1807. CHAP. of every Cabinet down to the settlement of the question II. in 1829. The Whig Ministry, desirous of following out their principles, and deeming it of essential importance to unite the sympathies of the whole country in the singlehanded contest in which they were now engaged, brought forward a bill, the object of which was to open the higher situations in the army and navy to persons of the Catholic persuasion, without making any change on their eligibility to either House of Parliament. The draft of the bill, which related to other matters connected with the two services as well as this, was submitted to his Majesty in the usual way by the Cabinet; but his attention was not specially drawn to the change it was meant to effect in this particular, and he seems to have been unconscious of what was intended. No sooner, however, did he become aware, from the debates on the subject in the House of Commons, of the tendency of the bill in this respect, than he expressed his repugnance to it in the strongest terms, declaring that he had not previously been made aware of the existence of any such clause in the bill, and that no consideration whatever would induce him to give his consent to it. Finding the King thus determined, and on a subject on which they were well aware his conscientious convictions were so strong that there was no chance of this being modified or removed, the Ministers agreed to give up the point, and in the mean time withdraw the obnoxious clause from the bill. But this did not satisfy the King, whose religious scruples were now thoroughly awakened; and, dreading a renewal of the attempt to compel him to surrender his opinion, he required from his Ministers a written pledge that they would never again bring forward any such proposal. To this proposal, which in effect was to tie up their hands on this important subject during the whole remainder of the King's reign, the Cabinet conceived that they could not, in consistency with their known opinions, accede; and the consequence was, that they were informed their services were no longer re quired. An entire change of Ministry ensued-the new one being composed exclusively of the Tory party-Mr Percival being First Lord of the Treasury, and Lord Castlereagh again restored to his arduous duties as Secretary at War.* * The following was the composition of the new Cabinet :-President of the Council, Earl Camden; Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon; Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Westmoreland; First Lord of the Treasury, Duke of Portland; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Percival; Home Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury; Foreign Secretary, Mr Canning; War and Colonies, Lord Castlereagh; President of the Board of Trade, Earl Bathurst; First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Mulgrave; Master-General of the Ordnance, Earl of Chatham. Not in Cabinet: -Secretary at War, Sir James Pulteney; President of Board of Control, Mr Dundas; Vice-President of Board of Trade, Mr Rose; Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Duke of Richmond. "The King considers this struggle as for his throne; and he told me but yesterday, when I took the Great Seal, that he did so consider that he must be the Protestant king of a Protestant country, or no king. He is remarkably well, firm as a lion, placid and quick beyond example in any moment of his life. The late Ministers are satisfied that the King-whose state of mind they were always doubting-has more sense than all the Ministers put together-they leave him with a full conviction of that fact."-LORD ELDON to REV. DR TWISS, April 1, 1807; CAMPBELL'S Lives of Chancellors, vii. 207. CHAP. II. 1807. CHAPTER III. LORD CASTLEREAGH FROM HIS RESTORATION TO THE WAR CHAP. III. 1807. 1. New Tory Castlereagh is again Secretary for War. April 8, 1807. WHEN the Tories were restored to power, which was on the 8th April, the affairs of the Continent were in a very critical state; but the period of decisive co-operation on the part of the British Government had passed. HosAdministra tilities on an extended scale were imminent, but it was tion, in which Lord too late to send a British expedition out, in time either to take part in them, or effect a diversion in favour of the Russian arms. The first care of the new Ministry was to resume the project of co-operation on an extended scale, and en masse, with the Russians, who had maintained through the winter so heroic a struggle with the superior forces of Napoleon; and if these efforts had been made two months before, when the intelligence of the battle of Eylau arrived, they might have been attended with decisive effect; for the scales of war then hung even between the contending parties, and 30,000 British troops thrown into the balance would, beyond a doubt, have inclined it to the allied side. As it was, not a day was lost by Mr Canning and Lord Castlereagh in reversing the policy of their predecessors, and sending immediate succours to the allied powers.' So early as x. 103, 104; April 2, before they had even taken their seats in Par297, 298. liament as Ministers, they despatched £100,000 in money to the King of Prussia, which was immediately followed April 2. 1 Parl. Deb. Hard. ix. LORD CASTLEREAGH'S WAR ADMINISTRATION. 213 by £200,000 worth of military stores; and earnest negotiations were set on foot to concert vigorous measures for the prosecution of the war. CHAP. ΠΤ. 1807. 2. consequence allied This change of policy on the part of the British Government was immediately followed by treaties, cal- Treaties in culated, if the war had lasted, to have effected an im- concluded portant change in its fortunes. One was signed at Bar- with the tenstein in East Prussia, on the 25th of April, between powers. April 25. Russia and Prussia, by which it was stipulated that neither of the contracting parties should make peace without the concurrence of the other; that the Confederation of the Rhine should be dissolved, and a new confederacy of the German powers formed under their natural protectors, Austria and Prussia; that the Cabinet of Vienna should be requested to accede to this treaty, and, in the event of their doing so, the Austrian dominions should be restored to what they had been in 1805, so as to extend in Italy to the Mincio, and include the Tyrol in Germany; and that England should be invited to accede, and furnish arms, ammunition, and money to the belligerent powers, and disembark a strong auxiliary force at the mouth of the Elbe to co-operate with the Swedes and menace the flank and rear of the French army, while Austria operated on its communications, and Russia and Prussia engaged it in front. Sweden had, six days before, agreed to employ 12,000 April 19. men in Pomerania. Great Britain formally gave in her adhesion on 17th June, and engaged to send 20,000 men June 17. as soon as possible to Stralsund to co-operate with the Swedes; and, on the 23d of the same month, a relative agreement was concluded between Great Britain and Sweden, by which the Swedish contingent was to be raised to 18,000, and taken entirely into British pay, and the whole conditions of the alliance of 11th April 1805 were renewed. Soon after a treaty was signed between Great Britain and Prussia, by which the former engaged to furnish a subsidy of £1,000,000 for the III. 1807. CHAP. campaign of 1807, with the promise of further succours, if necessary, to carry into full effect the provisions of the Convention of Bartenstein. Thus was Lord Castlereagh's project for the winter campaign of 1805 so rudely obstructed by the battle of Austerlitz, again in course of being carried into execution, and the foundation laid for a grand alliance, which, if it could have been held together, would, beyond all doubt, have put a bridle in the mouth of France, and restored independence to Europe. And it was observed with just pride by Mr Canning, that "It was not the least honourable part of these transactions to Great Britain, that the treaty with Prussia was signed when that power was almost bereft of its possessions, and agreed to by FrederickWilliam in the only large town that remained to him of his once extensive dominions." 1 1 Martin, viii. 603; Schoell, ix 141; Parl. Deb. ix. 974, and x. 102, 103. mised too from Fried But this change of system came too late to counter3. balance the disasters which had been incurred, or assuage coup the ill feeling which had been produced. Alexander had is proe been profoundly irritated by the ill-judged refusal of the British Cabinet to guarantee a loan he was desirous of negotiating, after the battle of Eylau, in London, and by the desertion of his cause by Great Britain, the power of all others most interested in asserting its independence.* land and Tilsit. * "The firmness and perseverance with which his Majesty, during eight months, maintained and defended a cause common to all sovereigns, are the most certain pledges of the intentions which animated him, as well as of the purity and loyalty of his principles. Never would his Imperial Majesty have thought of deviating from that system which he has hitherto pursued, if he had been supported by a real assistance on the part of his allies. But having, from the separation of Austria and England, found himself reduced to his own resources, having to combat with his own means the immense military forces which France has at her disposal, he was authorised in believing that, in continuing to sacrifice himself for others, he might ultimately come to compromise the fate of his own empire. The conduct of the British Government in later times has been of a kind completely to justify the determination which his Majesty has now taken. The diversion on the Continent which England so long promised has not to this day taken place; and even if, as the latest advices from London show, the British Government has at length resolved on sending 10,000 men to Pomerania, that succour is nowise proportioned either to the hopes we were authorised to entertain, or the importance of the object to which these troops were destined. Pecuniary succours might, in |