CHAP. III. this, the King with his own hand struck off the name of The Reign Fox from the list of Privy Councillors. of George III. Press restrictions. Whig secession. Corresponding Society Act. Sheridan on the press. The press was also too powerful an engine to be left unfettered. From 1789 to 1798 the regulation of newspapers frequently occupied the attention of the Legislature. Stringent provisions were made against unstamped publications; the stamp and advertisement duties were increased, and securities taken for ensuring the responsibility of printers. The object of the various laws passed was to restrain the multiplication of cheap political papers among the poorer classes and to subject the press generally to a more effectual control. Fox and his friends were so disheartened by Pitt's repressive measures that, seeing no hope of effecting anything, they seceded from Parliament for a time. The great Whig leader went into retirement at St. Anne's Hill. Pitt proceeded in his course, and on April 19th, 1799, introduced a bill for the suppression of the London Corresponding Society, the Societies of United Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Irishmen, and similar political organisations. The measure also contained further strong provisions against the press. With the passing of this bill, the series of repressive measures for practically suspending the popular constitution of England was complete. During the next ten or fifteen years the libel laws were harshly administered in (inter alia) the cases of the Rev. Gilbert Wakefield, Jean Peltier, William Cobbett, John and Leigh Hunt, and John Drakard, the printer of the Stamford News. But the press was destined to recover itself from its thraldom. In the session of 1810 Sheridan finely said, "Give me but the liberty of the press, and I will give the Minister" (Perceval) "a venal House of Peers, I will give him a corrupt and servile House of Commons, I will give him the full swing of the patronage of office, I will give him the whole host of Ministerial influences, I will give him all the power that place can confer upon him to purchase submission and overawe 991 CHAP. III. of George III. resistance; and yet, armed with the liberty of the press, I will go forth to meet him undismayed: I will attack the mighty fabric he has reared with that mightier engine: I will shake down from its height corruption, and lay it beneath the ruins of the abuses it was meant to shelter." The Prince of Wales having married the unhappy The Caroline of Brunswick in April, 1795, Parliament was Wales. Prince of called upon for a new regulation of his income. An additional annuity of £65,000 a year was granted to him, which gradually paid off his debts, now amounting to no less a sum than £650,000. terial Pitt's Ministry had been reconstituted in 1794, with MinisLoughborough as Chancellor, Grenville as Foreign changes. Secretary, the Duke of Portland as Home Secretary, Windham as Secretary-at-War, and Dundas as Secretary for War, this last being a new appointment. Huskisson became Under-Secretary for War in 1795, and Castlereagh Secretary for Ireland in 1798. But there joined the Ministry in 1796 a young politician who became the most brilliant ornament of the House of Commons after the death of Pitt and Fox. This was George Canning, who George accepted the post of Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Canning. Canning, who was the son of a poor barrister, was born in 1770. His uncle, Stratford Canning (father of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe), sent him to Eton, where he had a distinguished career. He subsequently proceeded to Oxford, and on leaving there went to the bar. At first a Whig, in 1793 he was induced to enter Parliament for Newport, Isle of Wight, as a follower of Pitt. He soon made his mark in the House. In 1796 he became member for Wendover, and entered the Government, as already stated. In conjunction with Hookham Frere and others, he published in 1797 the famous satirical journal the Anti-Jacobin. The period at which George Canning came into political prominence witnessed also the retirement of Burke from Parliament. In 1794 he suffered severe bereavements by 1 Hansard's Debates, 1st series, vol. xv. of CHAP. III. the death of his brother and his only son, and from this The Reign time until his death-July 9th, 1797-lived in retirement at Beaconsfield. This eminent man, greater as a philosophical than as a practical statesman, was more fitted by his genius for the study than the senate. George III. Death of Burke. Pitt's financial policy. Imposition of the income tax. British slavery. Pitt's financial policy in 1798-9 was of great importance. In the former year he brought forward a scheme of taxation by which he sought to impose the chief burden of the war upon surplus property and income. This scheme had failed, however, and although a sum of £2,000,000 was subsequently obtained by voluntary offerings, the King himself giving £25,000, this was not an expedient capable of frequent repetition. The estimate of expenditure for 1799 was £29,000,000, while the ordinary sources of revenue yielded little more than £6,000,000. Accordingly, in the session of 1799, the Chancellor of the Exchequer resorted to the imposition of the income tax. He proposed to take two shillings in the pound from every income of £200 and upwards. From that amount to £60 a year, at which the tax commenced, there was to be a descending scale of assessment. The proposals were passed by a large majority, and the income tax continued to be levied till the close of the Continental war, with the exception of a slight break for part of the years 1802 and 1803. By the year 1806 the tax had reached the high rate of 10 per cent. The question of slavery in the British islands was not finally set at rest until 1799. It had never hitherto been abolished by positive enactment; and the decision of Lord Mansfield in the case of the negro Sommerset in 1772 that slavery could not exist in England had no legal foundation, but only represented the public opinion of the time. Four years after this the question was set at rest in Scotland. A negro servant of Mr. Wedderburn having claimed his freedom, the sheriff was appealed to, who held that "the state of slavery is not recognised by the laws of this kingdom." The Court of Session was then moved, when it was adjudged that the master had no right to the hegro's service, nor to send him out of the country without his consent. But while the egro in Scotland was now assured of his freedom, the slavery of native colliers and salters continued in that country. They were actually excluded from the Scotch Habeas Corpus Act of 1701, and so pitiable was their condition that in 1775 the Legislature passed an act for their relief. It was provided that colliers and salters commencing work after July 1st, 1775, should not become slaves; and that those already in a state of slavery might obtain their freedom in seven years if under twenty-one years of age, in ten years if under thirty-five. But the act practically remained a dead letter, as the slaves were rarely able to press for a decree of enfranchisement through the Sheriff's Court; so, finally, in 1799 a measure was carried by which their freedom was absolutely established. The great legislative event of the year 1800 was the passing of the Act for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland. This measure will be fully described in the ensuing Book (XII.), dealing with the Irish Parliament. By a proclamation dated November 5th, 1800, the members of Parliament then sitting for England were declared to be members of the first Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which was appointed to meet on January 22nd, 1801. The Union with Scotland had been effected without a prior dissolution of Parliament, and that precedent was followed now, although the passing of the acts of union involved the extinction of the Parliaments of Scotland and Ireland and a fundamental change in that of England. Parlia The first united Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland The first met on the day appointed. As the transfer of the Irish united representation had changed the composition of the House ment. of Commons, it was thought fit, seeing that the form of oath was slightly altered, that all the members should be resworn. A new Speaker was also elected, the choice falling upon Addington, the occupant of the chair for many years past. CHAP. III. of The Catholic question. Pitt and his colleagues resolved to take advantage of The Reign the union with Ireland to make concessions to the Roman George III. Catholics. This resolve led to the downfall of the powerful Minister, after an uninterrupted ascendency of seventeen years. The question of the Catholic claims was most distasteful to the King, and he had even suffered himself to be persuaded that he was morally restrained by his coronation oath from assenting to any further measures for the relief of his Roman Catholic subjects. He observed to Mr. Dundas at the levée on January 28th, 1801, "I shall reckon any man my personal enemy who proposes any such measure, the most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of!" The next day he wrote to the Speaker desiring him to "open Mr. Pitt's eyes to the danger arising from the agitating this improper question.' Canning advised the Premier not to give way, and Pitt, who had already determined to make a stand, was supported by the Cabinet generally as well as by other political friends. On February 1st he made a formal communication to the King regarding his intentions. The King was very angry, and said to the Duke of Portland, "Were he to agree to it, he should betray his trust and forfeit his crown; that it might bring the framers of it to the gibbet." Addington endeavoured to accommodate matters, but Pitt, who was equally determined with the King, resigned. Constitutional authorities blame Pitt for his mismanagement of the Catholic question at this time. He ought not, as he did, to have concealed his intentions for a long time from the King. It was also somewhat surprising that only a few weeks after his resignation, when he heard that the King attributed his illness to the Minister's conduct, he conveyed an assurance to his Majesty that he would not revive the Catholic claims. During Pitt's Ministry upwards of a hundred and forty peers were created or promoted. Pitt resigns. Adding Addington was now entrusted with the task of forming ton Prime an administration. Henry Addington, who was born in 1755, was the son of Anthony Addington, Lord Chatham's family physician. He was called to the bar, and became Minister. |