ONE:Napoleon, seeing that Bernadotte was become King of Sweden contrary to his secret will and to his expectations, determined, however, that he should still serve him. He gave him no respite. He demanded incessantly, and with his usual impetuosity, that Bernadotte should declare war against Great Britain and shut out of the Baltic both British and American merchandise. Alexander regarded him first with suspicion but his spies soon dissipated his fears. They soon perceived that Bernadotte was not disposed to be at once master of a powerful kingdom and the vassal of France. Alexander made offers of friendship; they were accepted by Bernadotte with real or affected pleasure, and his course became clearer. For the next two years there was a great strife to secure the alliance of the Crown Prince; and the proud, disdainful, imperious temper of Napoleon, who could not brook that one who had been created by him out of nothing but a sergeant of marines should presume to exercise an independent will, threw the prize into the hands of the more astute Russian, and decided the fate of Europe and of himself.Such being the facts of the case, the Liberals came to the conclusion that a reform was inevitable. In order to adapt the Establishment to the requirements of the Protestant population, there must be a large reduction, and the surplus funds that remained ought to be applied to some object by which the moral and religious instruction of the people would be promoted. The least objectionable mode in which the money could be applied was the general education of the poor under the National Board, by which children of all denominations could be educated in harmony together, as they had been ever since its establishment. The reformers denied that there was any analogy between the revenues of the Established Church and private property. The Acts of Parliament securing those revenues had all treated them as being held in trust for the benefit of the nation; and after leaving ample means for the due execution of the trust, so far as it was really practicable, the Legislature was competent to apply the balance in accomplishing by other agency than the Protestant clergy, to some extent at least, the objects originally contemplated by the founders of the religious endowments.
THREE:The Irish peasantry very soon learnt that whatever Emancipation had done or might do for barristers and other persons qualified to hold situations under Government, from which Roman Catholics had previously been almost entirely excluded, it had done nothing to remove or even to mitigate their practical grievances. They found that the rackrents of their holdings were not reduced; that the tax-collector went round as usual, and did not abate his demands; that the tithe-proctor did not fail in his visits, and that, in default of payment, he seized upon the cow or the pig, the pot or the blanket. Through the machinery of the Catholic Association, and the other associations which O'Connell had established, they became readers of newspapers. They had read that a single tithe-proctor had on one occasion processed 1,100 persons for tithes, nearly all of the lower order of farmers or peasants, the expense of each process being about eight shillings. It would be scarcely possible to devise any mode of levying an impost more exasperating, which came home to the bosoms of men with more irritating, humiliating, and maddening power, and which violated more recklessly men's natural sense of justice. If a plan were invented for the purpose of driving men into insurrection, nothing could be more effectual than the tithe-proctor system. Besides, it tended directly to the impoverishment of the country, retarding agricultural improvement and limiting production. If a man kept all his land in pasture, he escaped the impost; but the moment he tilled it, he was subjected to a tax of ten per cent, on the gross produce. The valuation being made by the tithe-proctora man whose interest it was to defraud both the tenant and the parson,the consequence was that the gentry and the large farmers, to a great extent, evaded the tax, and left the small occupiers to bear nearly the whole burden; they even avoided mowing their meadows in some cases, because then they should pay tithe for the hay.Grenville rose and defended the Stamp Act. He denied that the right of taxation depended on representation. He complained justly, that when he proposed to tax America, there was little opposition in that House. He contended that protection and obedience were reciprocal, and he exposed the fallacy of Pitt's distinction between taxes and duties. There was much justice in these remarks. The words of Grenville, so pointedly directed against him, immediately called up Pitt again. He had spoken; it was contrary to all rule, but the lion of Parliament broke recklessly through the meshes of its regulations, and when he was called to order the members supported him by cries of "Go on! go on!" He went on, severely castigating Grenville for complaining of the liberty of speech in that House; and dropping in his indignation the terms of courtesy towards the late Minister of "honourable" or "right honourable," said simply"Sir, the gentleman tells us that America is obstinateAmerica is almost in open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest." He then exposed the cases quoted by Grenville to show that taxation in this country had been imposed without representation, showing that these very instances led to immediate representation. "I would have cited them," he continued, "to show that even under arbitrary reigns Parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent. The gentleman asks when the Americans were emancipated? But I desire to know when they were made slaves?" He then touched on the true sources of benefit from our colonies, the profits of their trade. He estimated the profits derived from the American commerce at two millions sterling, adding triumphantly, "This is the fund that carried us victoriously through the late war. This is the price America pays us for protection." He then alluded to the comparative strength of the two countries. "I know the valour," he said, "of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. But in such a cause as this your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her."
THREE:During this protracted agony of suspense and alarm business was almost at a standstill. Nobody seemed to think or talk of anything but the rebellionthe chances of success and the possibility of having to submit to a republic. There could not be a more striking proof of the inability of Lord Clarendon to cope with this emergency than his dealings with the proprietors of the World, a journal with a weekly circulation of only 500 or 600 copies, which subsisted by levying blackmail for suppressing attacks on private character. It was regarded as a common nuisance, and yet the Lord-Lieutenant took the editor into his confidence, held private conferences with him on the state of the country, and gave him large sums for writing articles in defence of law and order. These sums amounted to 1,700, and he afterwards gave him 2,000 to stop an action in the Court of Queen's Bench. Mr. Birch, the gentleman in question, was not satisfied with this liberal remuneration for his services; the mine was too rich not to be worked out, and he afterwards brought an action against Sir William Somerville, then Chief Secretary, for some thousands more, when Lord Clarendon himself was produced as a witness, and admitted the foregoing facts. The decision of the court was against Birch; but when, in February, 1852, the subject was brought before the House of Commons by Lord Naas, the Clarendon and Birch transactions were sanctioned by a majority of 92.