CHAP. I.] OPINIONS ON THE UNION. 33 affecting to those who have lived to watch the course of Irish affairs, in reading, at the end of half a century, the happy anticipations of the Viceroy, that, under the protection of Divine Providence,1 these united kingdoms would remain, in all future ages, the fairest monument of the reign in which their union took place. On the last day of the year and of the century, the King closed the last session of the British Parliament, which was now to become the Imperial Parliament. The occasion was indeed a mere adjournment for three weeks, as the House of Commons was in the midst of the business which at the time chiefly occupied the King's mind, and which he was impatient for the legislature to resume, the passing of measures restrictive on the use of flour, on account of the scarcity. Early in the year, a bill had passed which forbade the sale of bread that had been baked less than twenty-four hours. Next, laws were made which bestowed bounties on the importation of corn and of fish; subjected millers to supervision by the excise, and to a legal rate of profits; and stopped the distilleries, to save the barley. Other measures of the same tendency were so interesting to the King and Ministry, that we find no mention in the royal speech of the mighty event which was now to take place, except in a parenthetical kind of way as a reason why there must be some delay about the Bread Bills, but no reason for the delay being a long one. But that the speech stands before our eyes complete in the records of the time, we could hardly believe that such could be the close of the series of British parliaments, on the eve of the admission of the great Irish element. 2 While there were some who objected to the Union altogether, as abolishing the nationality of Ireland, and who were convinced. that nothing but British force and ministerial corruption could have carried the measure, there were other Irish patriots who entered protests against the incompleteness of the change. They would have had the Viceroyalty abolished; and also all customhouses on the opposite coasts of the Irish Channel; and they would have transferred their two Houses of Parliament complete into the British Legislature. The King thought the Viceroyalty might be abolished: and probably every one now wishes there had been free trade, from the beginning, between the two countries: but, as for other points, the political fusion must stop somewhere, if the Irish were to preserve anything distinctive at all, or to enter into the Union with any good will: and it is, in such cases, for an after-time to perceive and decide where the fusion should stop. As will presently appear, there was something more pressing than this which had been neglected, and 1 Annual Reg. 1800. Chron. 183. 2 Ibid. Chron. 178. 34 TEMPER OF THE TIMES. [BOOK I. which made the subject of the Union the bitterest and the most disastrous that filled the minds of our statesmen for a long course of years. It is common to us to hear and to say that the temper of the Temper of times, fifty years ago, was warlike; though, in fact, the the times. people were beginning to have, and to express, a passionate desire for peace. To say that the temper of the times was warlike gives no idea, to us who can scarcely remember war-times, of the spirit of violence, and the barbaric habits of thought and life, which then prevailed. Everything seems, in the records, to have suffered a war-change. The gravest annalists, the most educated public men, called the First Consul" the Corsican murderer," and so forth, through the whole vocabulary of abuse. Nelson's first precept of professional morality was to hate a Frenchman as you would the devil. Government rule took the form of coercion; and popular discontent that of rebellion; and suffering that of riot. The passionate order of crime showed itself slaughterous : the mean kind exercised itself in peculation of military and naval provisions. Affliction took its character from the war. Tens of thousands of widows, and hundreds of thousands of orphans, were weeping or starving in the midst of society; and among the starving were a multitude of the families of employed sailors, who were sent off on long voyages, while their pay was three or four years in arrear. The mutiny, which spread half round our coasts, was a natural, almost a necessary consequence. Because it was suppressed," it does not follow that the feelings connected with it were extinguished. In Wilberforce's Diary we find an expression of strong regret that "the officers do not love the sailors," such being, he observes, the consequence of fear entering into such a relation -fear on the part of superiors. The sufferings from bad seasons, again, were aggravated by a taxation growing heavier every year, and money running shorter every day, all on account of the war. The very sports of the time took their character from the same class of influences. The world went to see reviews, at which the King (when well) appeared on horseback. Then, there were illuminations for victories; and funerals of prodigious grandeur, when military and naval officers of eminence were to be buried in places of honor. There were presentations of jewelled swords, in provincial cities as well as in London; and, from the metropolitan theatre to the puppet-show, there were celebrations and representations of combats by sea or land. The inhabitants of towns came to their windows and doors at the tramp of cavalry; ladies presented colors to regiments; and children played at soldiers on the village-green. Prayers and thanksgivings in church and chapel services utterly confounding now to the moral sense of a time which has CHAP. I.] WARLIKE VIRTUES. 35 leisure to see that Christianity is a religion of brotherly love then met with a loud response which had in it a hard tone of worldly passion: and from church and chapel, the congregation took a walk to see the Sunday drill. Manufacturers and tradesmen contested vehemently for army and navy contracts; and the bankrupt list in the Gazette showed a large proportion of dependents on army and navy contractors who could not get paid. If the vices and miseries of the time took their character from the war, there was a fully corresponding manifestation of virtue. From Pitt at the head, down to the humblest peasant or the most timid woman in the remotest corner of the kingdom, all who were worthy were animated by the appeals of the times, and magnanimity came out in all directions. The courage was not only in the Nelsons and the Wellesleys: it was in the soul of the sailor's love, and the gray-haired father of the soldier, when their hearts beat at the thought of battle and the threat of invasion. The self-denial was found all abroad, from the Pitt who could respectfully support an Addington Ministry, and a Wilberforce who curtailed his luxuries, and exceeded his income by 3000l. in one year, to feed the poor in the scarcity, down to the sister who dismissed her brother to the wars with a smile, and the operative who worked extra hours when he should have slept, all sustained alike by the thought that they were obeying a call of their country. It was a phase of the national life which should be preserved in vivid representation, for its own value, as well as because it may be a curious spectacle to a future age. 36 MR. PITT'S FAULTS. [Book I. CHAPTER II. not the first years or THE first days of the new century · months, but the first days - present a picture of the faults and weaknesses of statesmanship, which will make it a wonder through all historic time that the British nation preserved its place in the world. After putting together the facts yielded by the various records of the time, and thus obtaining a clear view of the intrigues, the selfishness, the ignorance, the foolishness, the mutual deceit and misunderstandings, of the parties on and about the throne, the student of history draws a long breath of thankfulness and surprise that the nation should have escaped falling into a political chaos, and thus becoming an easy prey to foreign foes. Some parts of the story remain obscure; but the greater portion has of late become sufficiently clear to explain and justify Lord Malmesbury's exclamation in soliloquy," We forget the host of enemies close upon us, and everybody's mind thinks on one object only, unmindful that all they are contending about may vanish and disappear if we are subdued by France." The chief obscurity is how such things as are now to be disclosed could happen under the premiership of Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt. The mystery of the particulars of his conduct must remain; but a careful study of the men involved with him seems to yield a general impression that Mr. Pitt's chief fault was an undue self-reliance, leading him to a careless treatment of the King, a want of consideration to his colleagues, and a too easy trust that he could manage difficulties as they arose, by means of resources which had never yet failed him. His temper was so sanguine as to impair his sagacity throughout his whole career. He was always found trusting our allies abroad not only their good faith and ability, but their good fortune. He was always found expecting that the Austrians would defeat Napoleon in the next battle; believing that the plan of every campaign was admirable and inexpugnable; immovably convinced that what he considered the right must prevail - not only in the long run, but at every step. If his fortitude of soul and sweetness of temper had not incessantly overborne his imperfection of judgment, his 1 Diaries, iv. p. 9. CHAP. II.] CHARM INVESTING HIM. 37 career must have ended very early; for his failures were incessant. Such a repetition of failures would not have been permitted to any man whose personal greatness and sweetness did not overbear other people's faculties as much as his own. If it is impossible now to read his private letters, written in the darkest hours of his official adversities, without a throbbing of the heart at the calm fortitude and indomitable hopefulness of their tone, it may be easily conceived how overpowering was the influence of these qualities over the minds of the small men, and the superficial men, and the congenial men, and the affectionate idolators, by whom he was surrounded. If any of these doubted whether the Austrians would win the next battle, it was not till they went home and sank into themselves; and then they did not tell him so. If any of them feared Napoleon more than they trusted plans of a campaign, it was not while his bright eye was upon them, and his eloquence of hope was filling their ears; and when they relapsed into dread, they did not tell him so. The restless, suspicious, worrying, obstinate, ignorant mind of the halfinsane King was laid at rest for the hour when they were together; and the charm which invested the minister made him for those hours the sovereign over his master. It was no wonder that all this did him harm, and tended to impair still further his already weak sagacity. When he carried his accustomed methods into the conduct of critical affairs of domestic politics, it could not be but that, sooner or later, he must find himself involved in some tremendous difficulty. He was always kept in the dark about one thing or another that it was important for him to know. Nobody ever hinted to him that he was wrong: nobody ever called him to account: there were none but party foes to show him the other side of any question. Holding his head high above the jobbers and self-seekers about him, and never looking down into their dirty tricks, or giving ear to their selfish cravings, except to get rid of them by gratifying them-too easily, no doubt, but with a heedless contempt; resorting for sympathy and counsel to the best of his friends, and then finding little but open-hearted idolatry, it is no wonder that he was unguarded, over-confident, and virtually, though not consciously, despotic. Despotic he was throughout. His comrades, including the King, revelled in the despotism, on account of its charm. The suffering people felt the worst of the despotism without any of the charm. While this host of sufferers was growing restless under the burdens of the war, and some of them frantic under the repression of their civil liberties; while the Northern Powers were banding against us, to cut off our commerce and humble our naval pride; while Napoleon was marshalling his 500,000 soldiers on their coast, so that they could be seen from our cliffs on |