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FORE:The success of the revolt against the French in Spain was certain to become contagious in Portugal. Junot was holding the country with an army of thirty thousand men, amongst whom there was a considerable number of Spanish troops, who were sure to desert on the first opportunity after the news from Spain. What Buonaparte intended really to do with Portugal did not yet appear. The conditions of the Treaty of Fontainebleau remained a dead letter. He had established neither the Queen of Etruria nor the Prince of the Peace in their kingdoms there. The likelihood was that, as soon as Spain was secure, he would incorporate Portugal with it. This seemed very probably his intention, from words that he let fall at an Assembly of Portuguese Notables, whom he had summoned to meet him at Bayonne. The Count de Lima, the president of the Assembly, opened it with an address to Napoleon, who listened with great nonchalance, and then said, "I hardly know what to make of you, gentlemen; it must depend on the events in Spain. And, then, are you of consequence sufficient to constitute a separate people? Have you enough of size to do so? What is the population of Portugal? Two millions, is it?" "More than three, sire," replied the Count. "Ah, I did not know that. And Lisbonare there a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants?" "More than double that number, sire." "Ah, I was not aware of that. Now, what do you wish to be, you Portuguese? Do you desire to become Spaniards?" "No!" said the Count de Lima, bluntly, and drawing himself up to his full height. Then Buonaparte broke up the conference.A great portion of the present Session was[143] occupied with discussing the return to cash payments, which, by the Act of Parliament, ought to take place on the 5th of July of this year. It appears that no less than fifty debates and conversations in both Houses took place on this important subject during the Session. Very soon after the meeting of Parliament a secret committee of each House was appointed to inquire into the state of the Bank. These committees were, however, so managed, by delivering to the members lists of suitable persons for such committees, that scarcely any but Ministerial men were voted, though these votes were given by ballot. In the Commons this result was so evident that the Opposition declined to vote at all. The first reports of the committees went rather to close more strictly than to open the issue of gold by the Bank. It had been paying in gold its notes issued previous to January, 1817. This payment it was proposed to stop, as, at present, evidently injurious to the interests of the country. Mr. Peel, on moving for a Bill for this purpose, stated that the gold at the present price was fast finding its way abroad, and was as rapidly absorbed in re-minting a gold coinage for France. It appeared that during the first half of 1818 gold to the value of no less than one hundred and twenty-eight million francs had been coined at the French mint, of which three-fourths were derived from the gold coinage of England. A Bill was accordingly passed to stop payment altogether in gold till the necessary preparations were made by a fresh Bill. Still, the condition of the Bank was represented as flourishing. Its liabilities were stated in January, 1819, as amounting to thirty-three million eight hundred and ninety-four thousand five hundred and eighty pounds; its assets, including the debt due from Government, fifty-three million seven hundred and eighty-three thousand seven hundred pounds. The total Bank surplus appeared to be nineteen million eight hundred and eighty-nine thousand one hundred and twenty pounds; and its surplus, independent of the Government debt, and therefore available for current use, was five million two hundred and two thousand three hundred and twenty pounds. The committees adopted the scheme broached by Mr. Ricardo in his "Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency," published in 1816. This was that the Bank, in the first instance, should not pay for its notes in gold coin, but in ingots of a certain weight, its fineness being attested by a stamp; and this degree of purity should be regulated from time to time till the gold descended to the Mint price of three pounds seventeen shillings and tenpence-halfpenny per ounce. When the Mint gold at length reached this rate of value, then the payment in coin was to be begun. Resolutions to this effect were moved by the Earl of Harrowby on the 21st of May, and they received the approval, not only of the Ministerial side, but of the leading Opposition members, Lords Grenville, Lansdowne, and King.
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FORE:Mr. Smith O'Brien, early in July, gave occasion for another great debate on the state of Ireland, by moving that the House resolve itself into a committee for the purpose of taking into consideration the causes of the discontent prevailing there, with a view to the redress of grievances, and the establishment of a system of just and impartial government in that part of the United Kingdom. The honourable gentleman reviewed the history of the country since the union, discussed the questions of the National Debt and taxation, the Church Establishment, the position of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Government appointments, Coercive Acts, and land tenure. Lord Eliot, then Chief Secretary of Ireland, answered his arguments at length. A great number of speakers followed, continuing the debate for five nights. At length the House divided, when the numbers wereagainst the motion for a committee, 243; for it, 164. The whole of these vexed questions again came up on the 9th of August, when the Irish Arms Bill was set down for the third reading. On this occasion Sir Robert Peel made some remarks, expressing the feeling of his Government with regard to Ireland, declaring that he viewed the state of things there with deep anxiety and pain. He had hoped that there was a gradual abatement of animosity on account of religious differences; that he saw the gradual influence of those laws which removed the political disabilities of Catholics and established civil equality. He thought he saw, in some respects, a great moral and social improvement; that there was a hope of increasing tranquillity, which would cause the redundant and superfluous capital of England, then seeking vent in foreign and precarious speculations, to flow into Ireland. But the agitation had, in his opinion, blasted all those hopes.In the West Indies it was decided that Great Britain should, of the French islands that she had taken, retain Tobago, Dominica, St. Vincent, and[175] Grenada, but restore to France Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Lucia.
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FORE:Now, much of this at the moment was true; the manufacturers were naturally anxious to resume their business, and a fall in the price of corn, after the plentiful harvest of 1817, to seventy-four shillings and sixpence, relieved a little the pressure on the working classes. Could cheap bread have[133] been secured, the condition of the people might soon have become easy; but the fatal Corn Law came immediately into operation. By the end of 1817 corn had risen in price again to eighty-five shillings and fourpence; and then the ports were opened, but the supplies did not bring down the markets. The spring of 1818 proved wet, and then about the middle of May a drought set in, and continued till September, so that the apprehension of a deficient harvest kept up the price of all articles of life, notwithstanding that a million and a half quarters of wheat had been imported during the year. So long as bread was tolerably cheap, and work more abundant, political agitation in the manufacturing districts subsided; but it was soon proved that the apparent increase of activity in manufacturing and commercial exports was but a feverish desire on the part of manufacturers and merchants to force a trade for which the exhausted Continent was not yet prepared. Nothing but a free importation of corn could have carried the country comfortably through the crisis; and this was denied by the measures of Government, except at a rate of price that put the proper consumption of bread beyond the means of the working classes.
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