ART. III. THE WELLINGTON DESPATCHES AND GEORGE IV.

SECOND NOTICE.

1. Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field-Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, K.G. [In continuation of the former series.] Vols. I.-VII. 1819-1831. (London, 1878.)

2. George Canning and his Times. By A. G. STAPLETON. (London, 1831.)

IN a former number we examined the earlier portion of the reign of George IV., while Lord Liverpool presided over the Government. He had scarcely passed the prime of life when, as we saw, he was suddenly struck down by a fatal illness; and the event was consequently so entirely unforeseen that no arrangement for filling up his office when he should vacate it had ever been contemplated. Everyone seemed taken by surprise, and a state of affairs ensued without any parallel in our history.

For nearly two months the kingdom was without a government, the King being apparently in a state of utter indecision. One of his projects would seem to indicate that his mind was in some degree unhinged, since his first idea after his brother's death, was to become his successor at the Horse Guards, and to take the command of the army on himself. That, however, he was easily persuaded to abandon, and the Duke of Wellington became Commander-in-Chief; but it was not so easy to replace Lord Liverpool.. At the moment of his seizure his Majesty was laid up with a severe attack of gout; which, though soon shaken off, he made the excuse for prolonged inaction, suffering above a month to elapse before he gave the slightest hint of his intentions to any of his remaining Ministers. The general voice pointed out Canning as the fittest, if not the only fit successor. And he himself looked on his succession as a matter of course, and almost as his right; though he was not ignorant that his promotion would be unacceptable in more than one quarter. He knew that he must reckon on the hostility of those opposed to the removal of the Roman Catholic disabilities. He knew too that he had some personal enemies. And the King was soon made equally aware of these facts. One

great anti-Catholic Peer, the Duke of Newcastle, demanded an audience of him, and threatened his Majesty to withdraw his support from his Government if a pro-Catholic were at its head. Another party, smaller and less considerable, headed by the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Londonderry, actuated apparently by no higher motive than jealous dislike, and a consciousness that Canning did not rate their support at their own valuation, tried first to induce the Commander-inChief to join them in an intrigue to remove him from office altogether; and, when the Duke had proved unmanageable, applied for an audience of the King himself, which George IV., who knew their object, contrived to postpone.

The King was greatly perplexed, and not the less so that he had quite acuteness enough to foresee what the end must be. But he could never do anything in a straightforward way, and apparently he hoped to reconcile the anti-Catholics to the result which he contemplated, by parading a wish to comply with their prejudices. Accordingly he first opened himself to Peel, proposing to him to form a Cabinet exclusively anti-Catholic. But Peel, whose judgment showed him that he was not yet of sufficient standing in the opinion of the country to carry out any such arrangement, declined the Treasury for himself, though he suggested that the Duke of Wellington might be placed at the head of such a Ministry: a suggestion which, as the Duke afterwards declared, was wholly foreign to his own notions and wishes, and of which the King took no notice. On Peel's refusal, which no doubt had been expected, the King proceeded to consult Canning, who openly avowed to him his resolution to be Prime Minister or nothing; though declaring his perfect willingness to retire, so as to facilitate the formation of a purely anti-Catholic Government. To make a further show of his desire to gratify the anti-Catholics, the King then proposed to allow the Ministers still in office to elect their own chief; but he could hardly have been serious in the proposal, which the Duke of Wellington bluntly told him was impracticable and derogatory to his own dignity. The appointment of the Prime Minister was, he said, the only personal act of Government which a British King had to perform, and one of the responsibility for which he could not divest himself. Lady Conyngham backed up the Duke's arguments; and his Majesty having thus tried, or professed to try, every other expedient, on April 10 entrusted Canning with the task of forming an administration.

Natural and inevitable as such a step was, it was followed by as strange a series of transactions as any recorded in our

political history. The new Prime Minister at once invited the co-operation of all his former colleagues. But every one of the anti-Catholic members of the Cabinet, Lord Eldon, Lord Westmoreland, Lord Bathurst, Mr. Peel, and the Duke of Wellington resigned their offices, as also did Lord Melville, who was not unfavourable to Emancipation, but who alleged as his reason his unwillingness to separate himself from the main body of his friends. The King was exceedingly angry, complaining bitterly of all but the Chancellor, who from age had long wished to resign the Great Seal, which he had held for a quarter of a century; and he declared himself especially unable to comprehend the motives of the Duke of Wellington. It was owing chiefly to him, he said, that he had accepted Canning as Foreign Secretary. He had at different times. bestowed on him every honour at his disposal; he had paid him the extraordinary compliment of placing both the army and the Ordnance under his command; and he could never have supposed that he would now desert him; for the refusal to acquiesce in his appointment of Canning he regarded as something of a personal affront.

He had reason for discontent and surprise too: since, though the Master-General of the Ordnance often had a seat in the Cabinet, the post of Commander-in-Chief had not usually been considered a political employment. And the Duke himself seemed conscious that his resignation required special justification by the pains which he took to explain it. His colleagues had alleged that, though the Catholic question was still to remain open,' the Emancipation party must be so greatly strengthened by the Prime Minister being chosen from it, as to change the position of the question. The Duke took entirely different ground. At this distance of time it would be superfluous to revive discussions wholly personal; but it would be unfair to the memory of a great statesman to conceal the opinion that Canning had the best of the argument throughout, and that the justifications which the Duke put forward, founded on what he alleged to be 'the tone and temper' of the letter in which Canning had requested his retention of office, and Canning's act in communicating a second letter to the King before he sent it, broke down wholly. No dispassionate reader can doubt that Canning's invitation to him to remain in the Cabinet was cordial and sincere. Indeed its sincerity was proved by the Minister keeping the Horse Guards open the whole summer in the hope that he could return to it. And, though the Duke himself was unconscious of it, for no man ever lived more

incapable of alleging unreal motives, it is hard to avoid suspecting that private, not public, feeling lay at the bottom of his conduct. He had never wholly forgiven Canning for his quarrel with Lord Castlereagh in 1809. And since Canning's restoration to the Cabinet in 1822, he had attributed more than one incident which had annoyed him to a jealousy of his influence with the King. Canning indeed had occasionally spoken of him as a man who thought himself always on the field of battle, and who had no capacity for the arts and tactics of peace.' And this disparaging opinion, though beyond all question not then confined to Canning, may have reached his ears. Whatever was his motive, the act of those who now separated themselves from the new Minister was most unfortunate. It was the commencement of that division and consequent weakening of the old Tory party, both while it continued in power and afterwards when it had passed into opposition, which has had a marked influence on the whole subsequent legislation of the kingdom. The Duke's conduct had a curious effect on the King. He resumed the idea of becoming Commander-in-Chief; and, though he did nothing towards carrying it out, he probably fancied that he was filling the office till, after Canning's death, the Duke resumed it. It was the more singular that he should have contemplated such a plan even for a moment, since, for the last three or four years, he had more and more withdrawn himself from public observation. He had entirely given up riding. When driving at Windsor, he chose the most secluded alleys in the Park, his reason, as those who knew him best believed, being merely that he disliked his subjects to see how he had lost his figure, and grown fat.

But in the composition of the Ministry, the secession of half its members compelled the Prime Minister to seek colleagues who were neither so much in harmony with his own. views, nor so acceptable to the King or to the country. That he should do so was inevitable; and the necessity did little honour to the foresight of those who had seceded. Their defence had been that the circumstance of the Prime Minister being favourable to Catholic Emancipation must greatly strengthen its advocates. But it was a strange way of counteracting this consequence to compel the King to choose his whole Cabinet from the pro-Catholics. And yet he had no other choice. When his Cabinet was formed, Lord Eldon condemned its composition in the brief sentence 'that he hated coalitions.' And

1 See Politique de la Restauration. Par M. de Marcellus, pp. 30, 33.

we may be quite sure that Canning had no greater liking for them, as may be said also of the King himself. But with George IV., anger at what he called the desertion of the Tories for a moment overbore every other sentiment; and he gave Canning leave to invite the co-operation of any one of the Whig party, except Lord Grey; who, on the Queen's Trial, had more than once used language which he regarded as personally and intentionally offensive. Accordingly, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Carlisle, and Tierney became members of the Cabinet, and Lord Grey revenged himself for his exclusion by a most violent philippic against the whole career of Canning, which produced an irritation in the mind of him whom he assailed far greater than its merits. For a moment Canning even contemplated requesting the King to transfer him to the House of Lords, that he might reply to it in person; in which case Lord Grey would have had reason to repent his sarcasms. But, on further consideration, he judged that such a step would invest the attack with too great importance. And he thought a formal rejoinder the less necessary from the cordiality and confidence with which the King apparently treated him, but which, it cannot be denied, his Majesty, on one occasion at least, showed in a manner entirely his own.

It may easily be conceived that the King saw in how curious a light the continued absence of a Commander-inChief placed the Government. Displeased as he professed to be with the Duke of Wellington, he had yet written to him in May inviting 'his dear friend' to resume his office; and the Duke, with a singular pertinacity of ill-humour, while admitting that it was not a political office, insisted on first receiving an apology from Canning, though some even of his closest friends were honest enough to tell him that no offence had been committed. What the King could not do by letter, he thought he might effect by a personal interview; and under this idea, he desired the Duke's brother, Lord Maryborough, who lived in Windsor Park, to invite him to his house, that, being there, he might naturally pay his respects at the Royal Lodge. The Duke obeyed what he regarded as a Royal command, and had an interview1 of more than three hours with the King, in which, according to his own account, his Majesty discussed with him all the circumstances connected with the formation of the Ministry, both stating and omitting material circumstances in a way so widely at variance with the

1 See his Letter to Lord Aberdeen.-Desp. iv. 68.