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with matters of transient political or party interest. On the 28th of June, Mr. Brougham introduced a subject of vast and permanent importance, his plan for the education of the poor throughout England and Wales. It would be impossible to give, in passing, any adequate idea of a plan so comprehensive, so mutually dependent in its parts, and sustained by so great a variety of new and curious facts. It would be difficult even to characterise it by any adequate expression. He delineated what may be called a topographical chart of education through England, and submitted a system for giving education to a certain number of children at a certain cost, and for liberating the existing charitable endowments from abuse and misappropriation, in order to their being applied to the execution of his plan. This bill was read a first time unopposed; and postponed by mutual agreement to the succeeding session.

An effort was made, at the same time, by sir James Mackintosh, to follow up the enlightened views of sir Samuel Romilly for reforming the barbarisms of the criminal laws. The committee appointed on this subject, in the preceding session, recommended several reforms. Sir James Mackintosh, who most probably drew up the able report of the committee, submitted in accordance with its suggestions six bills: two for taking away the capital part of the offences of stealing privately in dwelling-houses, and in shops and warehouses; the third as affecting theft on navigable rivers; the fourth for repealing certain obsolete capital acts; the fifth for converting certain specified capital into

simple felonies; the sixth, and most important, for mitigating the punishment of forgery. Three of these bills the first, fourth, and fifth passed the house of commons intact, but were grievously maltreated and maimed, especially by the chancellor, on their way through the house of lords.

Manufacturing distress, it has been observed, was somewhat mitigated; but such was the false position into which the country had been brought by wars, subsidies, loans, and toryism, that one great division of the community could not breathe freely without reducing the other to a struggle for existence. Hitherto the pressure was chiefly upon the occupiers of the land. The owners, who saw it must soon reach them, made an effort for protection in the house of commons. Messrs. Sumner and Gooch, members for Surrey and Suffolk, moved and seconded the appointment of a select committee to enquire into the state of agricultural distress, as set forth in the petitions presented to the house. Both the mover and the seconder objected chiefly to the fallacious mode in which the averages were returned, not to the protecting bill of the preceding year. The farmer, they said, was receiving only 728., when he was supposed to be receiving 80s. a quarter, the protecting price against foreign importation. Mr. Frankland Lewis, in an able speech, supported the motion, but with a view to more extensive and profound enquiry. The question was supported by Mr. Western and Mr. Brougham, opposed by Mr. Robinson (lord Goderich), Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Ricardo, Mr. Coke, lord Milton, and the ministers. An adjourned debate was expected,

and several of the treasury corps thought they might retire for the night. The discussion was protracted to four o'clock in the morning ; when the motion was carried, to the astonishment of its supporters, by a majority of 150 to 101. This vote, however, was subsequently in a great measure neutralised by an instruction to the committee limiting them to a consideration merely of the averages.

It is one advantage of public distress, in a country where the people are intelligent and enterprising, and discussion free, that it hastens the developement of the true principles of commerce. The tables of both houses were loaded with petitions for a free trade. The ship-owners, with others interested in monopoly, were, it is true, equally if not more active; besieging, however, the ministers rather than the parliament. The general subject was brought before the house of lords by lord Lansdowne, on the 26th of May. After an exposition of his views, in a speech of superior ability and information, he moved the appointment of a committee to consider the means of extending the foreign trade of the country. His leading principles were, to abolish all duties absolutely prohibitory; relax the navigation laws; especially cultivate trade with France; and open the East India monopoly. The motion, after an able speech from lord Liverpool, in which he rather disserted on the subject than replied to lord Lansdowne, was agreed to; and towards the close of the session, Mr. Wallace, vice-president of the board of trade, introduced into the house of commons a measure for a sub

stantial relaxation of the navigation laws and warehousing system, which passed into a law.

The civil list, after the rejection of a motion made by lord John Russell for enquiry, was settled at 1,057,000l. The budget of the year was next introduced by the chancellor of the exchequer. It was chiefly distinguished by his borrowing 5,000,000%. by private contract, and 12,000,000l. from that now contemned delusion the sinking fund. Mr. Vansittart, whilst he thus laid impious hands on the sacred fund, gave the existing generation the consoling assurance of his arithmetic, that the public debt would be paid off by the sinking fund in exactly forty-seven years!

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The public mind was now engaged and excited by one engrossing topic - the mutual declaration of war between George IV. and his consort. queen's movements from the Alps towards England, during the latter part of the month of May, were announced by her friends with menacing triumph, and watched by her husband and his friends, like the advance of an invading enemy, with much bravado and other manifest signs of fear.

It is necessary to advert for a moment to some preceding circumstances.

The degradation of the princess of Wales, it has been observed, was contemplated two years before, and abandoned only through the remonstrances of her daughter. The princess Charlotte was not long dead when the project was revived. In 1818, Messrs. Cooke and Powell, the one a barrister, the other an attorney, were charged with a secret commission to take evidence in Italy respecting the

conduct of the princess of Wales. Arrived at Milan, they were joined there by two other agents colonel Browne, an Englishman, well acquainted with the language and character of the people, and an Italian named Vimercati. This commission sat for a considerable time, and collected a great mass of evidence. The princess of Wales, upon learning that persons were thus employed in purveying charges against her, complained publicly, by letters printed both in English and foreign newspapers, that she was beset by spies and calumniators; that attempts were made to suborn her servants against her; that her bureau was broken open and robbed of papers; and that her life was attempted by poison.

Her situation at the time was distressing in the extreme. She was repelled by foreign courts, insulted by English ambassadors and other diplomatic agents, and avoided by such English travellers as had pretensions to be received at the court of her husband. It was rumoured through Europe that she lived in a state of the coarsest profligacy with a paramour whom she had raised from the situation of her travelling courier to that of her chamberlain. These imputations might be wellfounded; but they might also be what she proclaimed them—the result of an organised system of defamation by which she was constantly beset. She bore them with an astonishing passiveness, which may be construed either into abandoned, shameless depravation, or conscious innocence and great force of character.

Mr. Brougham possessed the confidence of the

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