The success of the Scottish courts in sentencing Reformers encouraged the Ministers to try the experiment in England; but there it did not succeed so well. First, one Eaton, a bookseller, of Bishopgate, was indicted for selling a seditious libel, called "Politics for the People; or, Hog's-wash." On the 2nd of April, Thomas Walker, a merchant of Manchesterwas, with six others, indicted at the Lancaster assizes; but Eaton, in London, and these Manchester men, were acquitted. Rather irritated than discouraged by these failures, Pitt and Dundas made a swoop at the leaders of the Corresponding Society, and the Society for Constitutional Information in London; and, in the month of May, Horne Tooke, John Thelwalla celebrated political lecturerThomas Hardy, Daniel Adams, and the Rev. Jeremiah Joyceprivate secretary to the Earl of Stanhope, and tutor to his son, Lord Mahonwere arrested and committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason. No sooner was this done, than, on the 12th of May, Dundas announced to the House of Commons that, in consequence of the Government having been informed of seditious practices being carried on by the above-named societies, they had seized their papers, and he now demanded that a committee of secrecy should be appointed to examine these papers. This was agreed to; and on the 16th Pitt brought up the report of this committee, which was so absurd in its results that nothing but the most blind political desperation could have induced the Government to make it known. The committee found nothing amongst these papers but the reports of the societies since the year 1791, which had been annually published and made known to every one. Yet on this miserable evidence Pitt called for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and it was accordingly granted, Burkewho now seems to have grown quite politically mad by dwelling on the horrors of the French Revolutionbelieving it the only measure to insure the safety of the country. Windham and others asserted that the mere suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was hardly[430] sufficient: there required yet more stringent measures. Similar language was held in the Lords, but did not pass without some severe comments from the Duke of Bedford, and the Lords Stanhope, Lauderdale, and Albemarle, who declared that Ministers, instead of suppressing, were creating a veritable reign of terror. The Bill was, notwithstanding, readily passed; and on the 13th of June an Address was carried to his Majesty, expressing the determination of their lordships to punish the men who had been concerned in the so-called conspiracy. Fox and Lambton condemned this course energetically in the Commons, declaring that, if there were any conspiracy, the ordinary laws and tribunals were amply sufficient for their punishment. Fox moved that all that part of the Address which expressed a conviction of the existence of a conspiracy should be struck out, but it was carried entire; and such was the alarm of the country at the reverses of the Allies on the Continent and the successes of France, that far more violent measures would have been readily assented to.
In the latest period scarcely any acting dramas were produced. Amongst the unacted tragedies, or such as were acted with no great successbeing better fitted for private studywere Coleridge's "Remorse" and "Zapolya;" Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound" and "The Cenci;" Byron's "Cain," "Manfred," "Sardanapalus," etc.; Maturin's "Bertram," "Manuel," and "Fredolpho;" Joanna Baillie's "Plays on the Passions," "The Family Legend"the last acted with some success at Edinburgh, through the influence of Sir Walter Scott, in 1810Charles Lamb's "John Woodvill," Milman's "Fazio," and Walter Savage Landor's "Count Julian," "Andrea of Hungary," "Giovanni of Naples," "Fra Rupert," "The Siege of Ancona," etc., all masterly dramas, constituting a blaze of dramatic genius which, had it been adapted to the stage, would have given it a new grandeur at the close of this reign.In the trying circumstances in which they were placed, Lord Grey and his colleagues displayed a firmness and courage which entitled them to the everlasting gratitude of the country. The pluck of Lord John Russell in particular had quite an inspiriting effect on the nation. Replying to a vote of thanks to him and Lord Althorp, which had been passed by the Birmingham Political union, the noble Paymaster of the Forces used an antithetical expression, which has become historical, and which, considering that the faction to which he alluded was the majority of the order to which he himself belonged, must be admitted to be one of extraordinary boldness. He said: "I beg to acknowledge with heartfelt gratitude the undeserved honour done me by 150,000 of my countrymen. Our prospects are now obscured for a moment, and I trust only for a moment. It is impossible that the whisper of faction should prevail against the voice of the nation."Parliament was prorogued on the 18th of April, and the king soon after set out for his German dominions, taking Stanhope along with him, and his mistress, the Duchess of Kendal. In appointing the Regency to administer affairs in the king's absence, the Prince of Wales was entirely passed over, to his great indignation; nor were he and the Princess allowed to hold levees, that duty being assigned to the young princesses, to the great scandal of the public, and further exposure of the discord raging in the Royal family. Even during the session the ministers had brought in a Bill to "settle and limit the Peerage in such a manner that the number of English peers should not be enlarged beyond six of the present number (178), which, upon failure of male issue, might be supplied by new creations; that, instead of the sixteen elective peers of Scotland, twenty-five should be made hereditary on the part of that kingdom; and that this number, upon failure of heirs male, should be supplied from the other members of the Scottish Peerage." Both the king and ministers flattered themselves that they should carry this Bill, and thus fetter the Prince of Wales when he came to the throne. The king was desirous to do this out of sheer jealousy and hatred of his own son, and the ministers, Sunderland in particular, out of dread of his vengeance in that case; for, if he created a dozen peers at a time, as Anne had done, he could easily swamp the Whigs and put the present ministers in peril of impeachment. But though the Whigs had been clamorous against the act of Anne, some of them now, Cowper and Townshend at their head, as vehemently denounced this measure as a gross infringement of the royal prerogative. The debate became very bitter, and many friendships were broken up by it, amongst others that of Addison and Steele, who took different sides; but the Bill was finally dropped, through the vigorous opposition offered to it by Walpole.
ONE:Before the Irish affairs were done with, Pitt moved for leave to bring in his promised Reform Bill. If Pitt were still desirous of reforming Parliament, it was the last occasion on which he showed it, and it may reasonably be believed that he introduced this measure more for the sake of consistency than for any other purpose. He had taken no steps to prepare a majority for the occasion; every one was left to do as he thought best, and his opening observations proved that he was by no means sanguine as to the measure passing the House. "The number of gentlemen," he said, "who are hostile to reform are a phalanx which ought to give alarm to any individual upon rising to suggest such a motion." His plan was to transfer the franchise from thirty-six rotten boroughs to the counties, giving the copyholders the right to vote. This plan would confer seventy-two additional members on the counties, and thus, in fact, strengthen the representation of the landed interest at the expense of the towns; and he proposed to compensate the boroughs so disfranchised by money, amounting to 1,000,000. Wilberforce, Dundas, and Fox spoke in favour of the Bill; Burke spoke against it. Many voted against it, on account of the compensation offered, Mr. Bankes remarking that Pitt was paying for what he declared was, in any circumstances, unsaleable. The motion was lost by two hundred and forty-eight against one hundred and seventy-four.
ONE:Refused in this quarter, the people proceeded to hold a meeting without such sanction, and invited Mr. "Orator" Hunt to go down and take the chair. Perhaps they could not have selected a more unsafe guide on the occasion, for personal vanity was Hunt's besetting sin. Hunt, instead of encouraging the very constitutional object of the meetingto petition Parliament for the repeal of the obnoxious lawtreated the petitioning that House as ridiculous, and persuaded the excited people to put their sentiments into the form of a remonstrance to the Prince Regent. The meeting then dispersed quietly; but Hunt found occasion to keep himself in the public eye there a little longer. Some officers of the 7th Hussars, who were posted at Manchester, treated him rudely as he appeared at the theatre, asserting that when "God Save the King" was called for, he hissed. Whether he did so or not, the conduct of the officers answered his purpose of making political capital; he wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York, and then sent his letter to the newspapers. Still more, he wrote to Samuel Bamford to support him in a scheme which was particularly calculated to produce riot and bloodshed, and in this case Bamford did not exercise his usual good sense. At Hunt's suggestionto select a dozen stout fellows, and appear on the evening of the following Monday in the pit of the theatre, armed with stout cudgels, to inflict a summary chastisement on the officers in case of a second demonstration of their feelingsBamford appeared at the time appointed with ten stout, picked fellows, with knotty cudgels, marching along the streets to the theatre. The object was immediately perceived by the people, who crowded to the door of the theatre, completely filling the space in front. But the manager was too prudent to open his theatre in such circumstances. He announced[148] that there would be no performance that evening. Hunt was, therefore, disappointed of a catastrophe in the theatre; but he drove up in a carriage, mounted the box, and addressed the crowd in very exciting tones, declaring that the magistrates desired nothing so much as an opportunity of letting loose the bloody butchers of Waterloo upon themmeaning the 7th Hussars. It was not his fault that all went off quietly.
TWO:The first Session of the National Assembly was opened by the king in person on the 22nd of[577] May, but it did not conduct itself in a manner to recommend universal suffrage, or to make the friends of orderly government enamoured of revolution. Eventually it was dispersed by force. The new Chambers were opened on the 26th of February by the king in person, Count Brandenburg having led him to the throne. He stated that circumstances having obliged him to dissolve the National Assembly, he had granted to the nation a Constitution which by its provisions fulfilled all his promises made in the month of March. This Constitution was modelled after that of Belgium. The House was to consist of two Chambers, both electivethe former by persons paying 24s. a year of direct taxes, and the latter by a process of double election: that is, the deputies were chosen by delegates, who had themselves been elected by universal suffrage, there being one deputy for every 750 inhabitants. All Prussians were declared equal in the eye of the law, freedom of the press was established, and all exclusive class privileges were abolished. The judges were made independent of the Crown, and no ordinance was to have the force of law without the sanction of the Assembly.
TWO:The force left to keep possession of Cabul and guard the protg of the Indian Government[495] was so situated as to tempt the aggression of a treacherous enemy. Sir William Macnaghten, the British Resident, and his suite, resided in the Mission Compound, which was badly defended, and commanded by a number of small forts, while the commissariat stores were placed in an old fort, detached from the cantonment and in such a state as to be wholly indefensible. Moreover, General Elphinstone, the commander of the troops, was old and inefficient. A conspiracy had been formed by the friends of Akbar Khan, son of the deposed sovereign, Dost Mahomed, who forged a document, and had it circulated amongst the principal men of Cabul, to the effect that it was the design of the British envoy to send them all to London, and that the king had issued an order to put the infidels all to death. The insurrection commenced by an attack on the dwellings of Sir Alexander Burnes, who was about to succeed Macnaghten, and Captain Johnson, who resided in the city. Sir Alexander addressed the party from the gallery of his house, thinking that it was a mere riot. The insurgents, however, broke in, killed him with his brother, Lieutenant Burnes, and Lieutenant Broadfoot, and set the house on fire. The Afghans then surrounded the cantonments, and poured in a constant fire upon them from every position they could occupy. They quickly seized the ill-defended commissariat stores, upon which the existence of the British depended. The garrison bravely defended itself with such precarious supplies as could be had from the country; but at length these supplies were exhausted. Winter set in, snow fell, and there was nothing before them but the prospect of starvation. They therefore listened to overtures for negotiation, and the British envoy was compelled to consent to these humiliating terms on the 11th of December, 1841:That the British should evacuate the whole of Afghanistan, including Candahar, Ghuznee, and Jelalabad; that they should be permitted to return unmolested to India, and have supplies granted on their road thither; that means of transport should be furnished to the troops; that Dost Mahomed Khan, his family, and every Afghan then detained within our territories should be allowed to return to their own country; that Shah Sujah and his family should receive from the Afghan Government one lac of rupees per annum; that all prisoners should be released; that a general amnesty should be proclaimed; and that no British force should ever be sent into Afghanistan without being invited by the Afghan Government. These terms having been agreed to, the chiefs took with them Captain Trevor as a hostage; but nothing was done to carry the agreement into effect, and Macnaghten and Elphinstone remained irresolutely at Cabul. Some of their staff attempted to bribe the Afghans, and Akbar Khan thereupon determined to withhold supplies. It soon became evident that the object was to starve out the garrison, and compel them to surrender unconditionally. At length, on the 22nd of December, they sent two persons into the cantonment, who made a proposal in the name of Akbar Khan, that the Shah should continue king, that Akbar should become his Prime Minister, and that one of the principal chiefs should be delivered up to the British as a prisoner. This was a mere trap, into which Sir William Macnaghten unfortunately fell with fatal credulity. On the 23rd of December the envoy, attended by Captains Lawrence, Trevor, and M'Kenzie, left the Mission Compound, to hold a conference with Akbar Khan in the plain towards Serah Sung. Crowds of armed Afghans hovering near soon excited suspicions of treachery. Captain Lawrence begged that the armed men might be ordered off; but Akbar Khan exclaimed, "No, they are all in the secret." At that instant Sir William and the three officers were seized from behind and disarmed. Sir W. Macnaghten was last seen on the ground struggling violently with Akbar Khan, consternation and terror depicted on his countenance. "His look of wondering horror, says Kaye, "will never be forgotten by those who saw it, to their dying day." The other three officers were placed on horses, each behind a Ghilzai chief, who galloped off with them to a fort in the neighbourhood. Captain Trevor fell off his horse, and was instantly murdered. The others were assailed with knives by the infuriated Afghans, and barely escaped to the fort with their lives. Meanwhile the head of the British Minister was cut off and paraded through the streets, while the bleeding and mangled trunk was exposed to the insults of the populace in the principal bazaar.
THREE: William Fortescue, a pension of 3,000 a year.
THREE:[See larger version]The Ministry, as reconstructed, consisted of Lord North, First Lord of the Treasury; the Great Seal was in commission; Granby's places, the Ordnance and Commander of the Forces, were still unsupplied; so was the Duke of Manchester's old post of Lord of the Bed-Chamber. The Earl of Halifax became Lord Privy Seal; the Earl of Pembroke became a Lord of the Bed-Chamber; the Earl of Waldegrave, Master of the Horse to the queen; Sir Gilbert Elliot, Treasurer of the Navy; Charles James Fox became a junior Lord of the Admiralty; Admiral Holborne another; Mr. Welbore Ellis became one of the Vice-Treasurers of Ireland; and Thurlow was appointed Solicitor-General, in place of Dunning.
