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should pay immediate attention to it. THE TERMS, PURPORT, AND INTENTION of this address, therefore, constitute the MAIN SPRING which was to give motion to the efforts of the crown on this occasion. The prayer was for a more efficient administration; and for what purpose?-Evidently for that of carrying into effect, with greater supposed vigour and ability, those measures of policy of which Parliament and the country had repeatedly declared their approbation. It is then supremely important to the right understanding of this question, to observe, that it was not for a change of measures, or (if we may be allowed the term) for a change in the action, but for an addition of momentum to the agents that the address prayed.

When the crown therefore was graciously pleased to use its best endeavours to comply with the wishes expressed in the address, these must have been the principles by which its conduct was necessarily regulated.

It must have used its sincere and unaffected endeavours to add to the efficiency of the administration, or (to use our former term) of the agents of government, in every possible way that would not materially alter the course of the action; that is to say, it must have invited the co-operation of talent from every quarter, and have accepted it from those who did not make a fundamental alteration in the approved policy of the state, the indispensable condition of their assistance. This is what the crown was called upon to do by the terms of the address, nor could it go a step farther without running directly counter to the repeated decisions of parliament.

Now we think it will be obvious to every man of plain intellect, upon a bare inspection of the newspapers, (which by the way are now become the most accurate authority for the curious in state-secrets,) that the duty which we have been describing has been honestly and conscientiously fulfilled; and the result has been such as every cool head must have expected. It was perfectly evident that Lords Grenville and Grey, and their friends, could not with honour become a part of the government, without a fundamental change in all the public measures of which the parliament and the country had frequently expressed its approbation. We say nothing of the specific point upon which the last treaty with those noblemen failed; the document has appeared in the newspapers in its authentic shape, and is to be found at No. 29, of the papers before us. It is only essential to the subject now under discussion, in as far as it goes to prove, that the crown, in its great auxiety to comply with the letter of the address, was even disposed to go beyond its spirit, and to admit of some modifications in the approved policy of the pub

lic measures. It must have been equally obvious, that the statement of Marquis Wellesley's sentiments on the political character of the existing administration, though it now appears to have been incautiously published by some of his friends, evidently contained his real sentiments. And could there have been the slightest hope of a frank and sincere union between materials so discordant, not to say, so bitterly repugnant?

The dilemma, therefore, to which the crown was reduced, and to which the country and its parliament are also now reduced, is this: Is it their pleasure to support an administration formed under the auspices of the leaders of the opposition, adopting a change of policy with respect to the Peninsula, to America, to the Roman Catholics, to the Bullion Question, to the general conduct of the war against France; or do they chuse to support the present administration with a view of continuing the same course of policy, which, to say the least, has kept the English name and nation, during the last three years, at a high pitch of military and moral greatness in the eyes of Europe and of the world? This is the plain, simple, and common sense statement of the question; and we think that no sophistry can elude the justness and precision of its terms. Upon the principles then arising therefrom, it is the bounden duty of every good and honest citizen to regulate, not his conduct only, but in times like these, his strenuous exertions within the sphere of his influence. Let him chuse his ground on either side according to his conscience: but let him be firm and consistent when he has chosen it, nor tamper with his own common sense by expecting discordant councils to be the parent of active wisdom, or by looking for practical strength amidst speculative contrarieties. The opposite impulses of the strongest powers tend only to neutralize each other. We are ready to admit, that it requires some degree of fortitude to contemplate with firmness either side of the alternative before us. But it is in difficult and arduous situations that the energies of England have been most exercised and displayed; and, we trust, that we are not yet reduced to that impotency of dejection which must oblige us to stake our political independence and national existence upon the life of one individual, however exalted. That were indeed to invest the assassin's knife with the imprecated witchcraft of the sword of Caligula, and to empower every phrenzied villain to pierce the heart of his country through the side of its minister.

We cannot lay down our pen without adverting to one or two mischievous arguments, which the malice of disappointed ambition, or of revolutionary fanaticism, has engendered on this occasion; and which, we confess, have filled us with indignation,

because we think them calculated to injure our country in proportion as they obtain admittance into the minds of thoughtless

men.

It is asserted, for example, that the signal defeat given to the hopes of the opposition in the debate of Thursday the 11th of June, affords the strongest grounds for concluding in favour of the necessity of parliamentary reform. Our opinions upon the general subject of parliamentary reform are well known, and we should be glad to see an argumentative reply attempted to what we have written on that subject in the last number of our Review. In the mean time we must observe, that no virtual answer whatsoever, to any one of our arguments, is to be found in the late proceedings of the House of Commons. And indeed we should be willing to rest our judgment of the practical independence of that house very much upon a fair review of its late conduct. What are the facts?

The crown, in an arduous and difficult crisis, appointed as its ministers a set of statesmen, who, if they did not comprize all the talents in the country, were at least as notable for talents and for the efficiency of their former measures, as any party in the state; and who, as the event has shewn, contained all the ostensible talent which at that period could be brought to act together with a perfect uniformity of principle for the public service. It was certainly also supposed that they were personally agreeable to the crown; an object which we are weak enough to think is of some consequence to the welfare of the country.

A House of Commons, therefore, without incurring the imputation of servility, might surely have supported them in the first instance, at least till some proof of inefficiency had appeared. But instead of this, on a mere surmise in the minds of its members that a still more efficient government might possibly be formed, the House, in the full exercise of its independence, did actually take the unprecedented step of addressing the crown to strengthen an administration before any trial of its efficiency had been made.

Thus far at least we can perceive no very flagrant proof of servility to the crown and its selected ministers. And when, after every attempt to comply with the wishes of parliament had failed, and when it was perceived that the only alternative remaining was a total change of men, which was neither required by parliament nor desired by the people; a change too that must necessarily have been accompanied by a total inversion of the whole policy of the state, of which the same parliament and people had repeatedly expressed their approbation;-when such, we say, was evidently the real state of affairs; it does certainly

VOL. III, NO. VI.

I I

require no little malice to invent, and impudence to assert, the position, that the House of Commons was servile, because it was consistent with itself, and its own recorded and conscientious opinions;-because, in fact, it would not veer round with the first blast of the storm, and point its index to a directly opposite quarter of the compass.

We have a right to say, " its conscientious opinions," because malice itself cannot ascribe the preceding vote to any possible motive, except to a pure and independent wish to procure for the country, in an arduous crisis, the strongest government that could be had at any sacrifice of private feeling; nor can impudence itself deny that this patriotic object was paramount in the bosom of the parliament to any regard for the private feelings and wishes which have been presumptively imputed to the Crown. It will also, we think, be admitted, that among the sober part of the community, those who are favourable to our present system of policy, bear to those of opposite sentiments, a proportion at least equal to the relative majority on the 11th of June.

Such then are the reasonable grounds upon which the calumnies now vented in certain quarters against the House of Commons are founded;-calumnies which add but one more to the disgusting proofs already before the country of the tendency of party violence, to mix, in one odious mass of hostility, discontented politicians with revolutionary reprobates.

We venture to ask what tyranny can be so galling as that which thus presumes to erect party opinion into an instrument of despotism over men's characters and actions? and what servility more abject than that which can induce men to submit their efforts for their country's good to an ordeal in which they can only escape unscorched by a base and timid collusion with their self-constituted judges?

If any thing could add to our disgust at these proceedings, or to our conviction of the weakness and unpopularity of the parties that can resort to such methods of filling their ranks, it would be found in that acme of meanness and insolence, which makes a coincidence, with their views and opinions, the test not only of political integrity, but even of FEMALE INNOCENCE, and of -ROYAL HONOUR ;-which lends itself as a pandar to the gross and calumnious imputations of the vulgar against a pretended influence, of which there exists no proof; and of which the only shade of proof is to be found in the beneficial effects upon private habits, which may be suspected to have resulted from it ;-Finally, which can so far forget all manly feeling, decency, and candour, as to violate the respect due to a female of high rank and

virtuous life, and to found upon the slander of private innocence an endeavour to drag their Sovereign's character before the prejudiced tribunal of his people.

ART. XXVII-A Letter to the Right Hon. N. Vansittart, M. P. being an Answer to his second Letter on the British and Foreign Bible Society; and at the same Time an Answer to whatever is argumentative in other Pamphlets which have been lately written to the same Purpose. By Herbert Marsh, D.D. F.R.S. Margaret Professor of Divinity in Cambridge. London: Rivingtons; Deighton, Nicholson, and Barrett, · Cambridge. Octavo. 1812. Pp. 54.

2. An old Fable with a new Application. Cambridge: Hod

son. 1812.

ALAS for controversy! to what contradictions and inconsist

encies does it lead its votaries! Is it credible that Mr. Professor Marsh, the author of the "Inquiry," reviewed in our last number, should venture to object to his opponents, "that as they breathe nothing but the spirit which the gospel was intended to subdue, they will hardly contribute to the diffusion of the precepts which the gospel was intended to convey?" P. 4. And that, as " they violate the laws of decorum, they are pleading, not for piety, but for power" Ibid. Is it credible, that he who made no scruple in the first instance to affix the stigma of personal and interested motives upon the innocent and praiseworthy persons against whom he opened hostilities, should characterise as "the effusions of spleen and malice," those adventitious aids which they have brought forward in their defence, springing from proofs in their possession, that the learned professor himself might not, perhaps, have been actuated by the purest public motives? Or can he, after such a course of conduct, believe that he shall satisfy the world by pretending to treat such positions with contempt? They were indeed of such a nature, and proceed from quarters so respectable, that it does certainly behove Dr. Marsh, if he has any regard to reputation founded upon a more solid basis than mere party vociferation, not " to take his leave of the controversy," (see last page of his pamphlet), which he has provoked, without some explanation respecting them. But as we never brought forward any FACTS of this nature, we shall press the point no further; and shall proceed, in the very few words necessary on this occasion, to enquire how far the learned professor has fulfilled the promise held out in his title-page, and answered all that

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