Imperial England

Preface

. A conviction that the strange and novel sort of utterances which are heard on every side about the "British Empire" are in some degree attribut able to the absence of any available summary ac count of its growth and defence, has produced the following brief attempt to deal with the subject. It surely ought not to be relegated to the sphere of what is commonly called " politics." It is a matter for the whole, not for a part of the nation. To no class of politicians can the history of the present phenomena be a matter of indifference. Amongst the inhabitants of Great Britain to identify "Imperialism" with a party is an abuse of language. Parties may differ as to the weight which ought to be attached to particular considera tions at a particular moment ; as to questions of peace or war when they arise ; or as to the com parative importance of domestic or foreign affairs. But they cannot differ as to the fact that the

PREFACE.

. IV existing state of affairs has grown out of a long, complicated, most interesting past ; and they are supremely concerned in having a true view of that past put before them. What are politics but an adaptation of the existing circumstances of a State to existing requirements? And how can we gain a right under standing of those circumstances or requirements without a pi'ecise, or at least compendious, know ledge of their origin, of their relation to the history of other States, and of their place in the progress of the human species ? So much being premised, the only necessary condition for useful reflection on the past is that the historical sketch should be fair and true ; that is, that it should not neglect to notice the changes of opinion which have taken place on the subject-matter, that it should rise above mere party watchwords, and, however briefly they may be treated, should give their due proportion to events.

In even such a summary as the present it is hoped that the above characteristics may be discovered. It might, perhaps, be objected to this claim for impartiality that the two Papers which are ap pended to the main treatise are extracts from

PREFACE.

. V Articles which have already appeared in the Quarterly Review. The writer may at least be allowed to express a hope that nothing will be found in either of them which a Whig might not receive as well as a Tory. One of them was written fully nine years ago, and only slightly altered for publication in 1877. The writer would take this opportunity to thank the proprietor of the Quarterly for his kindness in allowing the Articles to be reprinted. M. B. Oxford, January 22nd, 1880.

Chapter I

introduction. It may not be obvious to every one that half the difficulties felt by the inhabitants of the British Isles in measuring their responsibilities as members of an Empire, arise from want of reflection upon the manner in which it came into their hands. They are born and bred islanders ; the Empire seems an anomaly. They may be proud of it, ashamed of it. They may even resent the use of the very word, f curetting that it was common enough even in the last century,* and in this century has become an abso lutely necessary expression for the widely separated masses of population, in every stage of social and political development, which own the gentle sway of the British Sovereign. When Governments extend from the centre in this or even a far less marked manner, it has always seemed necessary to look for a designation which expressed something more than the title of the original king or ruler.

Amongst the fami- * The proof of its common acceptance is to be found in its casual appearance in standard books, in public despatches, and in private journals ; such as in " Junius' Letters," Burke's Works, Lord Sandwich's letters in " Rodney's Life," " Lord Malmejbiiry's Diaries," &c, &c. li lies of the European stock, the name derived from the Roman "Imperium" suggests itself as a matter of course. But, if the existence of their Empire seems a rather strange and unaccountable thing, even to many Englishmen, Scotchmen, or Irishmen, what must it appear to one who has not been born to the in heritance? Perhaps, the best way of realising that there is a difficulty, a difficulty of which we may be unconscious, though all the while displaying the effect of its existence, is to try to imagine ourselves in the place of some person intelligent enough to observe facts, but happening for some reason to be unacquainted with the history of Great Britain.

How hard would a mere looker-on at the present state of things find it to account for the existence of an Empire of such an unrivalled variety, extent, and influence, giving to the British a leading place in the select circle of world governing Powers, and yet all radiating from a narrow insular space at a remote corner of Europe ! Then we may imagine such a person still further perplexed by the comparison of that position with the present condition of other communities which have had, to all appearance, equal or nearly equal natural advantages, such as the Scandinavian kingdoms or the Low Coun tries. It would be by no means sufficient either for us or for him, if we were to point out that the facts which met his eye were simply due to the superior courage and enterprise of the British people, or to their pecu liar insular position, and absurd to ascribe it to accident. Nor would it be of much use to state generally

Introduction

. 3 that the phenomena were the product of differences between the past relationship of England to the Con tinent and that of other States ; for every country has had a history of its own. But in this direction would in fact lie the answer to the question. We should have to ask the enquirer to go with us into a careful survey of English history. It would not be enough to begin with the Modern Empire, or with its defence and growth during the interval which has elapsed since it was founded. We should at least be obliged to preface the account of these later portions of history with a sketch of the earlier times, and our sketch would necessarily comprise the following heads. In the first place, we should have to point out the singularly mixed character of the people of England, the welding together of Romano-British, Anglo- Saxon, and Danish elements which they so hajipily represented, each bringing its own social and political contribution to the common dower.

We should have to observe the significance of the very early conversion of the people to Christianity; to distin guish the peculiar interweaving of ecclesiastical and political training in the formation of the early English Constitution, and how it brought about, working on a kindly soil, the conspicuous superiority of the people of England to all others in domestic civiliza tion, in the character of the English home, the true basis of every great development. We should thus suggest some explanation of the extraordinary felicity of this people, considering the times, in working out the problem of problems, how to unite individual freedom with general order ; and show how, long before the Norman Conquest, there was a promise of this people becoming great. Yet something was wanting. In sketching the history of the Norman Conquest we should see how that something wanted was supplied.

We should have to dwell upon the circumstance that England was conquered by no common men, but by a princely race who had proved themselves the leaders of the Continental families, and seemed fashioned for the express purpose of impregnating more phlegmatic communities with their own ambi tious, enterprising character, already sparkling with not a few of the gems which glistened on the coat of a later chivalry. We should above all mark how they brought with them those claims to Continental territory which have ever since coloured the whole of English history. We should show how, from the moment that Harold was struck down at Senlac, Teutonic England became a great Continental Power, great not from any doubtful claim to Continental territory, but as a matter of fact ; great in comparison with the infant States shaping themselves all around ; great in consequence of those marriages and alliances which, growing out of the Norman Conquest, made the Plant agenet Kings of England more than a match for the slowly-consoli dating French nation ; great from the two, at least partial, conquests of France which those kings effected in pursuit of their claims, during the Hundred Years War. We should have to show how all this led to the

INTRODUCTION.

. 5 rank taken by the insular State in the Fifteenth Century as one of the five governing Powers of Europe, and to a very large proportion of those traditions, and of that training, which nursed within these islands the sense of its people having been marked out for an imperial race. From this great mediæval position we should have to explain that internal disputes dethroned England for a time ; while at the very same period, happily for France, her own growing nationality received such an impulse by the absorption of semi-independent pro vinces that the question of English rule over its old Continental possessions was settled for ever. But we should also have to point out that, even when the English wounds were scarcely yet healed, the one master principle of French policy was contained in the maxim that any sacrifice was to be made, any sum of money paid down on the spot, to buy off an Edward the Fourth or a Henry the Seventh, rather than allow the old enemy once more to obtain a footing in France.

With the advent of the Tudors we should have to show how the system of balancing the European States, all of them by this time con solidated, commenced and flourished, — pretentiously under Henry the Eighth, really and beneficially under Elizabeth ; and how, under the direction of the great Queen, the might of Philip of Spain was overthrown, and the Reformed Churches of Europe were saved from extinction. Under her long and happy reign we should observe the fame of England raised to the highest pitch it had yet attained, and based on a foundation of domestic policy so securely laid as to have remained substantially unchanged since her day. During the century of the four unfortunate Stuarts we should trace a second retreat of Great Britain from Continental affairs, but yet also, mainly through their very errors, a great expansion of Colonial enterprise, bringing with it a considerable development of British commerce; and even, during the brief interval of the Commonwealth, an assertion of the old Elizabethan position with the old English spirit.

But we could hardly fail to point out how the refusal or inability of the Stuarts to take up their proper place in Europe brought about its punishment ; and we should turn with a feeling of relief to the reaction which set in with the Revolution of 1688. Under William and Anne, under Marlborough, Godol phin, and Somers, we should once more find these little islands laying down the law for Europe, and banding its component parts together for the over throw of the French tyrant who, like another Philip of Spain, was bestriding the world, but, like Philip, had to bend at last to the indignant combination of the oppressed. We should then have to describe another, and the last, period, which might be compared with those of the Wars of the Roses and of the four Stuarts, when a disputed Succession once more withdrew the English from effective interference in the affairs of the Con tinent, and encouraged thenenemies to believe that

INTRODUCTION.

. i they had this time retreated from their ancient position once for all. Happily, as it was the last, so it was the shortest of the three periods ; as it was dis tinguished by better government at home than those other periods, so it formed the basis of a better state of things abroad. We pass a few years of painful depression under the aggressive policy of France and Spain, of insults and failures, which, however, did their appointed work ; and we wake up to a glorious spectacle — the emergence of Great Britain out of a sea of difficulties, and the aggressive policy of her neighbours ending, not in the collapse of the Power which had so long confronted them, but in the establishment of the Modern British Empire. Some part of what would be necessary in such a sketch will be found in the two Papers which follow the present one.

It would thus be made evident that the eminence attained by Great Britain in modern times, though the form of its development is but of yesterday, is of no mushroom growth. Its place had been preparing for ages. Its claim to respect is rather that of the ancient family whose credit may have occasionally and for a time, during a long descent,* become obscured, but could never be seriously questioned — some great and well-known family, whose reputation has brightened and broadened at each successive interval. It has occupied a position requiring, not a policy of restless ambition and vaunting self-assertion, but rather heroic defence, patient persistency, judicious action in emergencies, skill in perceiving the changes of affairs and seizing their full significance, fearlessness in assuming the lead devolving on the heir of such responsibilities, and, lastly, a certain moderation which might disarm the resentment in variably attending on success.

That the Empire won by George the Second and Chatham has, on the whole, been preserved and ex tended on the above principles may not be susceptible of absolute proof. It will always remain a matter of opinion. But our ideas on the subject may certainly be cleared by a consideration of the Foreign Policy of Great Britain during the reign of George the Third. Has not the time arrived when historical criticism may be expected to come forth out of the hazy atmosphere of faction, and to confront without alarm opinions which may even in recent days have been called " received opinions," but which only claimed assent because all sides of the truth had not yet become visible ? Has not the time arrived when, instead of measuring the distribution of praise and blame by the application of social and political tests which our own time has made familiar, we may attempt to transport ourselves back to the actual lives of our predecessors, to make allowance for circumstances which were so different from our own, and, keeping fast hold indeed of the eternal principles of truth and morality, observe how far those predecessors honestly used the light which each of them possessed ?

Chapter II. British Foreign Policy At The Close Of The Seven Years

AVAR The reign of George the Third has not only afforded a more fiercely-contested battle-ground of historical opinion than any other in our annals : it is also the longest, the most confused, the most vast in its issues, the most important of all British reigns. It was a period of great wars, great Treaties, great men ; it had also one glorious interval of peace. In such a sketch as the present it will tend to clearness if we divide this long reign into a few distinct parts. When the survey is completed it will be time to gather up results. The conclusion of the Seven Years War may be taken for the first division (1760 — 1763) ; the twenty-one years which succeeded it, including the American War, for the second (1763 — -1781) ; Pitt's Peace Administration for the third (1784—1793); the French Revolution War for the fourth (1793—1802); and the Napoleonic War for the fifth (1802—1815).

It will also be convenient to single out and call to the front the seven chief characteristic figures of the reign, the men to whom the shaping out of events for England was, humanly speaking, due ; and to group the outlines of the survey round each of them. They are the King himself, Lord Chatham, Burke, the younger Pitt, Lord Cornwallis, Canning, and the Duke of Wellington. If in this select catalogue the names of second-rate Ministers, or even of great party-leaders or heroes, are not mentioned, it is because, on a wide retrospect, they seem to be sufficiently repre sented by the King, or because, however dis tinguished, they failed to change the course adopted by the British nation, or, finally, because they were in reality only secondary agents in comparison with those above named. And, first, concerning His Majesty King George the Third.

The space which he occupies on the canvas is so far beyond that of any other person during a large part of the reign that it will be necessary to dis cuss his political position at some length in this place, reserving for a final chapter some notices of other disputed points regarding his life and character. And here let us observe the change which is already taking place in the popular estimate of this prince, or rather the gradual recurrence of opinion to the contemporary estimate. AVe seem to have passed through, and almost come to an end, of what may be called the Reform-Bill period of literature. The fresh burst of exuberant political sentiment which attended the hard-fought Constitutional contests of that time, coloured every species of British writing, and none more than the historical and biograpical portion.

Many generations of schoolboys have GEORGE THE THIRD. 11 grown to manhood under the fascinating teaching of Brougham, Macaulay, and the old Edinburgh Reviewers; of Thackeray, Dickens, and their host of followers. Few have even been aware how much the confident bitterness, conspicuous in the invec tives of thenteachers, was due to the sense those teachers could not but entertain of the divergence of their views from the opinions of the preceding age. The new light throws the old into obscurity. The often-repeated story grows to be uncontradicted commonplace. Scarcely any one supposed that the older views of the King and of his reign would ever again receive attention. But signs of reaction are not wanting in various quarters ; and amongst other changes the present generation is learning to read with other eyes the career of one of the best and ablest sovereigns — certainly, for a large portion of his life, the most popular — that this country has ever possessed.

It must be confessed that to be able to regard King George the Third from this point of view requires that we should still close our eyes and ears to small, and fix them on large things. We must cease to gloat over the passing caricatures and satires and nicknames of the time, the blemishes and infirmities which a nation of inveterate jokers dwelt upon some what more freely than perhaps it would have done, could it have foreseen how these gibes would be used by posterity. The rancour of party spirit, which never ran higher than in this reign, seized Avith admirable cunning on all openings for ridicule, knowing full well its power in a free country. It is the highest compliment that could be paid the King that so much of it fell upon his shoulders. It may be proved to demonstration that a very large part of it was due to his persistent discountenance of vice.

"Peter Pindar" and Gilray are now forgotten, but they left their sting; and its effects have by no means even yet passed away. We may be subject to the effects without in the least knowing the cause. Perhaps, one chief reason for the better opinion beginning to be entertained of the old King is to be found in the fact that he has at last been allowed to speak for himself. The extracts taken from his letters to Lord North by Sir James Mackintosh were of some use, but they were far from satisfactory. It was all that we had till of late years. The recent publication of the whole series by Mr. Donne has been a great step in advance, and numerous other letters have been published in the Lives of William Pitt, Lord Eldon, Lord Sidmouth, the "Buckingham Papers," in Jesse's "Life and Reign of George the Third," and other works.

We have thus materials for forming a judgment which earlier generations had not, and we are better able to under stand what the contemporary generation knew per fectly well. We are at least bound, now that we have fuller information, to ascertain what were the grounds of the King's conduct, and what excuse there was for his mistakes. When we have thus CHARACTER OF GEORGE THE THIRD. 13 adjusted the balance, we cannot escape from the duty of weighing against what remains, the solid merits of his private and public character, the degree in which he really represented the nation, and the success which crowned the life-long efforts of as true a patriot as Alfred the Great, Edward the First, or Queen Elizabeth. In the above Correspondence, and, it may be added, in the nnmerous private journals and memoirs of persons who had close access to the King, only published of late years, we trace a character rare indeed, and such as we might expect to produce great actions.

These actions will speak for them selves ; but it may be remarked that it would indeed be strange, and contrary to all experience, if a life of such moral and religious excellence, if a mind of a type by no means inferior, as some would have us believe, if a youth and manhood passed in contact with consummate intellects, if the habits formed by a rigidly conscientious discharge of duty, if the ex perience of the greatest events which ever befel a kingdom, were to lead a sovereign into political courses which the verdict of posterity would con demn. This of itself ought to make us willing to reconsider unfavourable judgments. To do so is not a matter of sentiment. It is a duty. But is the very influence exercised by the King on the course of affairs — a vast influence, as all acknowledge — is this influence itself an indictment ao-ainst him?

His so-called "Personal Government" is one of the stock charges still to be found in the works of a certain class of writers. It is a vague term. What does it mean ? If the King only occu pied the place assigned him by the Constitution, we cannot blame him. Was this so ? A very few words on this point must suffice. It will of course be admitted that the King did govern in a sense very different from that in which his two predecessors, or any of his successors governed. The former had been quite unable to take up the posi tion of William the Third or of Anne ; for the disputed Succession paralysed them, and the Whig oligarchical government was absolutely necessary for the guidance of the helm. The successors of George the Third came upon a new period, when the House of Commons had grown into a dominant power, and the House of Lords was no longer the narrow aristocracy which it had been in the previous century.

The charge made against George the Third by the last generation, and sometimes still heard, in the matter of " Personal Government," related to his conduct towards his various Cabinets in the period now under review. But it is precisely here that we trace a change. If there is one point on which his torical opinion has settled down more than another, it is on the character of the Whig factions, the tattered fringes of the old Whig oligarchy, which, in their frantic struggles for power, tortured the Sovereign during the first decade of his reign. It was the inherent feebleness of these successive Ad- " PERSONAL GOVERNMENT" 15 ministrations which dragged the nation into the difficulties from which it only emerged at last by a convulsive effort. It was the King's duty to provide better government than they supplied : our sympathies cannot but be with him during his arduous efforts to provide it.

If the course of the struggle handed the country over to the delightful and amiable, but scarcely less incompetent Lord North, it is not the King who was to blame. Fairly regarded, the national misfortunes in this respect are the price paid by Englishmen for the Protestant Succession. A long period of dic tatorship by the great Whig families, if the term may be used for a body of men, was in stinctively felt by the nation to be necessary in order to secure this Succession. But no party can last for ever; and, great as the obligations of the country had once been to Walpole and the whole party, they were now entirely worn out. What was the use of the boasted English Constitution, if it did not provide a counterpoise for the emergency ? Where was it to be found? Not in the House of Lords ; for there on emergencies the " factions" com bined sufficiently to triumph.

Not in the House of Commons ; for it was as yet unable to take an independent part. The Crown remained. It had to work its way by such methods as were open to it ; and these were by no means the best in themselves, but the best available. The people were with the King ; he thoroughly represented the nation ; he could no longer bear bad government, nor could they ; the event justified his action. Perhaps, in support of this view, the words of one who certainly did not err on the side of monarchical proclivities, nor rise above many vulgar errors in relation to this King, may here be quoted. After protesting against an overstrained prerogative on the one hand, and a mere ornamental monarchy on the other, Lord Brougham thus treats the " Personal Government " of George the Third : — "He only discharged the duty of his station by thinking for himself, acting according to his conscientious opinion, and using his influence for giving these opinions effect. . . .

He set one example which is worthy of imitation in all times. He refused to be made a State puppet in his Minister's hands, and to let his name be used either by men whom he despised, or for purposes which he disapproved. Nor could any one ever accuse him of ruling by favourites ; still less could any one, by pretending to be the people's choice, impose himself on his vigorous understanding." * In the other and later conflict with Ministers, in which the King still more fully represented his people — that which immediately preceded the advent to power of William Pitt — the verdict of the best modern writers has gone with the King. If they do not defend his course, or if they only defend it on the plea of necessity, they still more blame the conduct of Fox and his friends. If the one made an unconstitutional use of his position, the others far more blameably strained every Constitutional usage which had hitherto been sanctioned.

He acted with * " Statesmen of the Time of George III.,'' First series, 2nd ed., p. 14. GEORGE THE THIRD'S "PERSONAL GOVERNMENT" 17 and for the people ; they against the people and for their party. And this is the point. Personal government in a sense we may indeed attribute to George the Third ; for no one ever, in any nation, or at any period, paid more minute and unwearied attention to every detail of administration ; but it was the nation govern ing itself in the person of the Sovereign. In all the leading events of the reign — in the American War, the French Wars, the conclusion of Treaties, the support of William Pitt, and even, for some time, of Lord North, the treatment of Ireland, the narrow but con scientious Protestantism which refused to concede the political claims of the Roman Catholics — in all these the great, and generally the overwhelming majority of the people went with their representative man, the King.

We scarcely need except the mistaken policy in which he embarked with reference to Wilkes, or the repressive measures which he and his Ministers held to be necessary at the time of the French Revolution ; for in the former case the violence of mob-law soon produced a reaction, and in the latter the malcontents were far more than balanced by the mass of the people. And then how transient and merely tumultuous were the popular ebullitions with which he was assailed, often the mere product of ignorance and hard times! How deep, how lasting, how dignified was the settled feeling of the nation ! Witness the scenes at his Accession and Coronation, his ternc porary illnesses and his recoveries, his progresses through the country, his visits to the fleet and dock yards, his birthdays, his Jubilee ; witness the sustained feeling of the people during the long final period of his blind and insane solitude, and their emotion at his death !

The nation admired, respected, learnt to trust him implicitly, as if he were its father. This is no figure of speech. It passionately loved and pitied him ; unfeignedly, with every mark of dejec tion, mourned his loss. Having premised so much on the position of the Sovereign, we must now trace his course in the first of the Periods before us. In watching the action of the young King, "born and educated in this country," and glorying " in the name of Briton," at the critical and much canvassed period of the conclusion of the Seven Years' War, we may learn something as to the outlines of British Foreign Policy at an instructive moment. It was just when the modern Empire had been securely founded, under the auspices of the late King, by the genius of Chatham ; and when the new Government, under the direction of a youth, lately come of age, resolved to bring about a peace which should leave the country free to pursue its advantages.