boastfully, "a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old." Such claptrap revealed the lower side of his character; but in 1826 he showed that he could act promptly as well as speak foolishly. A constitutional government having been established in Portugal, Spain, backed by France, threatened to invade Portugal. Canning at once sent British troops to secure Portugal, and the danger was averted. 14. National Uprising in Greece. 1821-1826.—The object of the revolutionists in Spain and Italy had been constitutional change. An almost simultaneous rising in Greece aimed at national independence. The Turkish government was a cruel despotism, and in 1821 there was a rising in the Peloponnesus or Morea. Turks and Greeks were merciless to one another. The Turks massacred Greeks, and the Greeks gave no quarter to Turks. The Greeks had the advantage of a well-equipped shipping, and could hold their own at sea. In 1822 two great Turkish armies were sent to conquer the insurgents in the land, but one was driven back by the defenders of Missolonghi in Ætolia, the other was starved out and perished in the mountains of Argolis. The Sultan Mahmoud appealed for help to Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, who had practically made himself almost independent of the Sultan, and Mehemet Ali sent to his help an Egyptian army under his own adopted son Ibrahim Pasha. In 1824 Ibrahim conquered Crete, and in 1825 landed in Peloponnesus, where he did his best absolutely to exterminate the population by slaughtering the men and sending off the women to be sold into slavery. In 1826, whilst Ibrahim was wasting Peloponnesus, the Turks captured Missolonghi, and in 1827 they reduced the Acropolis of Athens. Canning had all along sympathised with the Greeks, but Metternich opposed him in all directions. Canning accordingly turned to Russia, where Nicholas had succeeded his brother Alexander I. in 1825, and in 1826 he and the new Tzar came to an agreement that Greece should be freed from the direct government of the sultan, but should be required to pay him a tribute. 15. Peel as Home Secretary. 1821-1827. Whilst Canning won credit for the ministry by a popular direction of foreign affairs, Peel-who had succeeded Sidmouth as Home Secretary in 1821-won credit for it by his mode of dealing with domestic difficulties. When he came into office a deep feeling of distrust existed between the rich and the poor. The rich were in a state of panic, fearing every political movement amongst the mass of 1821-1825 PEEL AND HUSKISSON 885 their fellow-countrymen as likely to produce a renewal in England of the horrors of the French Revolution. The poor, on the other hand, attributed the misery resulting from economical causes, or even from the badness of the weather, to the deliberate machinations of the rich. What was wanted at that time was, not to bring classes into more violent collision by attempting to reform Parliament in a democratic direction, but to soften down the irritation between them by a series of administrative and economic reforms, which should present Parliament as a helper rather than as a contriver of fresh methods of repression. Peel was, of all men, the best fitted to take the lead in such a work. He had no sympathy with hasty and sweeping change, but he had an open mind for all practical improvements. Sooner or later the force of reasoning made an impression on him, and he was never above avowing what with some people is the most terrible of confessionsthat he had changed his mind. 16. Criminal Law Reform. 1823.-The reform of the criminal law had long been advocated in vain by two large-minded members of the House of Commons, Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir James Mackintosh. As the law stood at the beginning of the century no less than two hundred crimes were punishable by death. Anyone, for instance, who stole fish out of a pond, who hunted in the king's forests, or who injured Westminster Bridge, was to be hanged. Sometimes these harsh laws were put in force, but more often juries refused to convict even the guilty, preferring rather to perjure themselves by delivering a verdict which they knew to be untrue than send to death a person who had merely committed a trivial offence. Again and again the House of Commons had voted for an alteration of the law, but the House of Lords had obstinately refused to pass the Bills sent up to them with this object. In 1823 Peel brought in Bills for the abolition of the death penalty for about a hundred crimes, and the House of Lords at last gave way, now that the abolition was recommended by a minister. 17. Huskisson and the Combination Laws. 1824-1825.Reforms were the more easily made because the distress which had prevailed earlier was now at an end. In 1821 a revival of commerce began, and in 1824 and 1825 there was great prosperity. In the struggle which had long continued between mastermanufacturers and their workmen, the workmen had frequently combined together in trades-unions to impose terms upon the masters, and had attempted to enforce their demands by striking work. Combinations between workmen were, however, illegal till in 1824, at the instance of Joseph Hume, a rising economical reformer, and with the warm support of Huskisson, the President of the Board of Trade, the laws against combinations were repealed, though in 1825, in consequence of acts of violence done by the workmen against unpopular masters, a further act was passed making legal all combinations both of masters and men, if entered on for the purpose of fixing wages, but illegal if entered on for any other purpose. 18. Robinson's Budgets. 1823-1825.-This attempt to give freedom to labour was accompanied by steps in the direction of freedom of trade. Robinson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Huskisson, employed the surplus given him by the 1823-1827 POLITICS AND LITERATURE 887 prosperity of the country to reduce the duties on some imports. It was but little that was done, but it was the first time since Pitt's commercial treaty with France that a government showed any signs of perceiving that Englishmen would be better off by the removal of artificial difficulties in the way of their trade with other nations. 19. The End of the Liverpool Ministry. 1826-1827.-Though the ministry was in name a Tory ministry, it was far from being united on any subject. Some of its members, like the Chancellor, Lord Eldon, continued to detest all reforms, thinking that they must ultimately lead to a catastrophe ; whilst other ministers, like Canning, Peel, and Huskisson, were in favour of gradual reforms, though there were some particular questions on which even the reformers were not in agreement. So discordant a ministry could hardly have been kept together but for the tact and easy nature of its head, the Earl of Liverpool, who allowed the ministers to argue against one another in Parliament even on important subjects. On February 17, 1827, Liverpool was incapacitated from public service by an attack of apoplexy, and it was by that time evident that the two sections of the Cabinet would not be able to serve together under any other leader. Whatever differences there might be about details, the main difference between the two sections can be easily described. On the one hand, the unprogressive section not only disliked the idea of changing institutions which had proved themselves useful in past times, but also shrank from giving way to increased popular control over Parliament, or to any violent popular demand for legislation. On the other hand, the progressive section, though hardly prepared to allow the decisions of Parliament to be influenced by popular pressure, was yet in some sympathy with the popular feeling on subjects ripe for legislation. 20. Burns, Byron, and Shelley. As usually happens, the strong opinions which prevailed amongst politicians were reflected in the literature of the time. Burns, the Ayrshire ploughman, whose first verses were written in 1775, was in full accordance with the precursors of the French Revolution in his love of nature and his revolt against traditional custom, and too often in his revolt against traditional morality. The often-quoted lines The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that, show the same contempt for class distinctions as inspired the writings of Rousseau. Whilst, however, Rousseau looked to the good sense of the masses to remedy the evils of the time, Burns turned hopefully to the work and sturdiness of individual men to heal the evils caused by the inordinate value placed on social rank. The honour paid to the free development of individual character was, in fact, the characteristic of the English and Scottish Sir Walter Scott: from a painting by Colvin Smith. revolt against existing order, as opposed to the honour paid by the French Revolutionists to the opinion of the community. Byron, whose first poems were printed in 1806, but whose first great work— the first two cantos of Childe Harold-appeared in 1812, embodied this form of revolt in his works as well as in his life in a very different fashion from that of Burns. Breaking loose himself from moral restraints, he loved to glorify the characters of those who set at defiance the order of civilised life. In 1824 he died of fever at Missolonghi, fighting for Greek independence. Shelley, whose |