Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327

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BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE

NO. CCCXXVII. JANUARY, 1843. VOL. LIII.

CONTENTS

GREAT BRITAIN AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR 1843
LESURQUES; OR, THE VICTIM OF JUDICIAL ERROR
CALEB STUKELY
PART X.
IMAGINARY CONVERSATION. BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
TASSO AND CORNELIA
THE WORLD OF LONDON
SECOND SERIES, PART I.
THE DREAM OF LORD NITHSDALE
TWO HOURS OF MYSTERY
THE EAST AND SOUTH OF EUROPE
THE CURSE OF GLENCOE. BY B. SIMMONS
THE MARTYRS' MONUMENT. A MONOLOGUE
TASTE AND MUSIC IN ENGLAND

GREAT BRITAIN AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR 1843.

Great Britain, at the present moment, occupies a position of dignity, of
grandeur, and of RESPONSIBILITY, unparalleled in either her own history,
or that of any other nation ancient or modern. Let him who is inclined
to doubt this assertion, of whatever country he may be, and whether
friendly, hostile, or indifferent to England, glance for a moment at a
map of the world, and having at length found out our little island,
(which, perhaps, he may consider a mere fragment chipped off, as it
were, from the continent of Europe,) turn to our stupendous possessions
in the east and in the west--in fact, all over the world--and he may be
apt to think of the fond speculative boast of the ancient geometrician,
"[Greek: Dos pou sto, chai ton chosmon chinaeso]," and to paraphrase and
apply it thus--"Give the genius of Great Britain but where she may place
her foot--some mere point peeping above the waves of the sea--and she
shall move the world." Is not this language warranted by recent facts?
While our irritable but glorious neighbour France--_pace tantae
gentis!_--is frittering away her warlike energies in Algeria, and Russia
is worried by her unsuccessful and unjust attempts upon Circassia,
behold the glorious monarch of this little island, Queen Victoria,
roused by indignities and injuries offered to her most distant subjects
in the East, strike single-handed a blow there, which shakes a vast and
ancient empire to its very foundations, and forces its haughty emperor
from his throne, to assume the attitude of a suppliant for peace,
yielding her peremptory but just demands, even at the cannon's mouth,
and actually relinquishing to her a large portion of his dominions.
Events, these, so astonishing, that their true character and
consequences have not yet been calmly considered and appreciated by
either ourselves or other nations. Look, again, at recent occurrences in
British India--that vast territory which only our prodigious enterprise
and skill have acquired for us, and nothing but profound sagacity can
preserve to the British crown--and observe, with mixed feelings, two
principal matters: a perilous but temporary error of overweening
ambition on the part of Great Britain, yet retrieved with power and
dignity; and converted into an opportunity of displaying--where, for the
interests of Great Britain, it was imperiously demanded--her
irresistible valour, her moderation, her wisdom; exhibiting, under
circumstances the most adverse possible, in its full splendour and
majesty, the force of that OPINION by which alone we can hold India.
Passing swiftly over to the Western Continent, gaze at our vast
possessions _there_ also--in British North America--containing
considerably upwards of four millions of square geographical miles of
land; that is, nearly a ninth part of the whole terrestrial surface of
the globe![1]--besides nearly a million and a half miles of water--five
hundred thousand of these square miles being capable, and in rapid
progress, of profitable cultivation! at more than three thousand miles'
distance from the mother country, and in immediate juxtaposition to the
territory of our distinguished but jealous descendants and rivals--a
rising nation--the United States! Pausing here in the long catalogue of
our foreign possessions, let our fancied observer turn back his eye
towards the little island that owns them; will he not be filled with
wonder, possibly with a conviction that Great Britain is destined by
Almighty God to be the instrument of effecting His sublime but hidden
purposes with reference to humanity? Assume, however, our observer to be
actuated by a hostile and jealous spirit, and to regard our foreign
possessions, and the national greatness derived from them, as only
nominal and apparent--to insinuate that we could not really hold them,
or vindicate our vaunted supremacy if powerfully challenged and
resented. Let him then meditate upon the authentic intelligence which we
have just received from the East: what must then be his real sentiments
on this the 1st day of January 1843? Let us ask him, in all manly
calmness, whether England has not _done_ what he doubted or denied her
ability to do? whether she has not shown the world that she may, indeed,
do what she pleases among the nations, so long as her pleasure is
regulated and supported by her accustomed sagacity and spirit? She has,
however, recently had to pass through an awful ordeal, principally
occasioned by the brief ascendency of incompetent councils; and while
expressing, in terms of transport, our conviction that, "out of this
nettle danger, we have plucked the flower safety"--we cannot repress our
feelings of indignation against those who precipitated us into that
danger, and of gratitude towards those who, under Divine Providence,
have been instrumental in extricating us from it, not only rapidly, but
with credit; not merely with credit, but with glory. To appreciate our
present position, we must refer to that which we occupied some twelve or
eighteen months ago; and that will necessarily involve a brief
examination of the policy and proceedings of the late, and of the
present Government. We shall speak in an unreserved and independent
spirit in giving utterance to the reflections which have occurred to us
during a watchful attention paid to the course of public affairs, both
foreign and domestic, in the interval alluded to; though feeling the
task which we have undertaken both a delicate and a difficult one.

[1] Malte Brun, xi. 179. Alison, x. 256.

After a desperate tenacity in retaining office exhibited by the late
Government, which was utterly unexampled, and most degrading to the
character and position of public men engaged in carrying on the Queen's
Government, Sir Robert Peel was called to the head of affairs by her
Majesty, in accordance with the declared wishes of a triumphant majority
of her subjects--of a perfectly overwhelming majority of the educated,
the thinking, and the monied classes of society. When he first placed
his foot upon the commanding eminence of the premiership, the sight
which presented itself to his quick and comprehensive glance, must have
been, indeed, one calculated to make

--"the boldest hold his breath
For a time."

What appalling evidence in every direction of the ignorance and madness
of his predecessors! An exchequer empty, exactly at the moment when it
ought to have been fullest, in order to support our tremendous
operations in the East and elsewhere: in fact, a prospect of immediate
national insolvency; all resources, ordinary and extraordinary,
exhausted; all income anticipated: an average deficiency of revenue,
actual and estimated, in the six years next preceding the 5th of January
1843, of L.10,072,000! Symptoms of social disorganization visible on the
very surface of society: ruin bestriding our mercantile interests,
palsied every where by the long pressure of financial misrule: credit
vanishing rapidly: the working-classes plunged daily deeper and deeper
into misery and starvation, ready to listen to the most desperate
suggestions: and a Government bewildered with a consciousness of
incompetency, and of the swiftly approaching consequences of their
misrule, at the eleventh hour--on the eve of a general election--
suddenly resolving (in the language of their own leader) to stir society
to its foundations, by proposing a wild and ruinous alteration in the
Corn-Laws, declaring that it, and it only, would bring cheap bread to
the doors of the very poorest in the land:--after the manner of giving
out ardent spirits to an already infuriated mob. In Ireland, crime and
sedition fearfully in the ascendant; treasonable efforts made to
separate her from us; threats even held out of her entering into a
foreign alliance against us. So much for our domestic--now for our
foreign condition and prospects. He would see Europe exhibiting serious
symptoms of distrust and hostility: France, irritated and trifled with,
on the verge of actual war with us: our criminally neglected differences
with America, fast ripening into the fatal bloom of war: the very
existence of the Canadas at stake. In India, the tenure by which we hold
it in the very act of being loosened; our troops shedding their blood in
vain, in the prosecution of as mad and wicked an enterprise as ever was
undertaken by a civilized nation; the glory of our hitherto invincible
arms tarnished; the finances of India deranged and wasted away in
securing only fresh accessions of disgraceful defeat. In China, we were
engaged, in spite of the whisper of our guardian angel, Wellington, in a
_little war_, and experiencing all its degrading and ruinous
consequences to our commerce, our military and naval reputation, our
statesmanship, our honour. Did ever this great empire exhibit such a
spectacle before as that which it thus presented to the anxious eye of
the new Premier? Having concluded the disheartening and alarming survey,
he must have descended to his cabinet oppressed and desponding,
enquiring who is sufficient for these things? With no disposition to
bestow an undue encomium on any one, we cannot but say, happy was Queen
Victoria in having, at such a moment, such a man to call to the head of
her distracted affairs, as Sir Robert Peel. He was a man preeminently
distinguished by caution, sobriety, and firmness of character--by
remarkable clear-sightedness and strength of intellect--thoroughly
practical in all things--of immense knowledge, entirely at his
command--of consummate tact and judgment in the conduct of public
affairs--of indefatigable patience and perseverance--of imperturbable
self-possession. He seemed formed by nature and habit to be the leader
of a great deliberative assembly. Add to all this--a personal character
of unsullied purity, and a fortune so large as to place him beyond the
reach of suspicion or temptation. Such was the man called upon by his
sovereign and his country, in a most serious crisis of her affairs. He
was originally fortunate in being surrounded by political friends
eminently qualified for office; from among whom he made, with due
deliberation, a selection, which satisfied the country the instant that
their names were laid before it. We know not when a British sovereign
has been surrounded by a more brilliant and powerful body of ministers,
than those who at this moment stand around Queen Victoria. They
constitute the first real GOVERNMENT which this country has seen for the
last twelve years; and they instantly addressed themselves to the
discharge of the duties assigned to them with a practised skill, and
energy, and system, which were quickly felt in all departments of the
State. In contenting himself with the general superintendance of the
affairs of his government, and devolving on another the harassing office
of Chancellor of the Exchequer, which, till then, had been conjoined
with that of the First Lord of the Treasury, Sir Robert Peel acted with
his usual judgment, and secured, in particular, one capital
object--_unity of action._

As soon as the late Ministry and their adherents perceived that Sir
Robert Peel's advent to power was inevitable, they clamorously required
of him a full preliminary statement of the policy he intended to adopt
on being actually installed in office! By those who had floundered on,
session after session, from blunder to blunder, from folly to
folly--each more glaring and destructive than the preceding one--he was
modestly expected to commit himself _instanter_ to some scheme struck
off, to please them, at a heat! A cut-and-dried exposition of his plans
of domestic and foreign policy, before it was even certain that he would
ever be called on to frame or act on them; before he had had a glimpse
of the authentic and official _data_, of which none but the actual
adviser of the crown could be in possession. This was doubtless _their_
notion of statesmanship, and faithfully acted on from first to last; but
Sir Robert Peel and his friends had been brought up in another school,
whose maxim was--_priusquam incipias, consulta--sed ubi consulueris,
mature facto, opus est_. The Premier stood unmoved by the entreaties,
the coaxings, and the threatenings of those wriggling before him in
miserable discomfiture and restlessness on the abhorred benches of
Opposition; calmly demonstrating to them the folly and injustice of
which they were guilty. Yet the circumstances of the country made his
adherence to this first determination exquisitely trying. He relied,
however, on the cautious integrity of his purposes, and the necessity of
the case; and amidst the silent agitation of friends, and the frenzied
clamour of opponents, and with a dreadful prospect before the country in
the ensuing winter--maintained the silence he had imposed upon himself,
and, with his companions, entered forthwith on a searching and complete
investigation of the affairs of the nation. Not seduced by the
irrepressible eagerness of friends, or dismayed by the dark threats and
dismal predictions of enemies, who even appealed direct to the throne
against them, Ministers pursued their course with calmness and
determination, till the legitimate moment had arrived for announcing to
the country their thoroughly considered plans for the future. Sir Robert
Peel is undoubtedly entitled to the credit of resuscitating and
re-organizing the great party all but annihilated by the passing of the
Reform Bill. It is under vast obligations to him; but so is he to it.
What fortitude and fidelity have been theirs! How admirable their
conduct on the occasion we are alluding to! And here let us also pay a
just tribute of respect to the Conservative newspaper press, both in the
metropolis and in the country. To select particular instances, would be
vain and invidious; but while the whole country has daily opportunities
of judging of the assistance afforded to the Conservative cause by the
powerful and independent metropolitan press, few are aware, as we are,
of the very great ability generally displayed by the provincial
Conservative press. Their resolute and persevering exposure of the
dangerous false doctrines of our unscrupulous adversaries, and eloquent
advocacy of Conservative principles, are above all praise, and are
appreciated in the highest quarters.

The winter was at length nearly passed through when Parliament
assembled. The distress which the people had suffered, and continued to
suffer, no pen can adequately describe, or do justice to the touching
fortitude with which those sufferings were borne. It wrung the hearts of
all who had opportunities of personally observing it. They resisted,
poor famishing souls! all the fiendish attempts that were systematically
made to undermine their loyalty, to seduce them into insubordination and
rebellion. Let us, by and by, see how far the result has justified this
implied confidence of theirs in the power, the wisdom, and the integrity
of the new Government. After all the boasting of the Opposition--in
spite of their vehement efforts during the recess, to concert and mature
what were given out as the most formidable system of tactics ever
exhibited in parliament, for the dislodgement of a Ministry denounced as
equally hateful to the Queen and to the country, the very first division
utterly annihilated the Opposition. So overwhelming was the Ministerial
majority, that it astonished their friends as much as it dismayed their
enemies: and to an accurate observer of what passed in the House of
Commons, it was plain that the legitimate energies of the Opposition
were paralyzed thenceforth to the end of the session. Forthwith, there
sprung up, however, a sort of conspiracy to _annoy_ the triumphant
Ministers, to exhaust their energies, to impede all legislation, as far
as those ends could be attained by the most wicked and _vulgar_ faction
ever witnessed within the House of Commons!

The precise seat of Sir Robert Peel's difficulty at home was, that his
immediate predecessors had (whether wilfully or otherwise signifies
nothing for the present) raised expectations among the people, which _no
party_ could satisfy; while their measures has reduced the people to a
state in which the disappointment of those expectations seemed to
excuse, if not justify, even downright rebellion. They arrayed the
agricultural and manufacturing interests in deadly hostility against
each other; they sought to make the one responsible for the consequences
springing only from the reckless misconduct of the other. The farmers
must be run down and ruined in order to repair the effects of excessive
credit and over-trading among the manufacturers; the corn-grower must
smart for the sins of the cotton-spinner. Such were some of the fierce
elements of discord in full action, when the affairs of the nation were
committed by her Majesty to her present Ministers, on whom it lay to
promote permanent domestic tranquillity, amidst this conflict between
interests which had been taught that they were irreconcilable with each
other; to sustain the public credit at once, without endangering our
internal peace and safety, or compromising the honour of the nation in
its critical and embarrassing foreign relations. How were they to effect
these apparently incompatible objects? "See," said the enemies of the
Ministry, "see, by and by, when parliament assembles, a cruel specimen
of _class legislation_--the unjust triumph of the landed interest--the
legitimate working of the Chandos clause in the Reform Bill!" But bear
witness, parliamentary records, how stood the fact!

That the present Ministry are mainly indebted for their accession to
power, to the prodigious exertions of the agricultural interest during
the last general election, is, we presume, undeniable. It was talked of
as their mere tool or puppet. Their first act is to lower the duties on
the importation of foreign cattle! "We are ruined!" cried the farmers in
dismay; and the Duke of Buckingham withdrew from the Cabinet. "This is a
step in the right way," said the opponents of Ministers, "but it will
clearly cost Peel his place--then _we_ return, and will go the rest of
the journey, and quickly arrive at the goal of free-trade in corn, and
every thing else, except those particular articles in which _we_ deal,
and which must be protected, for the benefit of the country, against
foreign competition." Then the Radical journals teemed with joyful
paragraphs, announcing that Sir Robert Peel's ministry was already
crumbling to pieces! The farmers, it would seem, were every where up in
arms; confusion (and something a vast deal worse!) was drunk at all
their meetings, to Peel! Nevertheless, these happy things came not to
pass; Sir Robert Peel's Ministry _would_ not fall to pieces; and the
curses of the farmers came not so fast or loud as their eager
disinterested friends could have wished! To be serious, the alteration
of the Corn-Laws was undoubtedly a very bold one, but the result of most
anxious and profound consideration. A moment's reflection of the
character and circumstances of the Ministry who proposed it, served
first to arrest the apprehensions entertained by the agricultural
interest; while the thorough discussions which took place in Parliament,
demonstrating the necessity of _some_ change--the moderation and caution
of the one proposed--several undoubted and very great improvements in
details, and, above all, _a formal recognition of the principle of
agricultural protection_, still further allayed the fears of the most
timorous. To _us_ it appears, that the simple principle of a scale of
duties, adapted to admit foreign corn when we want it, and exclude it
when we can grow sufficient ourselves, is abundantly vindicated, and
will not be disturbed for many years to come, if even then. Has this
principle been surrendered by Sir Robert Peel? It has not; and we
venture to express our confident belief, that it never will. He cannot,
of course, prevent the subject from being mooted during the ensuing
session, because there are persons, unfortunately, sent to Parliament
for the very purpose; but while he is listening with a calm smile, and
apparently thoughtfully, to the voluble tradesmen who are haranguing him
upon the subject, it is not improbable that he will be revolving in his
mind matters much more personally interesting and important to them;
viz. how he shall put a stop to the monstrous joint-stock banking system
frauds, as exhibited at this moment at Manchester, in the Northern and
Central Banking Company, and other similar establishments, blessed with
the disinterested patronage of the chief member of the "Anti-Corn-Law
League." The mention of that snug little speculation of two or three
ingenious and enterprising Manchester manufacturers, forces from us an
observation or two, viz. that the thing _will not do_, after all. There
is much cry, and little wool; very little corn, and a great deal of
cotton. They have a smart saying at Manchester, to the effect, that it
is no use whistling against thunder; which we shall interpret to mean,
that all their "great meetings," speechifyings, subscriptions, and so
forth, will fail to kindle a single spark of real enthusiasm in their
favour, among those who are daily becoming more and more personally
sensible, first, of the solid benefits conferred by the wise policy of
the present Administration; secondly, of the want of personal
respectability among the leaders of the League; and lastly, the
necessity and vast advantage of supporting the agriculture of Old
England. The recent discussions on the Corn-Laws, in Parliament and
elsewhere, the masterly expositions of the true principles on which they
are really based, have thrown a flood of light on the subject, now made
visible and intelligible to the lowest capacity. That some further
alteration may not erelong be made on the scale of duties, no one can
assert, though we have no reason to believe that any such is at present
contemplated; but that the principle of the "sliding scale," as it is
called, will be firmly adhered to, we entertain no doubt whatever. The
conduct of the agricultural interest, with reference to subjects of such
vital importance to them as the Corn-Law Bill and the Tariff, has been
characterized by signal forbearance and fortitude; nor, let them rest
assured, will it be lost upon the Ministry or the country.

The next step in Sir Robert Peel's bold and comprehensive policy, was to
devise some method of recruiting _forthwith_ its languishing vital
energies--to rescue its financial concerns from the desperate condition
in which he found them. With an immediate and perspective increase of
expenditure that was perfectly frightful--in the meditation and actual
prosecution of vast but useless enterprises--of foreign interference and
aggrandizement, to secure a little longer continuance of popular favour,
they deliberately destroyed a principal source of revenue, by the
reduction of the postage duties, in defiance of the repeated protests
and warnings of Sir Robert Peel, when in Opposition. They had, in fact,
brought matters to such a pitch, as to render it almost impossible for
even "a heaven-born minister" to conduct the affairs of the nation, with
safety and honour, without inflicting grievous disappointment and
sufferings, and incurring thereby a degree of obloquy fatal to any
Ministry. They seemed, in fact, to imagine, as they went on, that the
day of reckoning could never arrive, because they had resolved to stave
it off from time to time, however near it approached, by a series of
desperate expedients, really destructive of the national prosperity, but
provocative of what served their purposes, viz. temporary popular
enthusiasm. What cruelty! what profligacy! what madness! And all under
the flag on which were inscribed "_Peace! Retrenchment! Reform!_" Acting
on the salutary maxim, that the knowledge of the disease is half the
cure, Sir Robert Peel resolved to lay before the nation _the whole
truth_, however appalling. Listen to the following pregnant sentences
which he addressed to the House of Commons, within a few moments after
he had risen to develope his financial policy, we mean on the 11th of
March 1842:--"It is sometimes necessary, on the occasion of financial
statements of this kind, to maintain great reserve, and to speak with
great caution. A due regard for the public interest, may impose on a
Minister the duty of only partially disclosing matters of importance.
But I am hampered by no fetters of official duty. I mean to lay before
you the truth--the unexaggerated truth, but to conceal nothing. I do
this, because in great financial difficulties, the first step towards
improvement is to look those difficulties boldly in the face. This is
true of individuals--it is true also of nations. There can be no hope of
improvement or of recovery, _if you consent to conceal from yourselves
the real difficulties with which you have to contend_."[2] There was no
gainsaying the facts which, amidst an agitated and breathless silence,
he proceeded to detail with dreadful clearness and brevity; and out of
which the question instantly sprung into the minds of every one--_are we
not on the very verge of national insolvency_? He proceeded to
demonstrate that his predecessors had exhausted every device which their
financial ingenuity could suggest, down to their last supposed
master-stroke, the addition of 10 per cent to the assessed taxes--thus
adding very nearly the last straw which was to break the camel's
back--the last peculiarly cruel pressure on the lower orders.

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