178

FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION.

[Book I. could be obstinate on particular points. He threw his whole force into the advocacy of military punishments, bull and bear baiting, the slave-trade, and other inhumanities, and opposed popular education as a mighty national evil, while taking credit, from himself as well as from others, for drawing men into military duty by humane inducements, and a manifestation of respect for their citizen character. His proposal for limited service passed the Commons on the 6th of June, or rather, at four in the morning of the 7th, by a majority of 92;1 and the Lords dismissed it from their House on the 17th, and sent word to the Commons that they had passed the bill.

Financial administra

tion.

The new ministers gained little credit by their financial plans and management. Their excuse for not fulfilling the expectations they had raised while in Opposition was, that the estimates were prepared by their predecessors, and the financial plans of the year laid, so that they could not proceed to reduction at once. They proposed several new taxes, which (as seems to be a fatality with the Whigs) were so bad as to be successively given up. Lord Henry Petty gave up the private brewing tax; and the manufacturing districts compelled him to take back his projects of taxing unwrought iron. The matter ended in his adding 10 per cent. to the assessed taxes, and raising the property and income tax from 6 to 10 per cent. The odium which these measures brought on men who had spoken as they had done about the burden of taxation, may be imagined. Gillray, the caricaturist, did them as much mischief out of parliament as the Opposition could within it; and, after standing at the print-shops to see Fox and Petty as tax-gatherers insulting John Bull, or Fox as a bear and Petty a dog, taught to dance by Lord Grenville, men went home, sorrowful and indignant, to wonder at themselves for putting their trust in popular leaders, any more than in princes. Here was Charles James Fox, of all men, heavily increasing the income tax, and exempting the King's income from the tax ! As he never could read Adam Smith, or fix his attention on political economy, it was not to be wondered at that he had joined in proposing untenable imposts, exposing his incapacity as a financier; but it was not like him to exempt the King's income from a burden which pressed heavily upon every other man in the country who was not a pauper. The new ministry gained no credit in its financial department.

Meantime, the objects which have been mentioned as earest Negotiation to Fox's heart when he accepted office were occufor peace. pying his mind, and taking form under his hands. Peace and the abolition of the slave-trade were those aims.

1 Hansard, vii. pp. 559, 684.

CHAP. VIII.]

NEGOTIATION FOR PEACE.

179

Early in February, Mr. Fox received a request that he would forward a passport to a foreigner arrived at Gravesend from Paris, who had important tidings to communicate. Mr. Fox sent for him, and granted him a private interview in his own house. After some introductory conversation, the man opened to Mr. Fox a scheme for the assassination of Napoleon, who was to be shot from a house at Passy as he went by. The fellow appeared to have no doubt that he was telling very acceptable news, while the minister was so utterly confounded at finding himself tête-à-tête with an assassin, that he lost presence of mind. He rang the bell, and ordered him to be chased from the house, and from the kingdom, as soon as possible. Presently, however, it occurred to him that this was not the way to prevent the assassination. He sent after the wretch, and had him detained, and immediately wrote to Talleyrand a detail of the affair,1 with as much as he understood of the plot, promising to detain the man as long as the law would allow, and then to have him landed as far as possible from Paris. It is curious that this incident should have befallen the statesman who had so lately been obliged to defend Mr. Windham from the imputation of having been concerned in a similar plot; and that Napoleon should have lauded Mr. Fox's conduct in giving warning of the danger, as a remarkable exhibition of "principles of honor and of virtue." No more seems to have been heard of the stranger; but it appears that the incident prepared the way for a peace negotiation. On the same day that M. Talleyrand wrote Napoleon's message of acknowledgment, he sent to Mr. Fox the Emperor's speech to the legislature, pointing out to his particular observation the paragraph, "I desire peace with England. On my part, I shall never delay it for a moment. I shall always be ready to conclude it, taking for its basis the stipulations of the Treaty of Amiens." Mr. Fox laid this before the King, and then wrote a simple and kindly letter to Talleyrand, explaining how the Treaty of Amiens and its stipulations admitted of various interpretations, and declaring a readiness to go into the matter, and see where the causes of misunderstanding and war really lay ; the interest of the allies of England, and the security of Europe at large, being considered throughout. The correspondence proceeded, without much ground being gained, till June, when a new move was made by the French minister. Lord Yarmouth was among the English detained in France since the breaking out of the war. He arrived in Paris from Verdun at the beginning of June, and was immediately sent for by Talleyrand, who wished to charge him with the secret reasons for the refusal of France to admit Russia into the negotiation. Lord Yarmouth was un2 Ibid. p.

1 Annual Register, 1806, pp. 708, 709.

710.

180

FRANCE DISINGENUOUS.

[BOOK I. willing to be concerned in the matter, as he did not desire peace, and would have opposed it, if he had been in his place at home; but Talleyrand compelled him to hear, and charged him to convey some very gracious sayings-such as that England was welcome to Sicily, that France would not ask her to give up anything, and that the feelings of the French nation had entirely changed, the asperity which had marked the beginning of the war having given place to an earnest desire for peace.1 Napoleon frequently asked whether Lord Yarmouth had any credentials, saying that in diplomacy the agents did not speak the same political language unless they spoke under an equality of authorization. The due powers were sent to Lord Yarmouth; but meantime, Talleyrand had gone back from the point about Sicily, and, as may be seen in the published correspondence, shuffled so disgracefully, that it seems surprising that Mr. Fox could have had any hope of a good issue with such an opponent. On the 25th of July, the news arrived in London that a treaty between Russia and France, which had been slily negotiated all this while, had been signed. This was mortifying and enfeebling to England; and bitterly did Mr. Fox feel it to be so: but it opened the way for sending from England a duly accredited ambassador, to treat openly for peace; and Lord Lauderdale was the man. "In the present disposition of the French government," wrote Mr. Fox to Lord Yarmouth on the 2d of August, "there is, I fear, little probability that peace can be concluded on such terms as are alone admissible. The trial should, however, be made with frankness and good faith; and it is with this view that his Majesty has been pleased to direct that the Earl of Lauderdale should proceed to Paris, notwithstanding the present unfavorable aspect of the negotiation." Lords Yarmouth and Lauderdale united their efforts to keep the slippery French minister to the original points of the negotiation; but it was in vain. He never gave them any hold. When they resolved, as they did repeatedly, to leave Paris, he became cordial and reasonable, and apparently frank; but, as soon as they seemed to be in a fair way of coming to an agreement, he was off again. At last, in October, he and his master suddenly left Paris without notice, and the insulted Englishmen demanded their passports, and came home.2 After the entire correspondence had been presented to parliament, no one could pretend that our ambassadors had been impatient, or could deny that they had manifested a most patriotic forbearance under treatment the most disingenuous and provoking. But there are some who believe, even to this day, that it was Mr. Fox's illness and death which intercepted the hopes of peace; and that if he had lived, the darling aim of his polit1 Annual Register, 1806, p. 724. 2 Hansard, viii. pp. 92-213.

CHAP. VIII.]

MINISTERIAL STRENGTH.

1

181

ical life would have been accomplished. He did not live to know that the separate treaty with Russia, improperly obtained for the intimidation of England, had been indignantly repudiated by the Emperor of Russia; but he had experienced enough of the dishonesty of Napoleon and his minister to be convinced that it was more easy to plead for peace with France than to obtain it. In the spring, at the outset of the negotiation, he had lost popularity by appearing to be yielding to Lord Grenville's less pacific policy; 2 and there can be little doubt that, from the time of Lord Lauderdale's arrival in Paris, he pursued the negotiation from a sense of duty, and not from any hope of success.

In parliament, the Grenville Ministry was doing well throughcut the spring. They had large majorities, whenever Ministerial they chose to ask for them. But in the country they strength. did not stand so well as at first. They were not good men-ofbusiness, and they were at once oppressive and feeble as financiers. Their enemies with the Duke of York at their head -seeing this, and honestly believing that it was bad for the country that it should be ruled by a Cabinet so variously composed, so prone to favor the French and the Catholics, and so unacceptable to the King, plotted to make "a push at it before the recess.” 3 The Duke of York saw Lord Chatham about this, and then Lord Malmesbury; and Lord Malmesbury wrote to Canning; and they got as far as to agree that if they could find a Pittite leader, they ought to stand out against parliamentary majorities, as Mr. Pitt did in 1783, till they could bring the majority over to their side. This implied that they were to be supported by the King; and when Lord Malmesbury hinted a question as to how this caballing would be regarded at Windsor, the Duke of York laughingly said that he would take the risk of that. All this seemed to Lord Malmesbury "very cheering;" but the plotters were at a loss for a leader. All agreed that the Duke of Portland ought to be the man; but his health, though improved by a severe surgical experiment, was not thought equal to such a charge. Though many conversations were held with the Duke of Portland and with Mr. Perceval (the two next Prime Ministers) on the subject, it "came to nothing." The Ministerial majorities in parliament, and the good repute of Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox, were, probably, still too strong. The letter from Lord Malmesbury to Canning bears date the 7th of June. On the 10th, Mr. Fox moved a resolution in the Commons, which was carried with scarcely any opposition, that the House, reprobating the African Slave-trade, would, with all of the slavepossible expedition, take measures for abolishing the

1 Hansard, viii. p. 211.

8 Malmesbury Diaries, iv. p. 359.

Reprobation

trade.

2 Life of Wilberforce, iii. p. 267. 4 Hansard, vii. p. 585.

182

THE SLAVE-TRADE.

[BOOK I. trade. Thus was he working towards his second great object in accepting a "great situation," while his enemies were caballing to remove him; and high were the hopes of the abolitionists who had wrought hard for this end for so many years, amidst alternations of depression and encouragement, when a deadly apprehension struck upon their hearts. The day week after Mr. Fox's fine speech, broad resolution, and spirited reply to objectors, two of the faithful abolitionists met and mourned together. “ William Smith with us after the House," says Wilberforce's Diary, under date of June 27th, "and talking of poor Fox constrainedly; when at last, overcome by his feelings, he burst out with a real divulging of his danger - dropsy." It was even so; though his strenuous attention to business, his diligence and cheerfulness, had disguised from others the decline of which he appears to have been sensible himself. He contemplated, at least, absence from parliament for the session when he said that he wished to go down to the House once more, to say something on the Slave-trade. This motion was the last he ever made.

1

The Abolitionists had been sorely disappointed by Mr. Pitt, in regard to this question; and they now believed that, through Mr. Fox, they had gained everything. It is scarcely possible for us now to conceive of the nature and virulence of the opposition to the abolition of slavery, and even of the slave-trade, in the early days of the question. The great West India interest was only one obstacle among many. Many defended slavery — in which they included the slave-trade as scriptural. Some scholars defended it as classical, and talked of Epictetus. Lord Eldon defended it as constitutional. General Gascoigne asserted it to be not only necessary, but praiseworthy and beautiful; an institution which, if it had not always existed, ought always to have existed. Many more were averse to permitting "property" in any form to be touched, not knowing how far the meddling might go; and more still did not see what they had to do with it, and would not allow any "real business," to be put aside for the sake of what was out of sight, and no affair of theirs. But for the accident of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Wilberforce being personal friends, and very intimate, it is probable that even the devotedness of Clarkson and Wilberforce, and their earnest coadjutors, would have failed to obtain results so early as they did — long as the delay seemed to humane men who knew what was suffered by negroes from day to day, in the prosecution of the devilish traffic. Wilberforce stimulated Mr. Pitt to a degree of activity which perplexed foreign potentates, who had no Clarkson or Wilberforce among their subjects. They believed, as some foreign governments believe to this hour, that there was 1 Life, iii. p. 268.