The Right Honourable Sir James Stephen ..

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Introduction

NO complete biography of my Father has been written, nor could any such task now be attempted. It was deliberately declined, soon after his death in 1859, by the tmited judgment of his widow and children. And this decision was taken on two grounds. The chief and most obvious objection to the undertaking lay in the fact that the main work of his life was done in the Colonial Office (as Permanent Under-Secretary) under conditions precluding its being claimed as his own — so that any biographical record of it must of necessity have been so imperfect as to be misleading. In the second place, the thought of publishing any biography of one who in all things so deliberately preferred privacy appeared to us to be almost forbidden by the very strength of his influence.

Yet this natural reluctance has in some degree been lessened by time; and it so happens that each of his surviving sons did publish something respecting him. My brother Fitzjames prefixed a short "Biographical Notice" to the cheap edition of "Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography," published soon after my father's death. This " Notice," while giving the outward facts of my father's life, severely refrains, (under the influence of the feelings just referred to,) from any fulness of personal history. In

VUl.

my brother Leslie's Life of Fitzjames,* published in 1895, there is a sketch of my father, which, though necessarily on a small scale, seems to me to be a wonderfully good likeness as far as it goes.

Something, however, I beEeve still remains to be placed upon record : although for private circulation only. In neither of these two biographical notices was it possible that any adequate account should be given of his religious experience, or of the profound and devout reverence, which to anyone living in close intimacy wifh my father, must have appeared to be his predominant characteristic. His religious opinions may be gathered with some fulness from his published writings ; and I am in possession of many letters from which some additional light may be thrown upon them. But that habitual preference for privacy— that reserve in speaking of what was most sacred to Mm, — already alluded to affects even his correspondence, and makes it difficult fully to convey, even by his own words, the nature of his living influence on those aroimd him.

It is not, indefidi,. the form taken by people's opinions, respecting the mysteries of the Divine Life that chiefly concerns those who come within their influence. It is rather the manner of working^ of the Life itself in each heart, the degree in which it is faithfully yielded to, and the nature of the spiritual fruits borne by it, which give to any record of individual experience its value as a part of " the inheritance of the saints in light ; " leaving behind a radiance able in its measure to illuminate other lives.

• "Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stepken,," by his brother, JUeslis Stephen. Smith, Elder and Co., 1895.

IX.

That which, above all things, I should wish to convey is a glimpse of something less tangible, more lasting, than any opinion, however deeply cherished. Such a glimpse of the kind of influence exerted by my father's character, may, I think, even now be conveyed by a gathering up of the impressions left on each of his three stirviving children, together with a brief mention of the main facts of his life, and such passages from his private correspondence as are still available, and as seem to be most characteristic. The result will certainly not be a full-length portrait, but a mere sketch from memory. Such a sketch may, I trust, be given without transgressing any of the limits he himself would have wished to impose upon his children. That after more than forty-six years from his death, such a compilation, privately printed, should be the nearest approach to a record of his full and laborious life, seems to me to be in a certain sense in harmony with the hidden nature of his work for his country, and with the love of retirement which accompanied, and in some degree veiled, his rare gifts.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction vii

Letters to T. E. Dicey, Miss Venn, Alfred Stephen,

Chapter II 1834— 1839

Letters to Henry Taylor, Miss Venn, Miss Thornton, Sir T. F. Buxton, T. Bahington, T. E. Dicey, Miss Macaulay, Mrs Austin, Henry Venn, Mrs Hodson

Colonial Office, Downing Street

" My dear Taylor, — Elliot has just shown me your note, sounding the loud timbrel in echo to all the sackbuts, dulcimers, and all kinds of music which your critics are ringing in your ears. I was pretty much ashamed of the Jew's-harp with which I struck into the concert, — that is the truth of it. But I have long since come to the conclusion that a man who will not very often do what he is ashamed of, will never do anything to be proud of.

" If I were not growing an old man, I should

certainly betake myself to the formation of a style for the transfusion, in the most pleasing and effective way I could, of my thoughts into other men's heads. But what matters it in what phrases one addresses the Right Honourable Spring Rice, or the Right Honourable Poulett Thompson ? My present patchwork vehicle will continue to serve my purposes well enough, being made up of the precision of a special pleader, embellished with antitheses, and a Johnsonian rumbling. I protest, I think it almost too good for the base uses to which all my mental progeny are destined.

" I was not, I beheve, quite sincere in controverting Lockhart's theory about the elements of which ' Van Artevelde' is composed. But I spoke with perfect

truth in saying the great merit of the character

consists in its depths, and recesses, and dark places ; and in its capability of suggesting various explanatory theories — or, in other words, in the close relationship it bears to human nature in a very peculiar and refined form indeed ; but so refined as rather to have deepened than obliterated any of the great characteristics of man as he actually is. Now this is very

high praise, which you fully deserve

" I think you have succeeded in establishing a

wide, an honest, and an enduring fame ; and I am glad of it, sincerely and heartily. Only remember that Burns was a good exciseman, and that Wordsworth is eminent as a stamp distributor ; and therefore do not let your Poetship snort and grow saucy over the humdrums of correspondence with Smith of Barbadoes or Smythe of Guiana. Thus ends a gratulation, one, I am sure, of a multitude, but I hope not from the warmest of your friends and admirers, by many — because on that supposition you must be very rich in both.

" I am, my dear Taylor

" Most truly yours

D2 "James Stephen."

" The newspapers say, and I suppose truly, that Lord Melbourne is to form a Ministry ; which means that the extreme members of the present Government, Brougham, Spring Rice, Grant, and perhaps Lord Althorpe, are to stay in, with an accession of Whigs of a deeper dye than Lord Grey. Now I hate, abhor, loathe, detest, abominate and execrate writing political letters or reading them, especially to you ; so if you please, the Ministry we will let hang or drown themselves as they see best "

i6th Nov., 183s

" I quite agree with you that with a view to

deliberative, far-sighted, and to use once more the much-injured word, philosophical Government, we should have studious and speculative men ; standing aloof from mere despatch writing, and projecting schemes of comprehensive and remote good. But, sound and correct as all this is in theory, I do not know my alphabet better than I know that this is not the spirit of the English Government, and that the ambition of every Secretary of State and his operations will be bounded by the great ultimate object of getting off the mails. The speculator in a garret will cast his pearls before swine. He will give up his speculations to mix in the active scene around him, and will be ere long converted into an addition to the already formidable number of persons who jostle each other as competitors for intellectual employment in the despatch writing hne.

" I do not refer to Mr Spedding especially, although I am quite sure that when the ambition of his nature, which is not dead but merely asleep, shall be roused by the stimulus of public employment, he will not only claim, but obtain for himself in twelve months a position second to that of no person under this roof in respect of the amount and nature of his active service, and will at last merge in obscure drudgery talents qualifying him for a very high station amongst the political or literary aristocracy

of his age "

" What I have thus undertaken I shall perform

to the best of my ability, but with a conviction continually increasing in strength that any exercise of authority over a group of persons who are penned up from day to day like so many sheep in a fold must subject the Pastor to many a rough assault, and call on him to arm himself with an indifference to the feelings of those about him, which it is not in my nature to acquire "

3rd February, 1836

" If there is any faith in Governments, I am an

Under Secretary of State Philosophy, apathy,

the consciousness of advancing years, a temper not very ambitious, and not a little disposed to be awestruck ; — these, and fifty other such elements of thoughts and feelings as these, blend together on the arrival of any success in life, and repeat the chime of 'vanity of vanities,' without my being sent to a higher source for it ; but when I think where and by whom that legend was written on all that we either attain or desire, oh dear ! oh dear ! what a poor business does my Under Secretary of Stateship and my ;^2000 of annual income appear — but not so, dearest

E , the love of you all at Hereford. The deeper

I plunge into these worldly cares, the deeper does the value of that love sink into my heart, and the more delightful appears the prospect (when I can indulge it,) that when these cares are over I shall be with you all, if not in the evening of life, yet perhaps in the dawn of eternity. If I were an apostle, how fervently could I pronounce over my friends at Aylstone Hill the apostolic benediction of ' Grace, mercy, and peace, be with you all,' — but what have these Government offices to do with that sacred office .-' I much more need the interposition of your and J 's and C 's and your Aunt's supplications on my behalf, for I am still on a slippery place, and am whirling about, mentally and bodily.

" Ever dearest E most affectionately yours

To Miss Thornton

ist April, 1837

" At home I have no longer the company of

my two boys, but while my schoolfellows are nursing their grandchildren, I am playing with a daughter only just old enough to have bestowed her affections for the first time on a doll. My life will never be the prey of a biographer, and is not worth an autobiography. But if that series of small events through which I have been passing should ever be made the subject of a true and faithful history, it would show how many blessings may be accumulated on one man's head. What more it would prove, I value your regard too much to tell you "

To Sir T. F. Buxton

[iVo date]

" When I look on the last 24 years of my life, all of which have been passed either in the Colonial Office or in a close official connection with it, I cannot but be thankful for the innumerable opportunities which have been afforded me of contributing to the mitigation, if not the prevention, of the cruel wrongs which our country has inflicted on so large a portion of the human race. The retrospect awakens other and less agreeable thoughts, which, as they relate to myself, I may as well keep to myself. But now that life has passed its meridian, and the shadows are growing longer, I can truly say that there is no other situation which could have been assigned to me, which, if the choice were now to be made, I should so deliberately prefer and so gratefully accept. Your own more conspicuous and public career has been attended with far more momentous results. As there is very little disparity between our ages, so it is not improbable that our labours may reach their close at nearly the same period. I shall lay down my weapons, whenever that time may come, with a fervent hope that they may be taken up by some successor who, inheriting my own views, may have greater power to carry them into effect ; but so long as I retain my position, may this right hand forget its cunning if I am faithless to the cause to which your life and the lives of our departed friends have been devoted "

To T. Babington

Brighton, Oct., iSjj

" I hope before many weeks to receive Mr

Wilberforce's Life, which his sons are passing rapidly through the press. It is hardly possible that they should avoid disappointing expectation, but I have a very sanguine hope that the book will be a good one. I have read a great deal of it in MS. with great interest. He now forms one of a large circle of your friends and my own who are united in a far nobler society than that to which they belonged when we knew them ; although I think it would have been difficult to find any social circle more worthy of respect and love than that of which Mr Wilberforce was the centre. I think with deep gratitude and affection of many of its members, Henry Thornton, Bowdler, and others who are gone, yourself, Macaulay, Gisborne and some few more who remain. Although you and they are now much withdrawn from any society except that of your own households, I rejoice in the certain conviction that an unbroken peace and

1 834— 1 839 47

tranquillity have taken the place of the more animated pursuits of former days, and that you are full of comfort, whether your views are directed to the journey which you have passed or to that which awaits you. Yet your path has not been altogether through smooth places. On the contrary, I know few men who have been called to greater exercise of faith and patience, and none who has borne them with greater steadfastness of mind.

" My wife joins with me in the sincere wish and earnest prayer that every blessing may rest upon Mrs Babington and yourself which is compatible with the greatest of all blessings, that of being made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. That is a Scriptural phrase which is rivetted in my mind by the glowing and solemn manner in which I heard it repeated by Mr Wilberforce on one of the last occasions I ever conversed with him ; and it occurs to me the more readily now in writing to you, as I recollect that about the same time he spoke of you in terms of affectionate regard such as I never heard him use of any other human being "

" I see nobody, I hear of nobody — I have

nothing to do, to say, or to think of, but Canada."

Colonial Office

Sth Dec, 1837

" It was quite time for me to be at my post. We have a Canadian rebellion on hand, or the very next thing to it, with many other ills "

" Oh Canada ! what wrongs have I done thee

that thou thus pursuest me in my house and my office, my walks and my dreams ? "

In 1838 my father contributed to the " Edinburgh Review " the first of the series of articles afterwards published by him under the title of " Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography." Of these essays my brother Fitzjames says, in the biographical notice already

mentioned — " The composition of the essays

was almost the only relaxation their author enjoyed for many years. He used to write them early in the morning and late at night, or during the occasional hoUdays which his official occupation afforded. These hoHdays were, however, very uncommon. For many years he never left London for a month together, and though this was not the case during the last five years of his official life, he transacted business during the summer in the country, with exactly the same regularity as in London. It may therefore fairly be said that the essays must not be supposed to give the full measure of the powers of their author. They merely show the amount of literary exertion of which he was capable, whilst the powers of his mind were principally directed to other pursuits." To this my brother Leslie adds — ■" I will not express any critical judgment of their qualities, but this I will say: putting aside Macaulay's Essays, which possess merits of an entirely different order, I do not think that any of the collected essays repubUshed from the ' Edinburgh Review '

indicate a natural gift for style equal to my father's. Judging from these, which are merely the overflowing of a mind devoted to other most absorbing duties, I think that my father, had he devoted his talents to literature, would have gained a far higher place than has been reached by any of his family."

This is perhaps the best place in which to quote the account given by my brother Fitzjames of the official duties from which my father sought occasional relaxation in the lighter occupation of literature.

" The position," he says, writing in i860, " which Sir James Stephen occupied in the Colonial Office was a very singular one. The British Colonies are a collection of many separate States, of every degree of importance, from nations like Canada and New South Wales down to the rock of Heligoland, inhabited by a few Germans. The authority of the Crown over these dependencies differs in its origin, its extent, and its limitations. It has to be applied to very different objects, and to populations differing not merely in race, in religion, in law, and in language, but in all other respects, by which the Cingalese, the Caffres, the New Zealanders, and the Hottentots are distinguished from the English settlers of Canada and Australia, the Dutch Boers of the Cape, the French of the Mauritius, and the mongrel populations of Malta, Gibraltar, and the Ionian Islands. In some of these communities the Crown exercises, through the Secretary of State for the Colonies, powers of the most extensive kind ; others, as Canada and New South Wales, are independent in all but name ; and others are, or during Sir James Stephen's tenure of office were, mere infant settlements, dependent, to a great extent, on the central government for the verysimplest elements of civil society. To know exactly what were the powers and rights of the English Government in respect of each of these communities, to know the history of all the relations between the United Kingdom and each of its dependencies, and to be able to give an account of the state of parties and local poUtics in every one of them, was one part of what was required of the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. There was hardly any kind of political question upon which he was not bound to be able to advise the parliamentary head of the department when the occasion arose, for the successive Secretaries of State of necessity laboured under a deficiency of special knowledge which it was his duty to be prepared to supply.

" It was also his duty to prepare the drafts of almost all the more important despatches, and of the numerous Acts of Parhament which were required by every colony in turn. Upon subjects which were but httle understood by the public at large, and which excited but little general interest, this task was often hardly distinguishable from that of government and legislation, and it would perhaps be difficult to mention any man of his generation who could claim the title of a legislator with more justice than Sir James Stephen.

" The understanding upon which the permanent offices in the Civil Service of the Crown are held is that those who accept them shall give up all claim to personal reputation on the one hand, and shall be shielded from personal responsibility on the other. Though Sir James Stephen was at one time the object of the most bitter personal attacks (often for measures to which he had opposed all the resistance in his power) he never complained of this compact, and his family have no wish to claim for him a reputation which he jiever thought of claiming for himself. It matters little now what share he individually took in the great questions which, during his tenure of office, arose between the United Kingdom and the colonies. Praise or blame can neither affect him nor change the opinion which those who knew him best entertained of him ; but without attempting to lift the veil with which official life must of necessity cover those who enter upon it, it may be said that it fell to his lot to assist in two of the most remarkable transactions even of this century. The first was the abolition of slavery, the second was the establishment of responsible government in Canada. With each of these, and indeed with all other public transactions with which he was concerned, he was connected in the same way. He prepared the measures which others advocated, and furnished many of the arguments and much of the information which they employed. He had, in addition to this, the wearisome and laborious task of superintending the detailed application of the principles which the legislature had established. This was generally a very tedious and most unpleasant process. The controversies which arose with the provincial legislatures of the various West Indian Islands in relation to the arrangements required by the abolition of slavery were as bitter as they were obscure ; and the relations between this country and Canada were confused and entangled in every possible way by personal and party questions at home, and by the violent dissensions which existed in Canada itself. The difficulty of the transaction of all this business was aggravated by the fact, that though great weight was attached to Sir Jame^ Stephen's opinion and advice by his official superiors, and though he held strong opinions of his own upon the subjects which came before him, he had no real authority whatever. The principles which he always advocated ultimately obtained complete recognition, but he was constantly obliged to take part in measures which he regretted, and of which he disapproved."

From such fragmentary records as are within my reach, I gather that the chief ground of the attacks on my father, which were so often repeated, in Parliament and elsewhere, was that he was too powerful in the Colonial Office. I suppose that the " compact " referred to above by my brother was not, in my father's time, fully worked out. He certainly seems to have been attacked by name for Colonial Office proceedings in a way which, at the present time, would be thought quite out of the question in regard to the holder of such an office as his. This will appear more clearly from some of the following letters :

1 834— 1 839 53

To T. E. Dicey

" I do not know what possesses me at all to be

writing upon any other subjects than those which engross my mind at the present moment, when I am scarcely twenty-four hours off Sir Wm. Molesworth's impeachment,* in which I hear from Charles Buller, a great friend of Sir William's, that I am to have a conspicuous share. I am, it seems, at your service, a rapacious, grasping, ambitious Tory. On two unequal crutches propped he came, Glenelg's on this, on that Sir G. Grey's name ; and it appears that by the aid of these crutches I have hobbled into a dominion wider than ever Nero possessed, which I exercise like another Domitian. What a thing it is to see oneself as others see one. I protest I had mistaken myself for a kind of philosophical Whig, piquing myself upon my exemption from the servile adoption of any party opinions or feelings, unambitious withal, loving employment partly for its own sake, partly for the sake of the money it procured me ; but as indifferent about the possession of power, either in reality or in appearance, as most men ; and if I had had to write down my own demerit as a public man, it would have been not the excess but the deficiency of self-assertion. However, I am bound to believe that I am a very desperate fellow

*Sir Robert Peel writes (i2th February, 1838):— "Sir WiUiam Molesworth, the Radical member for Leeds, has just given notice of a motion for an address to the Crown, praying for the removal of Lord Glenelg, on account, I presume, of his conduct in respect of Canada." — "Life of Sir R. Peel," by C. S. Parker ; Murray, 1899.

after all ; and if Sir William does not get the better of me, (of which I seriously think he has a very fair chance,) the young man who is going to the Colonies from Rugby had better be on his guard, or he will find my sceptre a whip of scorpions when compared with Dr Arnold's birch. I can assure you, however, that this is anything but a jesting matter to me, and to my friends at the Colonial Office ; and, though you had better not let Sir William know it, I shall be heartily glad if we get well out of the scrape. If the Tories should happen to support him, as they very possibly may, and the Government is broken up by reason of the imputed maladministration of the Colonies, I shall request you to look me out a small house at Brighton, commensurate with my reduced fortunes. Jane says this is all croaking ; but if the whole grove were full of whistling and chirruping without a bass accompaniment from ravens and rooks, why, sir, the harmony of Nature would be destroyed, and the symphonies of creation interrupted. Vide ' Rambler,' or any other part of Johnson, passim — and so farewell.

"James Stephen."

To Miss Macaulay

" My dear F , — I know not how to grieve for

the loss of your father ; though it removes from the world one of the oldest and assuredly one of the most excellent friends I have ever had. What rational man would not leap for joy at the offer of bearing all his burdens, severe as they were, if he could be assured of the same blessed reward ? He was almost the last survivor of a noble brotherhood, now reunited in affection and in employment as in society. Mr Wilberforce, Henry Thornton, Babington, my father, Mr Venn, Bowdler and other not less dear though less conspicuous companions of his many labours, have ere now greeted him as associates in the world of spirits ; and above all, he has been welcomed by his Redeemer with ' Well done, good and faithful servant.' What remains for us but to mourn our infirmity and to labour to render it less ; to set before us his example, to cultivate his benevolence, submission and faith ; and while we yet continue in this state of probation, to promote mutual affection by every office of kindness and of love ? God bless you and dear Tom, and all the rest of your family, and may he soon be here to cheer and support you."

(Amongst letters of i8j8)

No date

" 1st August — the day of final emancipation.*

Thank God that I have lived to see this catastrophe. In my sorry way I have worked for fifteen years to bring it about, and have been well paid for my work. No thanks to me. But my poor father, how would he have rejoiced. — J.S."

* The Apprenticeship system expired ist August, 1838. E i^th August

" I am bothered, — I have been bothered, — I shall

be bothered, with business ; and so you may conjugate

the whole verb.

" Nothing new.— J. S."

14th September

" My news is all public, and not worth telling."

igfh September

" The only novelty is that Lord G. has left

London, and I reign over our Colonies in solitary grandeur. ' My ancient solitary reign.' — ^J. S."

J2th February, 183^

" Being unwilling to answer your note by a Downing Street amanuensis, and having very little use of my own pen, I have postponed writing to you until I could have the assistance of my own Secretary of State, with whose autograph I beheve you are very familiar. Lord Glenelg's resignation is, as you may well suppose, a sad subject with me. He is the tenth Secretary of State under whom I have served, and from the most certain knowledge I can declare that of the whole of that long list he is the most laborious, the most conscientious, and the most enlightened Minister of the pubUc. He is my intimate personal friend, and in all my intercourse with mankind I have never known a man so amiable, guileless and true. For four years together I have been passing some