XLIV. 1841. of which fell upon that year, though the necessity for CHAP. them had passed away. On 15th April 1841, M. Humann, the late finance-minister, made a most alarming Moniteur, statement of the finances, which, however, was nowise April 15 surprising, seeing that the troops voted amounted to 1841; Ann. 640,000 men, and the sum required for public works 355, 356. was 534,000,000 francs.1 and 25, Hist. xxiv. M. Humann finances. "It is in vain," said M. Humann, "to attempt to dis- 45. guise the difficulties of our financial situation. The Speech of unproductive charges of late years have threatened to on the become permanent, and assumed a forced place in our budgets. The Grande Livre of the public debt must soon be reopened; the budgets of former years, far from bequeathing to us any resources, daily absorb more of our present funds; and you have to consider a budget commencing and ending with an alarming deficit. The deficit of 1840 was 170,193,780 francs; that of 1841 was still higher, it amounted to 242,603,288 francs; and as the income of 1842 is only 1,160,516,000, while the expenses of the year will be 1,275,435,000, the financial year of 1842 will present a deficit of 114,936,000 francs. In addition to this, the extraordinary public works require 534,269,000 francs; to which the finance-minister must set his face, with the resources of the budget, the funded debt, and the floating debt. But little can be expected from the last resource, as it is already engaged for 256,000,000 francs of debt contracted anterior to 1833, and which has formed an incubus on the resources of the State ever since that period." To meet these charges, the finance-minister was obliged to contract a loan for 450,000,000 francs in a period of profound peace, besides leaving a floating debt of 81,000,000 to be provided for by Exchequer bills or other temporary expedients. Thus was the Government of Louis Philippe, despite his anxious. and strenuous efforts to preserve peace, rapidly approaching a state of insolvency-a striking and painful contrast to the prosperous state of the finances during the Restora 1841. CHAP. tion. The necessity for these prodigious expenses arose XLIV. from the unhappy circumstances of its origin. Founded on treason, and a violent revolt of the lower orders against the Government, it was necessarily, in foreign affairs, in a state of antagonism with the great Continental powers, and could only maintain its independence by keeping vast armaments on foot; and in domestic, could not hope to April 15, preserve tranquillity, and prevent a second revolution, 1841; Mon- but by annually making an immense addition to the pub16: Ann. lic debt, to give the working classes that employment which the unaided circumstances of society could not afford.1 1 Rapport, iteur, April Hist. xxiv. 355, 356. 46. commence Scarcely less unfortunate was the Ministry of the 29th Untoward October, from the cloud which overhung its origin. Marment of the shal Soult and M. Guizot succeeded to the helm immeMinistry of M. Guizot. diately after the signature of the treaty of 15th July 1840, which was taken as so great an insult by France; and the principle of their administration was concession to the four Powers on a matter in which strenuous resistance was thought indispensable to the national honour. England had been entirely successful in the affairs of the East; her statesmen had shown more courage, capacity, and influence, than those of Louis Philippe. The bombardment of Acre had been as decisive in the Levant as the battle of Waterloo in the West. Indescribable was the sensation which these events produced in France, and weighty the load of opprobrium which they affixed round the necks of the new Ministry, which agreed to the subsequent treaty. In fact, they never altogether recovered it, any more than the Restoration did the stain of entering Paris in the rear of the allied armies. With the usual tendency of men to judge of events by their final result, not the cause which had preceded them, the multitude ascribed the whole disgrace, as they deemed it, of these events, to the minister who had extricated the country from its difficulties, not to him that had plunged it into them; in the same way as they ascribed the shame of the treaty XLIV. of Paris to Louis XVIII. and the Duke de Richelieu, CHAP. who signed it, not to Napoleon, who had rendered that signature unavoidable. 1841. 47. England for of the slave This inauspicious commencement of the new Ministry not only imposed on it from the very outset the greatest Efforts of difficulties, but proved a serious impediment to the mea- suppression sures which the enlightened and pacific Foreign Ministers trade. of France and England, at that time M. Guizot and Lord Aberdeen, were endeavouring to bring about, with a view to alleviating the sufferings of humanity, and preserving the peace of the world. Everything which was done in concert with England was represented as a humiliating concession to a rival power, and a disgraceful acknowledgment of vassalage on the part of France. This feeling extended even to an attempt made by the united cabinets of the Tuileries and St James's to eradicate that infernal traffic, the disgrace of humanity, the slavetrade. To understand how this came about, it must be premised that, after the slave trade had been formally abolished by law in Great Britain, its Government made the most persevering efforts to conclude such arrangements with foreign powers as might tend to the entire and final suppression of that traffic. It has been already mentioned, that so early as 1817 the vii. § 49. British Ministry purchased, at the cost of £400,000, a treaty with Spain, agreeing, under certain limitations, to the extinction of the slave trade in Spanish vessels; and they endeavoured, at the same time, to get from the Duke de Richelieu a similar renunciation on the part of France, though unhappily without effect. Afterwards they made the most vigorous efforts to obtain from xii. § 16. the Congress of Verona a similar declaration, but could i. 185, 186; obtain nothing more than a vague act condemnatory of D'Haussonits existence. Though abundantly disposed to be humane toire Diplo in the abstract, the minister of France at that assembly, la France, M. Chateaubriand, was too well aware of the indelible i. 6, 7. jealousy of England which pervaded his country, to adven 1 Ante, c. 2 Ante, c. 3 Regnault, ville, His matique de 1830-48, XLIV. CHAP. ture on any efficient practical measures which might really tend to the abolition of the traffic; and it continued to be carried on under cover of the French flag during the whole government of the Restoration. 1841. 48. 1831 and Intently set, however, upon effecting the entire aboliTreaties of tion of a trade which was a general reproach to Chris1833 with tendom, the British Government made a fresh effort, garding the after the accession of Louis Philippe, to effect this object, slave trade. and happily on this occasion with more effect. France re 1831. On the 30th November 1831, a convention was signed between France and England, by which the two Governments mutually conceded to each other the right of search within the latitudes necessarily traversed by the slavers in their passage from the coast of Africa to the West Nov. 30, Indies, or the American shores. A separate convention was to be signed every year, regulating the number of cruisers which were to be kept on the station by the two nations respectively. By a second convention in pursuance of the former, concluded on 22d March 1833, certain stipulations were mutually agreed to, which provided for the mode in which the vessels deemed liable to seizure should be brought before a judge of the country to which they belonged, and many other details as to the mode of seizure and condemnation. In these mutual stipulations the most entire reciprocity was observed, and nothing was exacted by England from France but what she cordially consented to submit to in her turn. This mutual right of visit was totally different from the old right of search claimed by England against neutrals, when she was engaged in actual hostilities with any other power. That was a right claimed by one party to search neutral vessels on the high seas for articles contraband of war, and disputed by the other; this was a right, agreed to by both, to search vessels of their own subjects, within certain limits, for slaves, without which all attempts to put down the slave trade would of necessity be defeated.1 1 Conventions in Martins' Sup. viii. 192, xi. 211. These treaties were concluded between Great Britain XLIV. 184). 49. December France and Powers. and France alone; but it was self-evident that all such CHAP. conventions would fail in the object for which they were concluded, unless the whole civilised powers concurred in a mutual right of the same description. Any one Treaty of which refused to recognise it, would soon find the whole 20, 1841, slave trade of the world run into their bottoms, or between carried on under cover of their flag. England, however, the Allied had in the interim made very great efforts to get other powers to go into the same system, and at length with considerable success. By the exertions of her statesmen, Denmark, Sardinia, Sweden, Naples, Tuscany, the Hanse Towns, had been successively induced to enter into similar treaties. Nothing remained to be done but to get the accession of the great powers, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to a similar convention. But although the cabinets of these powers expressed an entire willingness, and even anxiety, to join in the great work, yet they considered it inconsistent with their dignity to accede to a treaty which, without their concurrence, had previously been concluded between other powers. They invited, therefore, the formation of a new treaty, entered into between all the five powers, including, of course, France, which by common consent might put matters on an efficient and durable foundation. Great Britain willingly acceded to this proposal, which promised to put the object for which she had so long been contending on the footing of European law; and M. Guizot, on the part of France, gladly joined in the same views, the more especially as it readmitted his country into the European family, from which she had been separated since the treaty of 15th July 1840, and exhibited a proof to the world of the restoration of harmony among the ii. 189, 190; whole European powers. The result was the conclusion Treaty, Dec. of the treaty of 20th December 1841, signed at London Ibid., 450 by the ambassadors of the five powers, which established, Martins, on the most equitable footing, a mutual right of search, 482. with a view to the preventing of the slave trade.1 Regnault, 20, 1841; -App.; Sup. ix. |