. An attempted
insurrection in Sicily and some desperate acts of rebellion in Southern Italy
cost the principal actors their lives; and when an amnesty was at length
proclaimed, an exception was made against those who were now called the
deserters, and who were lately called the Sacred Band, of Nola, that is to say,
the soldiers who had first risen for the Constitution.
Morelli, who
had received the Viceroy's treacherous thanks for his conduct, was executed,
along with one of his companions; the rest were sent in chains to labour among felons. Hundreds of persons were left lying,
condemned or uncondemned, in prison; others, in spite
of the amnesty, were driven from their native land; and that great,
long-lasting stream of fugitives now began to pour into England, which, in the
early memories of many who are not yet old, has associated the name of Italian
with the image of an exile and a sufferer.
There was a
moment in the campaign of Austria against Naples when the invading army was
threatened with the most serious danger. An insurrection broke out in Piedmont,
and the troops of that country attempted to unite with the patriotic party of
Lombardy in a movement which would have thrown all Northern Italy upon the rear
of the Austrians.
In the first
excess of alarm, the Czar ordered a hundred thousand Russians to cross the
Galician frontier, and to march in the direction of the Adriatic. It proved
unnecessary, however, to continue this advance. The Piedmontese army was
divided against itself; part proclaimed the Spanish Constitution, and, on the
abdication of the King, called upon his cousin, the Regent, Charles Albert of Carignano, to march against the Austrians; part adhered to
the rightful heir, the King's brother, Charles Felix, who was absent at Modena,
and who, with an honesty in strong contrast to the frauds of the Neapolitan
Court, refused to temporize with rebels, or to make any compromise with the
Constitution. The scruples of the Prince of Carignano,
after he had gone some way with the military party of action, paralyzed the
movement of Northern Italy. Unsupported by Piedmontese troops, the conspirators
of Milan failed to raise any open insurrection.
Austrian
soldiers thronged westwards from the Venetian fortresses, and entered Piedmont
itself; the collapse of the Neapolitan army destroyed the hopes of the bravest
patriots; and the only result of the Piedmontese movement was that the grasp of
Austria closed more tightly on its subject provinces, while the martyrs of
Italian freedom passed out
Thus the
victory of absolutism was completed, and the law was laid down to Europe that a
people seeking its liberties elsewhere than in the grace and spontaneous
generosity of its legitimate sovereign became a fit object of attack for the armies
of the three Great Powers. It will be seen in a later chapter how Metternich
persuaded the Czar to include under the anathema issued by the Congress of
Laibach (May, 1821), the outbreak of the Greeks, which at this moment began,
and how Lord Castlereagh supported the Austrian Minister in denying to these
rebels against the Sultan all right or claim to the consideration of Europe.
Spain was for the present left unmolested; but the military operations of 1821
prepared the way for a similar crusade against that country by occasioning the
downfall or Richelieu's Ministry, and throwing the government of France
entirely into the hands of the Ultra- Royalists.
All parties in
the French Chamber, whether they condemned or approved the suppression of
Neapolitan liberty, censured a policy which had kept France in inaction, and
made Austria supreme in Italy. The Ultra-Royalists profited by the general
discontent to overthrow the Minister whom they had promised to support (Dec.,
1821); and from this time a war with Spain, conducted either by France alone or
in combination with the three Eastern Powers, became the dearest hope of the
rank and file of the dominant faction. Villele, their
nominal chief, remained what he had been before, a statesman among fanatics,
and desired to maintain the attitude of observation as long as this should be
possible. A body of troops had been stationed on the southern frontier in 1820
to prevent all intercourse with the Spanish districts afflicted with the yellow
fever. This epidemic had passed away, but the number of the troops was now
raised to a hundred thousand. It was, however, the hope of Villele that hostilities might be averted unless the Spaniards should themselves
provoke a combat, or, by resorting to extreme measures against King Ferdinand,
should compel Louis XVIII to intervene on behalf of his kinsman. The more
violent section of the French Cabinet, represented by Montmorency, the Foreign
Minister, called for an immediate march on Madrid, or proposed to delay
operations only until France should secure the support of the other Continental
Powers.
The condition
of Spain in the year 1822 gave ample encouragement to those who longed to
employ the arms of France in the royalist cause. The hopes of peaceful reform,
which for the first few months after the revolution had been shared even by
foreign politicians at Madrid, had long vanished. In the moment of popular
victory Ferdinand had brought the leaders of the Cortes from their prisons and
placed them in office. These men showed a dignified forgetfulness of the
injuries which they had suffered. Misfortune had calmed their impetuosity, and
taught them more of the real condition of the Spanish people. They entered upon
their task with seriousness and good faith, and would have proved the best
friends of constitutional monarchy if Ferdinand had had the least intention of
co-operating with them loyally. But they found themselves encountered from the
first by a double enemy. The clergy, who had overthrown the Constitution six
years before, intrigued or openly declared against it as soon as it was
revived; the more violent of the Liberals, with Riego at their head, abandoned themselves to extravagances like those of the
club-orators of Paris in 1791, and did their best to make any peaceable administration
impossible. After combating these anarchists, or
Exaltados, with some
success, the Ministry was forced to call in their aid, when, at the instigation
of the Papal Nuncio, the King placed his veto upon a law dissolving most of the
monasteries (Oct., 1820). Ferdinand now openly combined with the enemies of the
Constitution, and attempted to transfer the command of the army to one of his
own agents.
The plot
failed; the Ministry sent the alarm over the whole country, and Ferdinand stood
convicted before his people as a conspirator against the Constitution which he
had sworn to defend. The agitation of the clubs, which the Ministry had
hitherto suppressed, broke out anew. A storm of accusations assailed Ferdinand
himself. He was compelled at the end of the year 1820 to banish from Madrid
most of the persons who had been his confidants; and although his dethronement
was not yet proposed, he had already become, far more than Louis XVI of France
under similar conditions, the recognized enemy of the revolution, and the
suspected patron of every treason against the nation.
The attack of
the despotic Courts on Naples in the spring of 1821 heightened the fury of
parties in Spain, encouraging the Serviles, or
Absolutists, in their plots, and forcing the Ministry to yield to the cry for
more violent measures against the enemies of the Constitution. In the south of
Spain the Exaltados gained possession of the
principal military and civil commands, and openly refused obedience to the
central administration when it attempted to interfere with their action.
Seville, Carthagena, and Cadiz acted as if they were
independent Republics, and even spoke of separation from Spain. Defied by its
own subordinates in the provinces, and unable to look to the King for any
sincere support, the moderate governing party lost all hold upon the nation. In
the Cortes elected in 1822 the Exaltados formed the
majority, and Riego was appointed President.
Ferdinand now began to concert measures of action with the French
Ultra-Royalists.
The Serviles, led by priests, and supported by French money,
broke into open rebellion in the north. When the session of the Cortes ended,
the King attempted to overthrow his enemies by military force. Three battalions
of the Royal Guard, which had been withdrawn from Madrid, received secret
orders to march upon the capital (July 6, 1822), where Ferdinand was expected
to place himself at their head. They were, however, met and defeated in the
streets by other regiments, and Ferdinand, vainly attempting to dissociate
himself from the action of his partisans, found his crown, if not his life, in
peril. He wrote to Louis XVIII that he was a prisoner. Though the French King
gave nothing more than good counsel, the UltraRoyalists in the French Cabinet and in the army now strained every nerve to accelerate a
war between the two countries. The Spanish Absolutists seized the town of Seo d'Urgel, and there set up a
provisional government.
Civil war
spread over the northern provinces. The Ministry, which was now formed of Riego's friends, demanded and obtained from the Cortes
dictatorial powers like those which the French Committee of Public Safety had
wielded in 1793, but with far other result. Spain found no Danton, no Carnot,
at this crisis, when the very highest powers of intellect and will would have
been necessary to arouse and to arm a people far less disposed to fight for
liberty than the French were in 1793. One man alone, General Mina, checked and
overthrew the rebel leaders of the north with an activity superior to their
own. The Government, boastful and violent in its measures, effected scarcely
anything in the organization of a national force, or in
When the
Congress of Laibach broke up in the spring of 1821, its members determined to
renew their meeting in the following year, in order to decide whether the
Austrian army might then be withdrawn from Naples, and to discuss other
questions affecting their common interests. The progress of Creek insurrection
and a growing strife between Russia and Turkey, had since then thrown all
Italian difficulties into the shade. The Eastern question stood in the front
rank of European politics; next in importance came the affairs of Spain. It was
certain that these, far more than the occupation of Naples, would supply the
real business of the Congress of 1822. England had a far greater interest in
both questions than in the Italian negotiations of the two previous years. It
was felt that the system of abstention which England had then followed could be
pursued no longer, and that the country must be represented not by some casual
and wandering diplomatist, but by its leading Minister, Lord Castlereagh. The intentions
of the other Powers in regard to Spain were matter of doubt; it was the fixed
policy of Great Britain to leave the Spanish revolution in Europe to run its
own course, and to persuade the other Powers to do the same. But the
difficulties connected with Spain did not stop at the Spanish frontier. The
South American colonies had now in great part secured their independence. They
had developed a trade with Great Britain which made it impossible for this
country to ignore their flag and the decisions of their law courts.
The British
navigation-laws had already been modified by Parliament in favour of their shipping; and although it was no business of the English Government to
grant a formal title to communities which had made themselves free, the
practical recognition of the American States by the appointment of diplomatic
agents could in several cases not be justly delayed. Therefore, without
interfering with any colonies which were still fighting or still negotiating
with Spain, the British Minister proposed to inform the Allied cabinets of the
intention of this country to accredit agents to some of the South American
Republics, and to recommend to them the adoption of a similar policy.
Such was the
tenor of the instructions which, a few weeks before his expected departure for
the Continent, Castlereagh drew up for his own guidance, and submitted to the
Cabinet and the King. Had he lived to fulfil the mission with which he was
charged, the recognition of the South American Republics, which adds so bright
a ray to the fame of Canning, would probably have been the work of the man who,
more than any other, is associated in popular belief with the traditions of a
hated and outworn system of oppression. Two more years of life, two more years
of change in the relations of England to the Continent, would have given
Castlereagh a different figure in the history both of Greece and of America.
No English
statesman in modern times has been so severely judged. Circumstances, down to
the close of his career, withheld from Castlereagh the opportunities which fell
to his successor; ties from which others were free made it hard for him to
accelerate the breach with the Allies of 1814. Antagonists showed Castlereagh
no mercy, no justice. The man whom Byron disgraced himself by ridiculing after
his death possessed in a rich measure the qualities which, in private life,
attract esteem and love. His public life, if tainted in earlier days by the low
political morality of the time, rose high above that of every Continental statesman
of similar
If the
consciousness of labour unflaggingly pursued in the
public cause, and animated on the whole by a pure and earnest purpose, could
have calmed the distress of a breaking mind, the decline of Castlereagh's days
might have been one of peace. His countrymen would have recognized that, if
blind to the rights of nations, Castlereagh had set to foreign rulers the example
of truth and good faith. But the burden of his life was too heavy to bear.
Mists of despondency obscured the outlines of the real world, and struck chill
into his heart. Death, self-invoked, brought relief to the over-wrought brain,
and laid Castlereagh, with all his cares, in everlasting sleep.
The vacant post
was filled by Canning, by far the most gifted of the band of statesmen who had
begun their public life in the school of Pitt. Wellington undertook to
represent England at the Congress of 1822, which was now about to open at
Vienna. His departure was, however, delayed for several weeks, and the
preliminary meeting, at which it had been intended to transact all business not
relating to Italy, was almost over before his arrival. Wellington accordingly travelled
on to Verona, where Italian affairs were to be dealt with; and the Italian
Conference, which the British Government had not intended to recognize, thus
became the real Congress of 1822. Anxious as Lord Castlereagh had been on the
question of foreign interference with Spain, he hardly understood the imminence
of the danger.
In passing
through Paris, Wellington learnt for the first time that a French or European
invasion of Spain would be the foremost object of discussion among the Powers;
and on reaching Verona he made the unwelcome discovery that the Czar was bent
upon sending a Russian army to take part, as the mandatory of Europe, in
overthrowing the Spanish Constitution. Alexander's desire was to obtain a joint
declaration from the Congress like that which had been issued against Naples by
the three Courts at Troppau, but one even more formidable, since France might
be expected in the present case to give its concurrence, which had been
withheld before. France indeed occupied, according to the absolutist theory of
the day, the same position in regard to a Jacobin Spain as Austria in regard to
a Jacobin Naples, and might perhaps claim to play the leading military part in
the crusade of repression. But the work was likely to be a much more difficult
one than that of 1821. The French troops, said the Czar, were not trustworthy;
and there was a party in France which might take advantage of the war to
proclaim the second Napoleon or the Republic. King Louis XVIII could not
therefore be allowed to grapple with Spain alone. It was necessary that the
principal force employed by the alliance should be one whose loyalty and
military qualities were above suspicion: the generals who had marched from
Moscow to Paris were not likely to fail beyond the Pyrenees: and a campaign of
the Russian army in Western Europe promised to relieve the Czar of some of the
discontent of his soldiers, who had been turned back after entering Galicia in
the previous year; and who had not been allowed to assist their fellow-believers
in Greece in their struggle against the Sultan.
Wellington had
ascertained, while in Paris, that King Louis XVIII and Villele were determined under no circumstances to give Russian troops a passage through
France. His knowledge of this fact enabled him to speak with some confidence to
Alexander. It was the
No great
expenditure of diplomacy was therefore necessary to prevent the summary framing
of a decree against Spain like that which had been framed against Naples two
years before. In the first dispatches which he sent back to England Wellington
expressed his belief that the deliberations of the Powers would end in a
decision to leave the Spaniards to themselves.
But the danger
was only averted in appearance. The impulse to war was too strong among the
French Ultra-Royalists for the Congress to keep silence on Spanish affairs. Villele indeed still hoped for peace, and, unlike other
members of his Cabinet, he desired that, if war should arise, France should
maintain entire freedom of action, and enter upon the struggle as an
independent Power, not as the instrument of the European concert. This did not
prevent him, however, from desiring to ascertain what assistance would be
forthcoming, if France should be hard pressed by its enemy. Instructions were
given to the French envoys at Verona to sound the Allies on this question. It
was out of the inquiry so suggested that a negotiation sprang which virtually
combined all Europe against Spain. The envoy Montmorency, acting in the spirit
of the war party, demanded of all the Powers whether, in the event of France
withdrawing its ambassador from Madrid, they would do the same, and whether, in
case of war, France would receive their moral and material support. Wellington
in his reply protested against the framing of hypothetical cases; the other
envoys answered Montmorency's questions in the affirmative.
The next step
was taken by Metternich, who urged that certain definite acts of the Spanish
people or Government ought to be specified as rendering war obligatory on
France and its allies, and also that, with a view of strengthening the Royalist
party in Spain, notes ought to be presented by all the ambassadors at Madrid,
demanding a change in the Constitution. This proposal was in its turn submitted
to Wellington and rejected by him. It was accepted by the other
plenipotentiaries, and the acts of the Spanish people were specified on which
war should necessarily follow. These were, the commission of any act of
violence against a member of the royal family, the deposition of the King, or
an attempt to change the dynasty. A secret clause was added to the second part
of the agreement, to the effect that if the Spanish Government made no
satisfactory answer to the notes requiring a change in the Constitution, all
the ambassadors should be immediately withdrawn. A draft of the notes to be
presented was sketched; and Montmorency, who thought that he had probably gone
too far in his
It was with
great dissatisfaction that Villele saw how his
colleague had committed France to the direction of the three Eastern Powers.
There was no likelihood that the Spanish Government would make the least
concession of the kind required, and in that case France stood pledged, if the
action of Montmorency was ratified, to withdraw its ambassador from Madrid at
once. Villele accordingly addressed himself to the
ambassadors at Paris, asking that the dispatch of the notes might be postponed.
No notice was
taken of his request: the notes were despatched forthwith. Roused by this slight, Villele appealed to
the King not to submit to the dictation of foreign Courts. Louis XVIII declared
in his favour against all the rest of the Cabinet,
and Montmorency had to retire from office. But the decision of the King meant
that he disapproved of the negotiations of Verona as shackling the movements of
France, not that he had freed himself from the influence of the war-party.
Chateaubriand, the most reckless agitator for hostilities, was appointed Foreign
Minister. The mediation of Great Britain was rejected; and in his speech at the
opening of the Chambers of 1823, King Louis himself virtually published the
declaration of war.
The ambassadors
of the three Eastern Courts had already presented their notes at Madrid
demanding a change in the Constitution; and, after receiving a high-spirited
answer from the Ministers, they had quitted the country. Canning, while using
every diplomatic effort to prevent an unjust war, had made it clear to the
Spaniards that England could not render them armed assistance. The reasons
against such an intervention were indeed overwhelming.
Russia,
Austria, and Prussia would have taken the field rather than have permitted the
Spanish Constitution to triumph; and although, if leagued with Spain in a
really national defence like that of 1808, Great
Britain might perhaps have protected the peninsula against all the Powers of
Europe combined, it was far otherwise when the cause at stake was one to which
a majority of the Spanish nation had shown itself to be indifferent, and
against which the northern provinces had actually taken up arms. The Government
and the Cortes were therefore left to defend themselves as best they could
against their enemies. They displayed their weakness by enacting laws of
extreme severity against deserters, and by retiring, along with the
recalcitrant King, from Madrid to Seville. On the 7th of April the French
troops, led by the Duke of Angouleme, crossed the frontier. The priests and a
great part of the peasantry welcomed them as deliverers: the forces opposed to
them fell back without striking a blow. As the invader advanced towards the
capital, gangs of royalists, often led by monks, spread such terror and
devastation over the northern provinces that the presence of foreign troops
became the only safeguard for the peaceable inhabitants. Madrid itself was
threatened by the corps of a freebooter named Bessieres.
The commandant sent his surrender to the French while they were still at some
distance, begging them to advance as quickly as possible in order to save the
city from pillage. The message had scarcely been sent when Bessieres and his bandits appeared in the suburbs. The governor drove them back, and kept
the royalist mob within the city at bay for four days more. On the 23rd of May
the advance-guard of the French army entered the
It had been the
desire of King Louis XVIII and Angouleme to save Spain from the violence of
royalist and priestly fanaticism. On reaching Madrid, Angouleme intended to appoint
a provisional government himself; he was, however, compelled by orders from
Paris to leave the election in the hands of the Council of Castille, and a
Regency came into power whose first acts showed in what spirit the victory of
the French was to be used.
Edicts were
issued declaring all the acts of the Cortes affecting the monastic orders to be
null and void, dismissing all officials appointed since March 7, 1820, and
subjecting to examination those who, then being in office, had not resigned
their posts. The arrival of the ambassadors of the three Eastern Powers
encouraged the Regency in their antagonism to the French commander. It was
believed that the Cabinet of Paris was unwilling to restore King Ferdinand as
an absolute monarch, and intended to obtain from him the grant of institutions
resembling those of the French Charta.
Any such
limitation of absolute power was, however, an object of horror to the three
despotic Courts. Their Ambassadors formed themselves into a council with the
express object of resisting the supposed policy of Angouleme. The Regency grew
bolder, and gave the signal for general retribution upon the Liberals by
publishing an order depriving all persons who had served in the voluntary
militia since March, 1820, of their offices, pensions, and titles. The work
inaugurated in the capital was carried much further in the provinces.
The friends of
the Constitution, and even soldiers who were protected by their capitulation
with the French, were thrown into prison by the new local authorities. The
violence of the reaction reached such a height that Angouleme, now on the march
to Cadiz, was compelled to publish an ordinance forbidding arrests to be made
without the consent of a French commanding officer, and ordering his generals
to release the persons who had been arbitrarily imprisoned. The council of
ambassadors, blind in their jealousy of France to the danger of an uncontrolled
restoration, drew up a protest against his ordinance, and desired that the
officers of the Regency should be left to work their will.
After spending
some weeks in idle debates at Seville, the Cortes had been compelled by the
appearance of the French on the Sierra Morena to retire to Cadiz. As King
Ferdinand refused to accompany them, he was declared temporarily insane, and
forced to make the journey (June 12). Angouleme, following the French vanguard
after a considerable interval, appeared before Cadiz in August, and sent a note
to King Ferdinand, recommending him to publish an amnesty, and to promise the
restoration of the mediaeval Cortes. It was hoped that the terms suggested in
this note might be accepted by the Government in Cadiz as a basis of peace, and
so render an attack upon the city unnecessary. The Ministry, however, returned
a defiant answer in the King's name.
The siege of
Cadiz accordingly began in earnest. On the 30th of August the fort of the
Trocadero was stormed; three weeks later the city was bombarded. In reply to
all proposals for negotiation Angouleme stated that he could only treat when
King Ferdinand was within his own lines. There was not the least hope of
prolonging the defence of Cadiz with success, for the
combat was dying out even in those few districts of Spain where the
constitutional troops had fought with energy. Ferdinand himself pretended that
he bore no grudge against his
Ministers, and
that the Liberals had nothing to fear from his release. On the 30th of
September he signed, as if with great satisfaction, an absolute and universal
amnesty. On the following day he was conveyed with his family across the bay to
Angouleme's head-quarters.
The war was
over: the real results of the French invasion now came into sight. Ferdinand
had not been twelve hours in the French camp when, surrounded by monks and
royalist desperadoes, he published a proclamation invalidating every act of the
constitutional Government of the last three years, on the ground that his
sanction had been given under constraint. The same proclamation ratified the
acts of the Regency of Madrid. As the Regency of Madrid had declared all
persons concerned in the removal of the King to Cadiz to be liable to the
penalties of high treason, Ferdinand had in fact ratified a sentence of death
against several of the men from whom he had just parted in friendship. Many of
these victims of the King's perfidy were sent into safety by the French. But
Angouleme was powerless to influence Ferdinand's policy and conduct. Don Saez, the King's confessor, was made First Secretary of
State.
On the 4th of
October an edict was issued banishing for ever from
Madrid, and from the country fifty miles round it, every person who during the
last three years had sat in the Cortes, or who had been a Minister, counsellor
of State, judge, commander, official in any public office, magistrate, or
officer in the so-called voluntary militia. It was ordered that throughout
Spain a solemn service should be celebrated in expiation of the insults offered
to the Holy Sacrament; that missions should be sent over the land to combat the
pernicious and heretical doctrines associated with the late out-break, and that
the bishops should relegate to monasteries of the strictest observance the
priests who had acted as the agents of an impious faction. Thus the war of
revenge was openly declared against the defeated party.
It was in vain
that Angouleme indignantly reproached the King, and that the ambassadors of the
three Eastern Courts pressed him to draw up at least some kind of amnesty.
Ferdinand travelled slowly towards Madrid, saying that he could take no such
step until he reached the capital. On the 7th of November, Riego was hanged. Thousands of persons were thrown into prison, or compelled to fly
from the country. Except where order was preserved by the French, life and
property were at the mercy of royalist mobs and the priests who led them; and
although the influence of the Russian statesman Pozzo di Borgo at length
brought a respectable Ministry into office, this only roused the fury of the
clerical party, and led to a cry for the deposition of the King, and for the
elevation of his more fanatical brother, Don Carlos, to the throne.
Military
commissions were instituted at the beginning of 1824 for the trial of accused
persons, and a pretended amnesty, published six months later, included in its
fifteen classes of exception the participators in almost every act of the
revolution. Ordinance followed upon ordinance, multiplying the acts punishable
with death, and exterminating the literature which was believed to be the
source of all religious and social heterodoxy.
Every movement
of life was watched by the police; every expression of political opinion was
made high treason. Young men were shot for being freemasons; women were sent to
prison for ten years for possessing a portrait of Riego.
The relation of the restored Government
to its subjects
was in fact that which belonged to a state of civil war. Insurrections arose
among the fanatics who were now taking the name of the Carlist or Apostolic
party, as well as among a despairing remnant of the Constitutionalists. After a
feeble outbreak of the latter at Tarifa, a hundred and twelve persons were put
to death by the military commissions within eighteen days. It was not until the
summer of 1825 that the jurisdiction of these tribunals and the Reign of Terror
ended.
France had won
a cheap and inglorious victory: the three Eastern Courts had seen their
principle of absolutism triumph at the cost of everything that makes government
morally better than anarchy. One consolation remained for those who felt that
there was little hope for freedom on the Continent of Europe. The crusade
against Spanish liberty had put an end for ever to
the possibility of a joint conquest of Spanish America in the interest of
despotism.
The attitude of
England was no longer what it had been in 1818. When the Czar had proposed at
the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle that the allied monarchs should suppress the
republican principle beyond the seas, Castlereagh had only stated that England
could bear no part in such an enterprise; he had not said that England would
effectually prevent others from attempting it. This was the resolution by which
Canning, isolated and baffled by the conspiracy of Verona, proved that England
could still do something to protect its own interest and the interests of
mankind against a league of autocrats.
There is indeed
little doubt that the independence of the Spanish colonies would have been
recognized by Great Britain soon after the war of 1823, whoever might have been
our Minister for Foreign Affairs; but this recognition was a different matter
in the hands of Canning from what it would have been in the hands of his
predecessor. The contrast between the two men was one of spirit rather than of
avowed rules of action. Where Castlereagh offered apologies to the Continental
sovereigns, Canning uttered defiance.
The treaties of
1815, which connected England so closely with the foreign courts, were no work
of his; though he sought not to repudiate them, he delighted to show that in
spite of them England had still its own policy, its own sympathies, its own
traditions. In face of the council of kings and its assumption of universal
jurisdiction, he publicly described himself as an enthusiast for the
independence of nations. If others saw little evidence that France intended to
recompense itself for its services to Ferdinand by appropriating some of his
rebellious colonies, Canning was quick to lay hold of every suspicious
circumstance.
At the
beginning of the war of 1823 he gave a formal warning to the ambassador of
Louis XVIII that France would not be permitted to bring any of these provinces
under its dominion, whether by conquest or cession. When the war was over, he
rejected the invitation of Ferdinand's Government to take part in a conference
at Paris, where the affairs of South America were to be laid before the Allied
Powers. What these Powers might or might not think on the subject of America
was now a matter of indifference, for the policy of England was fixed, and it
was useless to debate upon a conclusion that could not be altered. British
consular agents were appointed in most of the colonies before the close of the
year 1823; and after some interval the independence of Buenos Aires, Colombia,
and Mexico was formally recognized by the conclusion of commercial treaties.
“I called the
New World into existence” cried Canning, when reproached with permitting the
French occupation of Spain, “in order to redress the balance of the Old”. The
boast, famous in our Parliamentary history, has left an erroneous impression of
the part really played by Canning at this crisis. He did not call the New World
into existence; he did not even assist it in winning independence, as France
had assisted the United States fifty years before; but when this independence
had been won, he threw over it the aegis of Great Britain, declaring that no
other European Power should reimpose the yoke which Spain had not been able to
maintain.
The overthrow
of the Spanish Constitution by foreign arms led to a series of events in
Portugal which forced England to a more direct intervention in the Peninsula
than had yet been necessary, and heightened the conflict that had sprung up
between its policy and that of Continental absolutism.
The Same
parties and the same passions, political and religious, existed in Portugal as
in Spain, and the enemies of the Constitution found the same support at foreign
Courts. The King of Portugal, John VI, was a weak but not ill-meaning man; his
wife, who was a sister of Ferdinand of Spain, and his son Don Miguel, were the
chiefs of the conspiracy against the Cortes.
In June, 1323,
a military revolt, arranged by Miguel, brought the existing form of government
to an end: the King promised, however, when dissolving the Cortes, that a
Constitution should be bestowed by himself upon Portugal; and he seems to have
intended to keep his word. The ambassadors of France and Austria were, however,
busy in throwing hindrances in the way, and Don Miguel prepared to use violence
to prevent his father from making any concession to the Liberals. King John, in
fear for his life, applied to England for troops; Canning declined to land
soldiers at Lisbon, but sent a squadron, with orders to give the King
protection. The winter of 1823 was passed in intrigues; in May, 1824, Miguel
arrested the Ministers and surrounded the King's palace with troops. After
several days of confusion King John made his escape to the British ships, and
Miguel, who was alternately cowardly and audacious, then made his submission,
and was ordered to leave the country. King John died in the spring of 1826
without having granted a Constitution. Pedro, his eldest son, had already been
made Emperor of Brazil; and, as it was impossible that Portugal and Brazil
could again be united, it was arranged that Pedro's daughter, when of
sufficient age, should marry her uncle Miguel, and so save Portugal from the
danger of a contested succession. Before renouncing the crown of Portugal,
Pedro granted a Constitution to that country. A Regency had already been
appointed by King John, in which neither the Queen-dowager nor Miguel was
included.
Miguel had gone
to Vienna. Although a sort of Caliban in character and understanding, this
Prince met with the welcome due to a kinsman of the Imperial house, and to a
representative of the good cause of absolutism. He was received by Metternich
with great interest, and his fortunes were taken under the protection of the
Austrian Court. In due time, it was hoped, this savage and ignorant churl would
do yeoman's service to Austrian principles in the Peninsula. But the Regency
and the new Constitution of Portugal had not to wait for the tardy operation of
Metternich's covert hostility.
The soldiery
who had risen at Miguel's bidding in 1823 now proclaimed him King, and deserted
to Spanish soil. Within the Spanish frontier they were received by Ferdinand's
representatives with open arms. The demands made by the Portuguese ambassador
at Madrid for their dispersion and for the surrender of their weapons were
evaded. The cause of these armed bands on the frontier became the cause of the
Clerical and Ultra-Royalist party over all Europe. Money was sent to them from
France and Austria. They were joined by troops of Spanish Carlists or Apostolicals; they were fed, clothed, and organized, if not
by the Spanish Government itself, at least by those over whose action the
Spanish Government exercised control. Thus raised to considerable military
strength, they made incursions into Portugal, and at last attempted a regular
invasion.
The Regency of
Lisbon, justly treating these outrages as the act of the Spanish Government,
and appealing to the treaties which bound Great Britain to defend Portugal
against foreign attack, demanded the assistance of this country. More was
involved in the action taken by Canning than a possible contest with Spain; the
seriousness of the danger lay in the fact that Spain was still occupied by
French armies, and that a war with Spain might, and probably would, involve a
war with France, if not with other Continental Powers. But the English Ministry
waited only for the confirmation of the alleged facts by their own ambassador.
The treaty-rights of Portugal were undoubted; the temper of the English
Parliament and nation, strained to the utmost by the events of the last three
years, was such that a war against Ferdinand and against the destroyers of
Spanish liberty would have caused more rejoicing than alarm. Nine days after
the formal demand of the Portuguese arrived, four days after their complaint
was substantiated by the report of our ambassador, Canning announced to the
House of Commons that British troops were actually on the way to Lisbon. In
words that alarmed many of his own party, and roused the bitter indignation of
every Continental Court, Canning warned those whose acts threatened to force
England into war, that the war, if war arose, would be a war of opinion, and
that England, however earnestly she might endeavour to avoid it, could not avoid seeing ranked under her banner all the restless
and discontented of any nation with which she might come into conflict. As for
the Portuguese Constitution which formed the real object of the Spanish attack,
it had not, Canning said, been given at the instance of Great Britain, but he
prayed that Heaven might prosper it. It was impossible to doubt that a Minister
who spoke thus, and who, even under expressions of regret, hinted at any
alliance with the revolutionary elements in France and Spain, was formidably in
earnest.
The words and
the action of Canning produced the effect which he desired. The Government of
Ferdinand discovered the means of checking the activity of the Apostolicals: the presence of the British troops at Lisbon
enabled the Portuguese Regency to throw all its forces upon the invaders and to
drive them from the country. They were disbanded when they re-crossed the
Spanish frontier; the French Court loudly condemned their immoral enterprise;
and the Constitution of Portugal seemed, at least for the moment, to have
triumphed over its open and its secret enemies.
The tone of the
English Government had indeed changed since the time when Metternich could
express a public hope that the three Eastern Powers would have the approval of
this country in their attack upon the Constitution of Naples. In 1820 such a
profession might perhaps have passed for a mistake; in 1826 it would have been
a palpable absurdity.
Both in England
and on the Continent it was felt that the difference between the earlier and
the later spirit of our policy was summed up in the contrast between Canning
and Castlereagh. It has become an article of historical faith that
Castlereagh's melancholy death brought one period of our foreign policy to a
close and inaugurated another: it has been said that Canning liberated England
from its Continental connections; it has even been claimed for him that he
performed for Europe no less a task than the dissolution of the Holy Alliance.
The figure of Canning is indeed one that will forever fill a great space in
European history; and the more that is known of the opposition which he
encountered both from his sovereign and from his great rival Wellington, the
greater must be our admiration for his clear, strong mind, and for the
conquering force of his character. But the legend which represents English
policy as taking an absolutely new departure in 1822 does not correspond to the
truth of history. Canning was a member of the Cabinet from 1816 to 1820; it is
a poor compliment to him to suppose that he either exercised no influence upon
his colleagues or acquiesced in a policy of which he disapproved; and the
history of the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle proves that his counsels had even at
that time gained the ascendant. The admission made by Castlereagh in 1820,
after Canning had left the Cabinet, that Austria, as a neighbouring and endangered State, had a right to suppress the revolutionary constitution of
Naples, would probably not have gained Canning's assent; in all other points,
the action of our Government at Troppau and Laibach might have been his own.
Canning loved to speak of his system as one of neutrality, and of
non-interference in that struggle between the principles of despotism and of
democracy which seemed to be spreading over Europe. He avowed his sympathy for
Spain as the object of an unjust and unprovoked war, but he most solemnly warned
the Spaniards not to expect English assistance. He prayed that the Constitution
of Portugal might prosper, but he expressly disclaimed all connection with its
origin, and defended Portugal not because it was a Constitutional State, but
because England was bound by treaties to defend it against foreign invasion.
The arguments
against intervention on behalf of Spain which Canning addressed to the English
sympathizers with that country might have been uttered by Castlereagh; the
denial of the right of foreign Powers to attack the Spanish Constitution, with
which Castlereagh headed his own instructions for Verona, might have been
written by Canning.
The statements
that Canning withdrew England from the Continental system, and that he
dissolved the Holy Alliance, cannot be accepted without large correction. The
general relations existing between the Great Powers were based, not on the
ridiculous and obsolete treaty of Holy Alliance, but on the Acts which were
signed at the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle. The first of these was the secret
Quadruple Treaty which bound England and the three Eastern Powers to attack
France in case a revolution in that country should endanger the peace of
Europe; the second was the general declaration of all the five Powers that they
would act in amity and take counsel with one another. From the first of these
alliances Canning certainly did not withdraw England. He would perhaps have
done so in 1823 if the Quadruple Treaty had bound England to maintain the House
of Bourbon on the French throne; but it had been expressly stated that the
deposition of the Bourbons would not necessarily and in itself be considered by
England as endangering the peace of Europe. This treaty remained in full force
up to Canning's death; and if a revolutionary army had marched from Paris upon
Antwerp, he would certainly have claimed the assistance of the three Eastern
Powers. With respect to the
general concert
of Europe, established or confirmed by the declaration of Aix-la-Chapelle, this
had always been one of varying extent and solidity. Both France and England had
held themselves aloof at Troppau.
The federative
action was strongest and most mischievous not before but after the death of
Castlereagh, and in the period that followed the Congress of Verona; for though
the war against Spain was conducted by France alone, the three Eastern Powers
had virtually made themselves responsible for the success of the enterprise,
and it was the influence of their ambassadors at Paris and Madrid which
prevented any restrictions from being imposed upon Ferdinand's restored
sovereignty.
Canning is
invested with a spurious glory when it is said that his action in Spain and in
Portugal broke up the league of the Continental Courts. Canning indeed shaped
the policy of our own country with equal independence and wisdom, but the
political centre of Europe was at this time not
London but Vienna. The keystone of the European's fabric was the union of
Austria and Russia, and this union was endangered, not by anything that could
take place in the Spanish Peninsula, but by the conflicting interests of these
two great States in regard to the Ottoman Empire. From the moment when the
Treaty of Paris was signed, every Austrian politician fixed his gaze upon the
roads leading to the Lower Danube, and anxiously noted the signs of coming war,
or of continued peace, between Russia and the Porte. It was the triumph of
Metternich to have diverted the Czar's thoughts during the succeeding years
from his grievances against Turkey, and to have baffled the Russian
diplomatists and generals who, like Capodistrias,
sought to spur on their master to enterprises of Eastern conquest. At the
Congress of Verona the shifting and incoherent manoeuvres of Austrian statecraft can indeed only be understood on the supposition that
Metternich was thinking all the time less of Spain than of Turkey, and
struggling at whatever cost to maintain that personal influence over Alexander
which had hitherto prevented the outbreak of war in the East. But the
antagonism so long suppressed broke out at last. The progress of the Greek
insurrection brought Austria and Russia not indeed into war, but into the most
embittered hostility with one another. It was on this rock that the ungainly
craft which men called the Holy Alliance at length struck and went to pieces.
Canning played his part well in the question of the East, but he did not create
this question. There were forces at work which, without his intervention, would
probably have made an end of the despotic amities of 1815. It is not necessary
to the title of a great statesman that he should have called into being the
elements which make a new political order possible; it is sufficient praise
that he should have known how to turn them to account.
CHAPTER XV.THE FIGHT FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF GREECE
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