BOOKS.

GEORGE CANNING.* Ma. STAPLETON'S recent work will be accepted thankfully for what it purports to be ; not a detailed biography of Mr. Canning but a volume " supplementary and explanatory ; a contribution to aid some future biographer." Would it had been something more ! Why should Mr. Stapleton have abstained from a task for which he is so peculiarly qualified by the fulness of his in- formation and his cherished affection for the memory of his friend and patron ? Perhaps he will reconsider his resolution, and ulti- mately give to the world such a record of Canning's personal and political career as may be looked for at the hands of no other con- temporary writer. Meanwhile, he has done the next best thing for the instruction and gratification of the public in composing the present volume. It contains many original documents of great value, never before printed ; and these, with the editor's explanatory statements, throw much novel light on the motives and actions of the brilliant orator and statesman.

The one point in Canning's whole career which has hitherto stood most in need of elucidation is his conduct in the affair which led to the famous duel between him and Lord Castlereagh. It is the turning point in the estimate of his personal character, for on it depends the truth or falsehood of the only imputation affecting his honour—that of duplicity and crooked cunning in his deal- ings towards a colleague. The general tenour of his public con- duct affords strong presumptive evidence against the validity of the grounds on which he incurred this obloquy. On his de- parture for India, he received an address of praise and thanks from his late constituents, which had been approved by the unandmous votes of all the mercantile associations in Liverpool, amongst whom were to be found all parties in politics. This fact, says Mr. Stapleton "is mainly attributable to the conviction which he forced on men's minds, that his opinions and actions, whatever they were, were earnest, patriotic and honest, the result of deep and anxious deliberation—they felt that what he seemed to be, that he really was. They had no mistrust, because they were con- fident that he represented to them things as they really were, or, at least, as in his own honest judgment he saw them. " It is hard to imagine that a man whose public conduct merited this honourable testimony should have been a false dealer in his per- sonal relations. The quarrel between Castlereagh and Canning arose out of the Convention of Cintra which neutralised to a great extent the effect of Sir Arthur Wellesley's splendid victory at Vimiera, and the expedition to the Scheldt in the spring of 1809, which would not have been sent had Canning been sole arbiter, and which proved unsuccessful. Its failure was followed by the duel.

" With to the circumstances which led to the duel, Mr. Canning's

conduct was blameless. The event took place in September 1809. In the preceding April, he had made up his mind that a change in the War Depart- ment (over which Lord Castlereagh presided) was essential. They had dif- fered as to the mode of dealing with the terms of the convention of Cintra. They had respectively appealed to the King and to their colleagues, by cir- culating memorandums in opposition to each other's views, more especially with reference to that article of the convention which related to the rights of the French army to the plunder which they had taken from the Portu- guese. Mr. Canning's view was that, as the King himself had no right to sanction the plunder of his allies, therefore the King's general (who could have no right but what was delegated to him by his Sovereign) exceeded his powers when he engaged to protect the French army in carrying off Por- tuguese plunder ; therefore, argued Mr. Canning, this article must be re- pudiated by the Government. "On the other hand, Lord Castlereagh (although fully agreeing with Mr. Canning in reprobating the terms of the convention and this article in particular) maintained that, whether the general had or had not exceeded his power, the British Government was bound to give effect to the stipula- tion, even though, by so doing., it sanctioned the plundering of the Portu- guese. Lord Castlereagh's opinion prevailed.

"Again, the confusion in the command of the army at Vimiera, when Sir Arthur Wellesley was superseded by Sir Henry Burrard, i and S Henry by Sir Hew Dalrymple, within the short -space of twenty-four hours, and the mismanagement which ensued, and the advantages which were thrown away in consequence created strong feelings of dissatisfaction in Mr. Can-

ning's mind ; this, consequence, with the failure of the expedition under Sir John Moore, and the increasing inconvenience arising from a part of the business of the War Department being connected with political correspond- ence, led Mr. Canning to state to the Prime Minister his conviction, that 'a change either in his own department or in Lord Castlereagh's appeared to him expedient for the public service,' expressing, at the same time, his perfect willingness that the alternative should be decided for his own retire- ment.

"The Duke urged Mr. Canning to suspend the execution of his inten- tion to resign ' ; and then there took place a series of negotiations, such as ordinarily occur when similar changes are contemplated in an Administra- tion. With reference to these occurrences, two charges were made against Mr. Canning. 1. That he acquiesced in the concealment of Lord Castle- reagh of the change which he. proposed in the Government. 2. That he al- lowed him to remain the Minister to prepare the expedition to the Scheldt after the change had been decided on.

"To these two charges the answers are brief. As to the first, Mr. Can- ning repeatedly pressed in the most urgent way that no concealment should be practised towards Lord Castlereagh ; more than once he tendered his own resignation to enforce disclosure; further, the concealment was carried on, at the suggestion and entreaties of both the Duke of Portland and Lord Castlereagh's own particular friends in the Cabinet, and of his connexion, Lord Camden, and also with the King's sanction. So far from desiring it, he conceived, however erroneously, Lord Camden to be the sure channel of communication to Lord Castlereagh; and that up to a very late period he believed such communication to have been actually made.'

"This is a remarkable assertion. The truth is the Duke of Portland. doubtless under a misapprehension, assured Hr. Canning that the COMMS011- • George Canning and his nmes. By Augustus Granville Stapleton. Published by J. W. Parker and Son. cation had actually been made to Lord Castkreagh, and it was in reliance on the correctness of this assurance that Mr. Canning was contented to go on. Mr. Canning's regard and respect for the Duke of Portland restrained him from saying one word which could disparage his Grace's character. In his letter to Lord Camden, he says—' No man who knows the affectionate respect and attachment which the manly and generous qualities of the Duke of Portland's mind were calculated to command, and which I invariably bore to him, will suspect me of being willing to establish my own vindica- tion at the expense of the slightest disrespect to his memory, or prejudice to his fame.' [When this was written the Duke was dead.]

"In explanation, however, of his conduct on this occasion, he told me how unhappily he had been misled by the Duke.

"With regard to the second charge—that he allowed Lord Castlereagh to prepare the expedition to the Scheldt after it had been determined that a change should be made—it is completely answered by the fact, that the change proposed, and with which Mr. Canning declared that he should be contented, was a 'new distribution of the business of the War Department,' the effect of which new distribution would not have been to take out of Lord Castlereagh's hands the superintendence of the expedition to the Scheldt.' The facts recorded respecting the duel prove that, if blame at- taches to the reserve practised towards Lord Castlereagh, that blame must attach to his own friends who urged that reserve, and not to Mr. Canning, who, from the outset, strongly remonstrated against it. That Lord Castle- reagh was very hasty in sending the challenge is clear from the fact that the statements on which he supported it could not be maintained. That Mr. Canning was too hasty in accepting it, must also be conceded. He would have done wiser if, instead of instant acceptance, he had cooly in- formed his challenger that he would be ready to meet him if he repeated the demand, after he had shown him that it was founded on error. But easy as it may be, at this distance of time, to point out what might, or what ought to, have been done by both parties in accordance with the more Christrian views of this age on this subject; yet, if we could place ourselves exactly in the same position in which the principals were placed, we should feel that great allowances ought to be made for Lord Castlereagh's irri- tation, when the whole transaction was disclosed to him, as well as for that sensitiveness which made Mr. Canning's mind rebel against offering expla- nations, when he was assailed with what he knew to be unfounded accu- sations."

Mr. Stapleton argues that Mr. Canning could not have been ac- tuated in this matter by the base motive of personal ambition, be- cause if Lord Castlereagh was in his way the proposal respecting him would not have removed him out of it. Castlereagh was not at that time a rival ; Lord Wellesley was a formidable one, yet Canning laboured for his introduction into the ministry that the country might have the benefit of his great abilities. He knew also that Mr. Perceval intended to be his rival for the premiership on the retirement of the Duke of Portland, and he avowed that knowledge in a letter to the former, which is printed in Phipps's Memoir of lifr. Plumer Ward. In that letter, "with an open- ness which clearly proves how incapable he was of underhand and tortuous ways," he "discusses honestly with his competitor their respective claims. Personal ambition' would have led him, therefore, to remonstrate with the Duke against the lead in the House of Commons being retained by Mr. Perceval, who in this respect was above him, and not to altering Lord Castlereagh's po- sition, who, in the Administration, was only his equal." There is abundant cause shown in Mr. Stapleton's volume wh-t, the old Tories never cordially liked or confided in Canning'. They thought him "only another sort of Liberal" and they were right; for a Liberal he was not only in foreign but in domestic policy, notwithstanding his strenuous opposition to Parliamentary Reform, for which the circumstances of his times afforded him much more reasonable excuse than ever Peel or Wellington could show for their resistance to Catholic Emancipation. Like them he might have reversed his policy had he lived long enough to see the changed conditions that would have taught him the wisdom of leading in the work which he had so ion" hindered. At all events well would it be for the prospects of Parliamentary Reform if Canning were living now, to be if not a supporter of

the coming bill, then at least the wisest of opponents. In the notes for his speech in 1825 against Lord John Russell's motion for Reform there are these memorandums.

" My objections to a reform in the House of Commons are now as they have always been ; "1. That it is not necessary. "2. That it is not safe.

"I speak of a reform on the principle of general improvement, not of the partial redress of particular, and specified grievances.

"Corruption for instance is a positive evil as well as a positive crime. "Correct, and punish, and prevent it.—Grampound. "And if out of such correction grows an incidental accession to the popu- lar,part of the representation, with all my heart.—Yorkshire.

'But this is not—the noble Lord will not pretend that it is—his view of reform.

"He means something much more general. He proposes not only to cor- rect delinquencies, but to remove defects, and not defects only but unsight- linesses.

"Re proposes to bring the House of Commons nearer to the people, to identify it with them, to make it the organ of their opinions, and of their will.

"Now I deny that it ought to be the organ of their will.

"1. Because will is not the just foundation of government. "2. Because, if it be so, and if there be an organ which speaks that will, every other organ is superfluous, and the government is wholly in the House of Commons.

"Government is a matter not of will, but of reason. "And on that very account it is that all simple forms of government are bad.

"A simple monarchy is tyranny. • "A simple democracy is tyranny and anarchy combined.

"What is the whole contrivance of limited monarchy but a restraint upon the will of the monarch ; a compulsion upon him to substitute reason for volition ?

"Is it supposed that the people are not quite as susceptible of arbitrary and unconsidered measures, as liable to be misled, as open to flattery and seductions, as a monarch ?

"Quite as much, often even more so. And as all the contrivances of mixed monarchies are to guard against these dangers from a king, so is it

desirable that corresponding restraints should impede the precipitate action of the people.

" But secondly, if you obtain a perfect representation of the will of the people, an immediate and obedient organ of that will, what room is there for any other ?

" There may be a multitude of counsellors, but there can be but one au- thoritative agent.

" History has not left us in the dark as to the inference to be drawn from such a system, nor as to the consequences practically deducible from it.

" I, therefore, am against the creation of such an organ, if it does not ex- ist ; and so far from admitting its non-existence to be a motive for agreeing to the noble Lord's motion, I congratulate myself that it does not exist."

Mr. Stapleton prints a long letter written by Mr. Canning, in December 1792, before he had entered Parliament, to his friend Lord Boringdon, afterwards Earl of Morley. It is exceedingly interesting as showing bow the writer felt himself constrained by the intensity of his liberalism to side with the great Tory states- man of the day in his hostility to Republican France. "While her people were struggling for their own liberty, he "wished most piously and heartily for the total overthrow and destruction of every impediment that should be thrown in the way of their ex- ertions "; but when he sees them no longer "oppressed and at- tacked, and insulted, but insolent beyond all bounds, professing universal enmity, and as far as in them lies preaching universal oppression," then, he says, "I feel that their situation and dis- position are extremely changed, and that my sentiments and wishes must, if I have any consistency, change with them." He owns that along with his sympathy for their unparalleled strug- gles for a blessing of which they made an unparalleled abuse the moment they had acquired it, there had gone a sort of "specu- lative fondness" for the idea of a Representative Republic, and a desire to see it tried in a neighbouring nation, without his own being put to the risk or expense of the experiment. The result of the one trial was for him quite conclusive. Thenceforth his most ardent wish was that it might never be repeated. With what a shout of exultation he hailed the overthrow of the Di- rectory by Bonaparte.

"November 19, 1799.

"Hume! huzza! huzza! for no language but that of violent, and tumul- tuous, and triumphant exclamation, can sufficiently describe the joy and satisfaction which I feel at this complete overthrow and extinction of all the hopes of the proselytes to new principles. Bonaparte, an apostate from the cause of liberty—Bonaparte, the avowed tyrant of his country, is an object to be contemplated with enthusiasm—to be held uy to the admiration and gratitude of mankind. Even Gifford shall adore him ; and I care not much what his object may be. I would rather, to be sure, that he meant to be a Monck ; but if he will be a Ovum., it is enough; and if he falls, like Ccesar, by and by, so much the better. Tell not me that he will make France more powerful—that he will make war with more vigour, or peace with more dexterity than the exploded Directory have done ; I care not—war we can brave, and from peace, I hope, we shall have the spirit to save ourselves ; and as to power, I would give France India to insure her a despotism, and think the purchase a cheap one. No! no ! it is the thorough destruction of the principles of exaggerated liberty—it is the lasting ridicule thrown upon all systems of democratic equality—it is the galling conviction carried home to the minds of all the brawlers for freedom in this and every other country, that there never was, nor will be, nor can be, a leader of a mob faction, who does not mean to be the lord, and not the servant, of the people. It is this that makes the name of Bonaparte dear to me—this his one net has done, let him conduct himself as he may hereafter ; let him be a general, or a legislator, or a monarch, or a captive, crowned or beheaded, it is all the same for this purpose. Bonaparte may flourish, but the idol of Jacobinism is no more.

"If this be a war against opinions, as the Jacobins here are fond of say- ing, and if the opinions against which war was waged were these—that France might be a republic ; that a republican government was applicable to a large territory and multiplied population ; that a government, founded on such damned principles as those of tile French Revolution, could stand (I say nothing of the happiness of the people under them, but simply. state the question of the possibility of such a government standing—enduring at all,) if such was the war, and such the enemy, never was war so successful, never was enemy so utterly subdued. "Opinions such as these, who, in the Devil's name will hold them now ? France a free Republic! Where is Sir Lionel Copley to maintain this_pro- position ? creed like Rewbell, I presume, or convinced sullenly, as I am rapturously, and with all my heart and soul both convinced myself, and desirous to convince others ; and to extort the unwilling avowal from the teeth of the Jacobins, that henceforth with regard to France, and the prin- ciples of France, or to any country similarly circumstanced as to extent, population, manners, Sm., .Republican and _Fool are synonymous terms."

After the downfall of Napoleon, Canning, who had alike con- demned "the example of tyranny" set by "the confederacy of the despots of Europe" in assailing France when struggling for freedom and the bettering of that example by Bonaparte, opposed

with equal decision the violation of the rights of independent states by the members of the Holy Alliance. The treaties of Vienna were negotiated during his residence in Lisbon. He had no hand in them, and did not approve of the principles on which the settlement of Europe was made by them, though he always held that their provisions were to be accepted as inviolable by England. Further than this he would not go ; and from the moment he became Foreign 'Secretary, on the death of Lord Lon- donderry, he set himself to restore the independence of the foreign policy of England, by raising it above that subserviency to the designs of the great Continental Powers, which had marked it during his predecessors' tenure of office. This work was the more difficult for Canning, because it was adverse to the views of George the Fourth, who was for a while too much under the in- fluence of Prince Metternich. With that statesman, Canning was at strife as long as he was Minister, and his opinion of him is thus pithily expressed in a ,rivate and confidential letter to Lord Granville, dated Foreign I ce, March 11, 1825—" He is the greatest r— and 1— on the Continent—perhaps in the civil- ized world." As to the loss of influence with which the Austrian Minister was constantly menacing England if she did not sub- serve the designs of the absolute monarchs, Canning wrote thus to our Ambassador at Vienna.

"What is the influence which we have had in the councils of the al- liance, and which Prince Metternich exhorts us to be so careful not to throw away ? We protested at Luba& ; we remonstrated at Verona. Our protest was treated as waste paper • our remonstrances mingled with the air. Pretty influence, and much worth preserving. No—our influence, if it is to be maintained abroad, must be secure in the sources of our strength at home ; and the sources of that strength are in the sympathy between the people and the Government ;in the union of the public sentiment with the public counsels ; in the reciprocal confidence and cooperation of the House of Commons and the Crown. If Prince Metternich has taught him- self to believe that the House of Commons is merely a clog and impediment to the free action of the counsellors of the Crown ; that its prejudices are to be softened, its waywardness to be soothed, but that the tenor of the Go- vernment is in effect independent of its impulse—that it is, in short, to be managed, but not consulted—he is mistaken. It is as essential a part of the national council as it is of the national authority; and woe be to the Minis- ter who should undertake to conduct the affairs of this country upon the principle of settling the course of its foreign policy with a grand alliance, and should rely upon carrying their decisions into effect by throwing a little dust in the eyes of the House of Commons."

Experience soon confirmed the wisdom of Canning's views, and secured to him the full confidence of the Monarch, whom the Minister's firm and thoroughly national policy had restored to his natural position at the head instead of the tail of the European Powers.