The aggressive policy of the Holy Alliance, and the French invasion of Spain, despite England's remonstrances, provoked Mr. Canning to hasten the recognition of the revolted colonies in South America. It was in defending this policy that he uttered the memorable sentence so often quoted as a specimen of the sublime:"Contemplating Spain such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."RETREAT OF THE FRENCH FROM RUSSIA. (See p. 50.)The matter was not to be lightly or easily dismissed. On the very same day that Lord Shelburne made his motion in the Lords, Edmund[263] Burke gave notice of a series of resolutions which he should introduce after the Christmas recess. He stated the outline of his intended measures for economical reform. Whilst he was delivering a very fine speech on this occasion, Fox came in from the House of Lords, where he had been listening to the debate on Lord Shelburne's motion, and warmly supported him, lamenting that there was not virtue enough in the House to carry through so necessaryso patriotic a measure. "I am just come," he said, "from another place where the first men in this kingdomthe first in abilities, the first in estimationare now libelling this House." The announcement excited, as Fox intended, much surprise, and he continued"Yes, I repeat it. Every instance they giveand they give many and strong instancesof uncorrected abuses, with regard to the public money, is a libel on this House. Everything they state on the growth of corrupt influenceand it never was half so flourishingis a libel on this House."
FORE:Paskievitch and the other Russian generals pleaded earnestly with the Emperor of Austria, imploring him to extend his clemency to all the officers and soldiers who had been engaged in the insurrection. But the Emperor was deeply mortified at the humiliation of having to call for Russian aid against his own rebellious subjects; he was vexed at the horror the Hungarians felt about surrendering to his army, as well as jealous of the magnanimity of the Muscovites. He therefore answered the Russian appeal, that he had sacred duties to perform towards his other subjects, which, as well as the general good of his people, he was obliged to consider. The warmest apologists of Austria were forced to condemn the vindictive and cruel policy now adopted. G?rgei was pardoned and offered rank in the Russian army, which he declined, and Klapka escaped by the terms of his capitulation; but fourteen other Hungarian officers of the highest rank were cruelly immolated to Austrian vengeance. One lady was ordered to sweep the streets of Temesvar, another was stripped and flogged by the soldiery. Many eminent Magyars were hanged. But of all the atrocities which stained the name of Austria, and brought down upon her the execration of the civilised world, none was so base and infamous as the judicial murder of Count Batthyny. This illustrious man, who had presided over the Hungarian Ministry, was sentenced to be hanged. Having taken leave of his wife, he endeavoured, in the course of the night, to escape the infamy of such a death by opening the veins of his neck with[581] a blunt paper-knife; but the attempt was discovered, and the surgeon stopped the bleeding. Next day the noble patriot procured a less ignominious doomhe was shot (October 6, 1849).
[210]LORD ELDON. (After the Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.)Before the re-assembling of Parliament the new Ministers had done all in their power to arouse a "No Popery!" cry in the country, because they intended to advise a dissolution of Parliamentalthough this had only sat four monthsin order to bring in a more anti-Catholic and anti-Reform body. On the 9th of April, the day following the meeting of Parliament, Mr. Brand moved a resolution, that it was contrary to the first duties of the confidential advisers of the Crown to bind themselves by any pledge to refrain from offering the king such counsel as might seem necessary to the welfare of the kingdom. The new Ministers, who had entered office without any such pledge being demanded, for their sentiments were too well known to the king, yet, seeing that this resolution was the first of a series intended to end in a vote of want of confidence in them, at once opposed it, and threw it out by two hundred and fifty-eight to two hundred and twenty-six. The Marquis of Stafford made a similar motion in the Lords, and Sidmouth now spoke and voted against his late colleagues, to whom he must have been throughout opposed on all points; but the strangest thing must have been to hear Erskine, whilst supporting the motion, avowing his great repugnance to the Catholics, as people holding a gross superstition, the result of the darkness of former ages, and declaring that he never thought of encouraging them, but rather that they might feel inconvenience, though suffering no injustice; as if this were possible; for if they suffer no injustice they could feel no inconvenience. And this, after assuring the king that he would never again enjoy peace if he dismissed his Ministers for[535] desiring to encourage them! The Marquis of Stafford's motion was rejected by a hundred and seventy-one against ninety.
