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CHAP. than is consistent with the spirit of the constitution. Their talents had not been put fairly to the proof, and the nation had not as yet learned to appreciate the cool clear judgement of Lord Hawkesbury, the finished oratory of Mr. Canning, and the activity and intrepidity of Mr. Perceval, always ready and always right-minded. While Pitt and Fox were living, every man believed either in one or in the other; one party was perfectly satisfied that all the measures of the minister were right, and the other as confidently expected that notwithstanding the evil consequences of his mispolicy and his misfortunes, the country was to be saved as soon as their political redeemer came into power. From this comfortable state, wherein faith supplied the place of reason, they were disturbed by the death of both these leaders, neither of whom left a successor, but both exaggerated reputations. It became the general complaint that there was no man or set of men in whom the nation had any confidence.Some persons apprehended from this a dangerous indifference in the public toward parliament itself. Others hoped that as the people were weary of factious debates, parliament would no longer be made a theatre of faction, but that measures would be discussed with a view to the common weal, and no longer solely with reference to the party by which they were brought forward.

The opposition consisted of the most heterogeneous and discordant materials. The Grenville party had a just view of the dangers of the country, and a right feeling for its honour. They were sincerely attached to the monarchy, to the Church of England, and to the existing constitution of the state: therefore they steadily and manfully resisted the measures of pretended reform which were brought forward sometimes by mistaken, sometimes by designing men, as leading with sure tendency to a mobgovernment and all its certain horrors. They knew also that hopeless as the war might seem, it was our safest position, and

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that peace could not be made without disgrace and imminent CHAP. danger, so long as the continent of Europe was under the control of France. But while they thus entirely agreed with the government in the fundamental principles of its policy foreign and domestic, they opposed it in all the details of administration with a factious animosity, which seemed to show how deeply they resented their dismissal from power: and thus they lost with the nation much of that weight which they must otherwise have possessed by reason of their acknowledged ability, their constitutional principles, and their high personal character. Still, however, they were regarded with a certain degree of respect, which was not the case with the remains of Mr. Fox's party. The Foxites, from the beginning of the war, through The Forites. all its changes had uniformly taken part against their country; consistent in this and in nothing else, they had always sided with the enemy, pleading his cause, palliating his crimes, extolling his wisdom, magnifying his power, vilifying and accusing their own government, depreciating its resources, impeding its measures, insulting its allies, calling for disclosures which no government ought to make, and forcing them sometimes from the weakness and the mistaken liberality of their opponents. Buonaparte, as Washington had done before him, relied upon their zeal and virulence; and they by their speeches and writings served him more effectually upon the continent and in France itself, than all the manifestoes of his ministers, and the diatribes of his own press. In future ages it will be thought a strange and almost incredible anomaly in politics, that there should have existed in the legislature of any country a regular party, organised and acknowledged as such, whose business it was to obstruct the proceedings of government, and render it by every possible means contemptible and odious to the people; a party always in semi-alliance with the enemy, who in times of difficulty

CHAP. and danger prophesied nothing but failure, disgrace, and ruin;

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Attempts to raise a cry

and whose systematic course of conduct, if it had been intended to bring about the fulfilment of their predictions, could not have been more exactly adapted to that object.

per

The Foxites, before they were admitted into office, had for peace. tinaciously insisted upon the practicability and ease of making peace; this opinion could not be maintained while they were in power, and their dismission was at this time so recent, that it could not as yet decently be resumed. Attempts, however, to raise a popular cry for peace were made by certain manufacturers whose trade was at a stand: they were assisted by many of those persons who in strict adherence to the phraseology as well as the principles of the puritans, call themselves religious professors, and by some other conscientious but inconsistent men, who while they admit that the necessity of war must be allowed in just cases, exclaim in all cases against the practice, setting their compassionate feelings in array against Superstition reason, and against the manlier virtues. A superstition concernBuon parte ing Buonaparte was mingled with this womanish sensibility.

concerning

They who had not lost sight of his enormities doubted whether he were the Beast, whose number they contrived to discover in his name;.. or Antichrist himself. Others whom he had in some degree conciliated by his various aggressions upon the papal power, forgave him his crimes because the Whore of Babylon happened to be among those whom he had plundered: they rather imagined him to be the Man upon the White Horse. In this, however, they were all agreed, that Providence had appointed him for some great work: and it was an easy con

*

*“The most serious and thinking people among all denominations begin to see something more than an ordinary providence in the recent overthrow of state after

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clusion for those whose weak heads and warm imaginations CHAP. looked no further, that it must be unavailing, if not impious, to oppose him.

the French

This was a pitiable delusion: but more extraordinary was Admirers of the weakness of those, who having been the friends of France revolution. at the commencement of the revolution, when they believed that the cause of liberty was implicated in her success, looked with complacency now upon the progress which oppression was making in the world, because France was the oppressor. They had turned their faces toward the east, in the morning, to worship the rising sun, and now when it was evening they were looking eastward still, obstinately affirming that still the sun was there. Time had passed on; circumstances were changed; nothing remained stationary except their understandings; and because they had been incapable of deriving wisdom from experience, they called themselves consistent; and because they were opposed in every thing to the views of their government, the hopes of their countrymen, and the honour and interest of their country, they arrogated to themselves the exclusive praise of patriotism! But the persons who from these various views and feelings united in calling for peace, were insignificant in number, and

state, and kingdom after kingdom, upon the continent of Europe. People without any
pretensions to religion see a fatality attending almost every state that has hitherto
exerted itself against the French empire." The Gospel Magazine then compares Buona-
parte to Cyrus, because having destroyed the persecuting spirit of Romish Babylon,
and restored the liberty of religious worship, he had so far laid the foundations of the
New Jerusalem. "It is of no avail,"
"It is of no avail," says the writer, "to object to any such character
that he is a man of blood, for such was David; and yet as his wars were necessary to
bring in the peaceable reign of Solomon, so the present wars, and the manifest destruc-
tion of the enemies of truth, may introduce the reign of a greater than Solomon, who
shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.”
This sample may suffice, one of many which might be adduced in proof of the text.

VOL. I.

I

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CHAP. government had never at any time more certainly acted with the full concurrence of the nation, than in carrying on the war against Buonaparte.

Increased

expenditure,

wealth.

Heavy burthens had been incurred during this long and activity and arduous contest. At the commencement of the year 1807, the annual expenditure was not less than seventy-two millions, and the national debt amounted to six hundred and twenty-seven, But hitherto the prosperity of the country had kept pace with its exertions. The wheels of the machine seemed rather to move more freely than to be impeded by the weight which was laid upon them; and the war created means for supporting its enormous demands, by the enterprize which it called into action, and the money which it put in circulation. All the manufactures connected with the numerous branches of the naval and military service were in full activity. Agricultural industry also received an impulse such as had never before been experienced; for the English being excluded from the Baltic, and holding relations of doubtful amity with the United States of America, were fain to depend upon themselves for produce, and the emergency produced commensurate exertions throughout the kingdom. The country banks supplied a currency without which these exertions could not have been made; every where wastes were brought into cultivation; and the agricultural labourers being every where employed at high wages, contributed by their increased expenditure to extend the prosperity of which they partook.

Manufacturing system.

Other circumstances, connected with the progress of society, and leading beyond all doubt to the most perilous crisis which society has ever yet undergone, conduced at this time mainly to the service of the state, and enabled the government to raise a revenue and support fleets and armies upon a scale which even in the last generation could not have been contemplated as

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