THE PERMANENT IMPRESSION.

143

years of George IV. was afraid to speak out against the monarchical authorities: it was now safe to censure royalty, and those who defended it too obstinately weakened the foundations of privilege. The Liverpool Cabinet acted in the divorce business with customary prudence and with a fair amount of conscientious regard for the public good. Failing to keep up a satisfactory majority in the House of Lords, the Minister discreetly let the proposal drop; and when the unhappy lady died from overstrain of passion, it might seem that the Princess Caroline in trying to be Queen had done no more harm than any mob orator or frustrated conspirator. Yet it now appears that the nation was made altogether more bold by this loud controversy, and was henceforth sure to be less docile in the hands of official managers. If the Court was to be supreme in society, it was clear that it must come nearer the standard of virtue. If the public offices were to conduct the nation's business, it would soon be necessary to make them more accessible to able men of no connections. The cause of reform was furthered by the Caroline agitation.

144

LORD CASTLEREAGH IN PEACE TIME.

XII.

It has been customary to treat the death of Lord Castlereagh as an event marking an epoch in politics, on the ground that he was, and that his successor in the Foreign Office was not, a stiff supporter of the continental despots, and an implacable foe of liberals. No doubt he went far with the legitimate kings in bridling all who fretted against privileges, but he was in relation to them and to their advisers a moderate liberal. He was beyond other statesmen hated by English reformers and lampooned by the fashionable poet, Lord Byron. An unguarded student might fall into the mistake of believing that he was a reactionist, a bigot, even a blockhead. Taken as the hardest of the hard men that repressed change and disorder in England, he appears nevertheless to have been a good-natured, passionless, enlightened gentleman, when contrasted with the Anti-Jacobins of the Continent.1

He did not profess any kind of doctrine that had to be propagated; he treated with evasive but polite reserve the proposal of the Russian monarch, backed by his confederates, that England should join in preaching the Gospel politically. Again, when the allied kings deliberated how to stifle the reformers of Naples, he taught them that every State has an indis

1 Lord Castlereagh was Marquis of Londonderry at the end of his life.

VIEW OF INTERFERENCE WITH NAPLES. 145

putable right to interfere [with the citizens of another State] so as to defend itself; but such interference is just only when there is real manifest danger resulting from the circumstances of a particular case; such danger cannot à priori be the object of an alliance of cabinets.' This is not the language that would have come from his contemporaries, M. de Maistre, M. Gentz, or M. de Chateaubriand. It is the language of a business-like man who is not a student of rhetoric nor a dabbler in philosophy: it expresses the view habitually taken by modern British statesmen, who avoid aphorisms, and insist on waiting till a case is made out. Lord Castlereagh held that, as a State checks the growth of opinions held with passion and threatening a breach of the peace, so may several states combine for the specific purpose of disarming those who are clearly intrusive and ravenous, such as Napoleon; but he did not countenance a general warrant issued against any one that might be proscribed by the absolutists. More particularly he would have said, on the one hand, that, if the King of Naples could not keep the peace in his own dominions, and if the anarchy of Naples was clearly disturbing the neighbouring districts of Italy, the Austrians, being by European law lords paramount of Italy, might fairly step in with a high hand; on the other hand, that it was no concern of the Russians, or of Great Britain, so long as

It was on this ground that his successor Mr. Canning politely excused France when invading Spain in 1823: conversely he forbade Russia to help France, for Spain was too distant from Russia to be dangerous.

L

146 A STATESMAN'S DISLIKE OF ANALOGIES.

their citizens were not wronged within the disturbed territories. In this distinction he faithfully followed Mr. Pitt, who did not shrink from contemplating for four years the sickening anarchy of France, and went to war only when the new French rulers broke a treaty and endangered England.

At Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 the Allies had wound up their partnership. It was not expedient to shape the alliance into a federation of States, or, in other words, to hold an European Diet' for controlling the actions of the lesser States. In such councils there was obviously the danger of pedantic and sentimental intrusiveness. Had the Emperor of Russia been under the influence of M. de Maistre, as he was under the influence of Madame Krudener, he might easily have been induced to lay before the European Diet some very impertinent suggestion as to the discontents in Ireland. A real English A real English politician such as Lord Castlereagh demurs to an argument from analogy if it is advanced with a view to action. He will say in the manner of a tough and wary attorney: 'We admit that we once seized Spanish treasure ships without a declaration of war; we knew that the treasure would be spent in arming against us; it is also true that we bombarded Copenhagen and carried off the Danish fleet when Denmark was not at war with us we did so because we knew that our enemies meant to use that fleet; but we are not going to lay down any rule about seizures made without proclamation of war; we wait till an occasion arises,

NARROW AND USEFUL PRUDENCE.

147

and we look for precedents only when we need guidance.'1

This way of limiting, which has been sometimes called minimising, is characteristic of the school of statesmanship founded by Mr. Pitt on the fixed habits of Englishmen and supported by the failure of some maxims enunciated by the Frenchmen of 1789. It looks like a narrow hidebound statecraft, and we may sometimes welcome a politician who strains it till it yields; but it has kept England out of much mischief; and Lord Castlereagh should be credited with a nimble escape from à priori

wisdom.

A keenly critical examination of Lord Castlereagh's despatches might no doubt make him out to be too indulgent towards absolute power. His admirers would say in his defence that it was his duty to keep on good terms with the restorers of the European system. Perhaps one would do well to avoid either opinion by pronouncing him to have been an honest champion of authority.

But for diplomatic correspondence England would have taken hardly any notice of the ferment of

1 Lord Castlereagh connived at the interference of English adventurers, said to have been soldiers set free from the army when reduced in 1815, with the civil wars of the Spanish provinces in America. He was not the man to elaborate a formula for covering this laxity. With the ministers of Spain he could safely take some freedom. It was not pressingly needful to justify the migrations of armed men to America, however closely they resembled expeditions. It was a relief to London to be rid of discontented able-bodied idlers. Disorder in America was not at all embarrassing, provided it did not affect British colonies, or embroil the Court of St. James' with the President of the United States. In maintaining neutrality, England has been more adroit than consistent.