During this Session, also, an important Bill was passed for the relief of Roman Catholics. The Bill was introduced by Mr. Mitford and seconded by Mr. Windham. Mr. Mitford showed that the enactments still in force against them occupied, by mere recital of their penalties, seventy pages[382] of "Burn's Ecclesiastical Law." Priests were still guilty of high treason and liable to death for endeavouring to convert people to the tenets they deemed essential to salvation; and the laity were liable to heavy penalties for not going to church, and for hearing Mass at their own chapels. The Bill was supported by Pitt and Fox, by Lord Rawdon, by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Moore), and by Dr. Horsley, Bishop of St. David's. It passed. By this Act all the severe restrictions and penalties were removed from those Roman Catholics who would comply with its requisitions, to appear at one of the courts of Westminster, or at quarter sessions, and make and subscribe a declaration that they professed the Roman Catholic religion, and also an oath exactly similar to that required by the Statute of 1778. On this declaration and oath being duly made, they were enabled to profess and perform the offices of their religion, to keep schools, to exercise parochial or other offices in person or by deputy, and the ministers of that religion were exempt from serving on juries and from parochial offices. Their congregations were protected from disturbance; but their priests were restrained from officiating in places consecrated to the burial of Protestants, and from wearing their habits anywhere but in their own places of worship. They were also restrained from establishing religious orders; and the endowment of schools and colleges was still to be deemed unlawful. No person could in future be summoned to take the Oath of Supremacy and the declaration against Transubstantiation; nor were Roman Catholics who had qualified removable from London and Westminster, or punishable for coming into the presence or palace of the king or queen. They were no longer obliged to register their names and estates, or enrol their deeds and wills; and every Roman Catholic who had duly qualified might act as barrister, attorney, or notary.
ONE:In this Session the first step was taken in one of the greatest achievements of humanity which adorn the name of Britain. It was the grand preliminary towards annihilating the slave trade. The spirit of revolt against this odious trade had been gaining rapidly in the British mind. One of the earliest stabs given to it was by the pathetic story of Inkle and Yarico, in the "History of Barbadoes," by Lygon, which was taken up and amplified in the Spectator, and afterwards elaborated into an effective drama by Colman. Defoe, Dr. Johnson, Warburton in his "Divine Legation of Moses," and in his sermons so early as 1766, Voltaire, and other writers, had diffused a strong and sound feeling on the subject. It had been early attempted to establish the legal maxim, that a slave becomes a freed man in England; but in 1729 this had been positively pronounced against by Talbot and Yorke, then the highest legal authorities. But a more successful essay was made by Granville Sharp in 1772, in the case of James Somerset, and the principle was established, that the moment a slave set his foot on English ground he became free. In 1782 the Friends presented a petition to Parliament for the abolition of the slave trade. In 1785 Thomas Clarkson, then a student at the University of Cambridge, competed for and won the first prize for an essay on "The Slavery and Commerce in the Human Species," and this, which was undertaken as an academical exercise, led him to devote himself to the great work of the utter extinction of this evil. Mr. Ramsay, a clergyman of Kent, who had lived in St. Kitts, published a pamphlet on the same subject. The friends of Ramsay, Lady Middleton and Mrs. Bouverie, became zealous advocates of the cause, and finally Wilberforce resolved to make it the great object of his life. A society was now established in London, consisting only originally of twelve individuals, including the benevolent Mr. Thornton, and having Granville Sharp for its chairman. The members, however, were opulent merchants and bankers, and they set agents to work to collect information on the subject. The feeling rapidly spread; committees were formed in Manchester and other provincial towns for co-operation.
TWO:The intelligence of this result was received by the public with transports of joy. London was illuminated for three successive nights; Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester, Liverpool, and all the great towns followed the example. "For several days," says Alison, "the populace in all the cities of the empire seemed to be delirious with joy. Nothing had been seen like it before since the battle of Waterloo; nothing approaching to it after since the Reform Bill was passed." Meetings were immediately called in every direction to present addresses both to the king and queen: to the former, to congratulate him on the escape of his illustrious consort, and to call upon him to dismiss his present Ministers; and to the latter, to congratulate her on the restoration of those dignities from which she had been so long excluded. Not only public meetings of citizens and civic bodies, but trades of all kinds assembled and adopted addresses expressing their exultation at her triumph, and tendering their homage.On the 20th of January a Bill was introduced to the House of Lords for the naturalisation of the Prince. By this Act, which passed the next day through the House of Commons, the Prince was declared already exempt, by an Act passed in the sixth year of George IV., from the obligations that had previously bound all persons to receive the Lord's Supper within one month before exhibition of a Bill for their naturalisation. And the Bill was permitted to be read the second time without his having taken the oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, as required by an Act passed in the first year of George I. But on the second reading in the House of Lords the Duke of Wellington objected that it was not merely a Bill[468] for naturalising the Prince, but that it also contained a clause which would enable him, "during the term of his natural life, to take precedence in rank after her Majesty in Parliament, and elsewhere as her Majesty might think fit and proper," any law, statute, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. The Duke of Wellington stated that as the title of the Bill said nothing about precedence, the House had not received due notice of its contents; he therefore moved the adjournment of the debate. Lord Melbourne remarked that the omission was purely accidental and, in his opinion, of no importance; at the same time he admitted that this Bill did differ in form from other similar Bills, as it gave the Queen power to bestow on Prince Albert a higher rank than was assigned to Prince George of Denmark, or to Prince Leopold. But the reason for the difference was to be found in the relative situation of the parties. Lord Brougham, however, pointed out a practical difficulty that might possibly arise. According to the proposed arrangement, if the Queen should die before there was any issue from the marriage, the King of Hanover would reign in this country, and his son would be Prince of Wales. Prince Albert would thus be placed in the anomalous position of a foreign naturalised Prince, the husband of a deceased Queen, with a higher rank than the Prince of Wales. Lord Londonderry decidedly objected to giving a foreign Prince precedence over the Blood Royal. In consequence of this difference of opinion the debate was adjourned till the following week, when the Lord Chancellor stated that he would propose that power should be given to the Crown to allow the Prince to take precedence next after any Heir Apparent to the Throne. Subsequently, however, Lord Melbourne expressed himself so anxious that it should pass with all possible expedition, that he would leave out everything about precedence, and make it a simple Naturalisation Bill, in which shape it immediately passed.
TWO:But in the midst of all this strife and turmoil the work of real amelioration steadily proceeded. The tithe proctor system was a great and galling grievance to Protestants as well as Roman Catholics, but especially to the latter, who constituted the mass of the tillers of the soil. Such an odious impost tended to discourage cultivation, and throw the land into pasture. The Tithe Commutation Act was therefore passed in order to enable the tenant to pay a yearly sum, instead of having the tenth of his crop carried away in kind, or its equivalent levied, according to the valuation of the minister's proctor. It was proposed to make the Act compulsory upon all rectors, but this was so vehemently resisted by the Church party that it was left optional. If the measure had been compulsory, the anti-tithe war, which afterwards occurred, accompanied by violence and bloodshed, would have been avoided. It was, however, carried into operation to a large extent, and with the most satisfactory results. Within a few months after the enactment, more than one thousand applications had been made from parishes to carry its requirements into effect. In 1824, on the motion of Mr. Hume for an inquiry into the condition of the Irish Church Establishment, with a view to its reduction, Mr. Leslie Foster furnished statistics from which it appeared that the proportion of Roman Catholics to Protestants was four to one. In Ulster, at that time, the Roman Catholic population was little more than half the number of Protestants.
TWO:The sum of twenty millions was divided into nineteen shares, one for each of the colonies, proportioned to the number of its registered slaves, taken in connection with the market price of slaves in that colony, on an average of eight years, ending with 1830. But no money was payable in any colony until it should have been declared by an Order in Council that satisfactory provision had been made by law in such colony for giving effect to the Emancipation Act. Two of them were so perverse as to decline for several years to qualify for the reception of the money; but others acted in a different spirit. Believing that the system of apprenticeship was impolitic, they declined to take advantage of it, and manumitted their slaves at once. Antigua was the first to adopt this wise course. Its slaves were all promptly emancipated, and their conduct fully justified the policy; for on Christmas Day, 1834, for the first time during thirty years, martial law was not proclaimed in that island. Thus, the effect of liberty was peace, quietness, and confidence. Bermuda followed this good example, as did also the smaller islands, and afterwards the large island of Barbadoes; and their emancipation was hailed by the negroes with religious services, followed by festive gatherings. Jamaica, and some other islands, endeavoured to thwart the operation of the new law, as far as possible, and took every advantage in making the apprentices miserable, and wreaking upon them their spite and malice. They met with harsher treatment than ever, being in many instances either savagely ill-used or inhumanly neglected. Considering their provocations, it was generally admitted that they behaved on the whole very well, enduring with patience and resignation the afflictions which they knew must come to an end in a few years. The total number of slaves converted into apprentices on the 1st of August, 1834, was 800,000. The apprenticeship did not last beyond the shorter time prescribed, and on the 1st of August, 1838, there was not a slave in existence under the British Crown, save only in the island of Mauritius, which was soon required by instructions from the Home Government to carry the Act into effect.
TWO:On the 13th of July Brougham delivered his speech on slavery, which produced such an impression upon the public mind that it mainly contributed, as he himself admitted, to his election a few weeks afterwards as one of the members for Yorkshirethe proudest position which a Parliamentary representative could occupy. He proposed "that this House do resolve, at the earliest practicable period next Session, to take into its serious consideration the state of the slaves in the colonies of Great Britain, in order to the mitigation and final abolition of slavery; and more especially to the amendment of the administration of justice within the same." Mr. Wilmot Horton brought forward a series of resolutions, by way of evading the difficulty. Sir George Murray, the Colonial Secretary, entreated Mr. Brougham to withdraw his motion, as the public would come to a wrong conclusion from seeing the small numbers that would vote upon it at that late period of the Session, and on the eve of a dissolution. Sir Robert Peel pressed the same consideration, but Mr. Brougham persisted, and in a very thin House the numbers on the division wereAye., 27; noes, 56majority against the motion, 29. This division ended the party struggles of the Session. On the 23rd of July Parliament was prorogued by the king in person, and next day it was dissolved by proclamation. The writs, returnable on the 14th of September, were immediately issued for a general election, which was expected, and proved to be, the most exciting and most important political contest at the hustings recorded in the history of England.
TWO:If the scandalous gossip of the Court may be trusted, the king did not allow affairs of State, or public displays, or the death of the queen to wean him even for a week from his attachment to Lady Conyngham. Mr. Freemantle, a rather cynical commentator on public affairs, wrote as follows:"Lady C. has been almost constantly at the Ph?nix Park, but has not appeared much in public." Again, the same writer remarks, "I never in my life heard of anything equal to the king's infatuation and conduct towards Lady Conyngham. She lived exclusively with him during the whole time he was in Ireland at the Ph?nix Park. When he went to Slane, she received him dressed out as for a drawing-room; he saluted her, and they then retired alone to her apartments. A yacht is left to bring her over, and she and the whole family go to Hanover. I hear the Irish are outrageously jealous of her, and though courting her to the greatest degree, are loud in their indignation at Lord C. This is just like them. I agree in all you say about[220] Ireland. As there is no chance of the boon being granted, no lord-lieutenant could have a chance of ingratiating himself, or of fair justice done him, with the king's promises and flattery."
The enthusiasm which now pervaded the whole Italian peninsula was unbounded, and broke forth in frantic expressions of joy and triumph. The days of Continental despotism seemed numbered at last. Everything promised well for the cause of Italian freedom and unity. The Italian troops stationed at Bergamo, Cremona, Brescia, and Rovigo joined the insurgents. The Grand Duke of Tuscany set his troops in motion; the Pope blessed the volunteers; even Naples sent a contingent. The Austrian garrisons had to abandon Padua and several other places, while the great fortress of Verona was held with difficulty. In the south of Italy the cause of despotism seemed to be going down rapidly. Deceived by the promises[583] of the King of Naples, the people of Sicily determined to trust him no longer. In January, 1848, an address to the Sicilians was issued from Palermo, which stated that prayers, pacific protestations and demonstrations had all been treated by Ferdinand with contempt. Palermo would receive with transport every Sicilian who should come armed to sustain the common cause, and establish reformed institutions, "in conformity with the progress and will of Italy and of Pius IX." Property was to be respected, robbery was to be punished as high treason, and whoever was in want would be supplied at the common charge. The king's birthday was kept by unfurling the banner of revolution, and calling the citizens to arms. The royal troops retired into the barracks, the forts, and the palace, leaving the streets and squares in possession of the insurgents. The determination of the Sicilians caused the weak and wavering king, Ferdinand II., to yield; and on the 28th of January a royal decree appeared upon the walls of Naples, granting a Constitution for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Orders were sent the same day to Palermo for the withdrawal of the Neapolitan troops, and an amnesty for political offences soon was published. The troops remained in the garrison, however, and occasional conflicts took place between them and the citizens till the 2nd of May, when an armistice was agreed to, which lasted to the 2nd of August. In the meantime the elections had taken place under the new Constitution, which the king had promulgated; but the Neapolitan Chamber proceeded to modify it, to which the king objected. The people, led on by the National Guard, which had been established, determined to support the Assembly. On the 15th of May, therefore, barricades were erected in the streets, the royal palace was occupied by troops, and artillerymen stood by their guns with lighted matches in their hands. The accidental firing of a gun led to a collision with the Swiss troops; thereupon, a tremendous battle ensued, lasting for eight hours, in which the royal troops were completely victorious.But his great measure, at this period, was the blow aimed at the commerce of Britain, and comprised in his celebrated Berlin Decrees, promulgated on the 21st of November. He had subjugated nearly the whole of the European Continent. Spain, Portugal, Italy to the south of France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Prussia to the north, with nearly the whole seaboard of Europe, were under his hand and his armies. He had found that he could not invade England; her fleet had risen triumphant, his own fleet had disappeared like a vapour at Trafalgar. As, therefore, he could not reach her soil, he determined to destroy her by destroying her commerce, on which he imagined not merely her prosperity but her very existence depended. As he was master of nearly all Continental Europe, he supposed it as easy for him to exclude by his fiat the merchandise of Britain, as to put down old dynasties and set up new ones. He had yet to[528] learn that commerce has a conquering power greater than that either of martial genius or of arms.[See larger version]
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THREE:In preparation for this movement James the Pretender was to sail secretly to Spain, in readiness to cross to England; and he had already quitted his house in Rome and removed to a villa, the more unobserved to steal away at the appointed moment. Ormonde also had left Madrid and gone to a country seat half way to Bilbao, when the secret of the impending expedition was suddenly revealed by the French Government to that of England. The conspirators had been mad enough to apply to the Regent for five thousand troops, trusting that, notwithstanding his peaceful relations with Britain, he would secretly enjoy creating it some embarrassment. But in this, as in all other views, they proved more sanguine than profound. Sir Luke Schaub, the British Ambassador, was immediately informed of it on condition, it was said, that no one should die for it.The officers who had served under Prevost had too long withheld their remonstrances, expecting that the British Government would see plainly enough the wretched incompetence of the man. But now Sir James Yeo made a formal and plain-spoken charge against him, and especially for his wicked abandonment of Captain Downie and his squadron to destruction. He was recalled; but it was too late: a natural death had, in the meantime, rescued him from that punishment which he so richly deserved. It could not, however, rescue him from the disgrace which must hang on his memory so long as the history of these transactions remains.
