The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

THFI PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858

Those of our readers who can carry back
their memories to the period immediately suc-
ceeding the fall of the Duke of Wsn.r.is(iToN's
Administration, will doubtless remember that
the charge, braught by the Whigs and Radicals
of those days, on which they laid the greatest
stress, and which was always in their months,
to damage in the eyes of the people their
Tory opponents, was the reckless manner
in which they had carried on wars which were
declared to have been "unnecessary," and thereby
the Tories had weighed down the country by
fastening a heavy debt on its resources. This
accusation was the stock-in-trade whereby all
the Whig Radicals contrived to raise an outcry
against the Tory party ; and first and foremost
in setting afoot this outcry was Lord JOHN
RUSSELL. What the Whigs would have done
without it, Heaven knows; if they had been de-
prived of it, the Reform Bill might never have
become law. It was because they fully per-
suaded the multitude that the vast amount of the
National Debt was the result of Tory policy—
a result which Whigs would have avoided—
that they created against the Tory statesmen
of those days that hostile feeling which carried
the Reform Bill. At a speech delivered by Lord
JOHN to his then constituents at Stroud, in which
he produced a catalogue of Tory offences, the
two most prominently put forward were the large
creation of Peers, and the having raised the
National Debt between 1793 and 1815 from two
to seven hundred millions.

Now, the whole gist of this charge de-
pended on the fact that the war which caused
the debt was an unnecessary one, and
might have been avoided. Accordingly, the
Whig Radicals and their organs always
affirmed that Mr. Prrr embarked his country in
the war, in order to crush the revolutionary
principles which then were triumphant in France;
and this affirmation was frequently accompanied
with a sneer at the foolishness of the attempt on
the part of Mr. PITT to annihilate abstract
principles by means of physical force. All who
can remember the days of the Reform struggles,
must remember that this was the language of the
Whigs and Radicals in every society and on every
hustings.

And yet, in truth. it had no foundation in fact.
Mr. PITT, it is well known, hailed the early dawn
of the French Revolution with undissembled
satisfaction. Indeed, who could have anticipated
its horrors, when peace and progress were on the
lips of every man, and all seemed to have but one
object in view, the amelioration of the condition
of mankind ? But even when many of the revoltin„,*
atrocities, which marked its course, had appalled
mankind, it never seemed good to Mr. Purr to
embark England in a war, in order to interfere
for their prevention. For Mr. Purr resolutely
refused to allow this country to be a party to the
forcible interference in the internal affairs of
France, which was attempted by the armies of the
Allied Sovereigns, under the Duke of BRUNS-
%mi.:, in 1792. The celebrated decree of the
Convention, offering French assistance to the dis-
affected in every country to overthrow the
established Government, afforded, indeed, ample
ground for a declaration of war, had Mr. PITT
been so inclined. There were besides other matters
on which the French Government gave such of-
fence to England as would have justified a recourse
to hostilities ; but Mr. Purr continued his negotia-
tions until the French Government cut them short
by declaring war against England. France took the
initiative, and lett to England no other course
but resistance. " We were forced into the war
" against our will," was Mr. Purr's emphatic
declaration in Parliament two years after its com-
mencement. War was directly opposed to all
Mr. PITT's policy ; whereas, no one can fairly
study the history of those times, and deny, that
war was the deliberate policy of the French
rulers—war, not for this or that injury or provo-
cation, but war, as a measure advantageous to
them, in itself, at which, by some means or
other,they were determined to arrive. After the war
began, .fr. Purr twice entered into arduous nego-
tiations for its termination, and the Tory Govern-
ment of Mr. ADDINOTON actually concluded the
Peace of Amiens, which was soon broken by the
aggressions of the First NApomm. Mr. Purr,
having again become First Minister in 1803, cer-
tainly continued to carry on the war, which had
thus been again commenced by the French
Government ; but he always declared that

although he would not allow England to stoop to
dishonour, yet that he was, at any moment, ready
to accede to any honourable peace, which should
present a reasonable prospect ofsafety and duration,
We seek not, however, to conceal that Mr.
Prrfs great rival, Mr. Fox, did not take this
.
view of Mr. Prrr's conduct. Ile argued long
and often, but in vain, to prove that Mr
PITT originated the war. When negotiations
were carried on for peace, it was Mr. Pirr's
fault that they were not successful. He war
either insincere in his efforts, or most unskilful
in their application. Within a year of Mr.
Fires death, Mr. Fox told the House of Com-
mons that " Mr. Prrr's system had failed in
" restoring peace to Europe, but that his own had
" never been tried." The moment, however, for
Mr. Fox trying his own system was then close at
hand. Mr. Fox became Foreign Secretary
on the death of Mr. Prrr. He aceordingfy
forthwith opened negotiations with the French
Emperor. Everything was in his favour. !lc
had always spoken with respect, sometimes
with admiration, of NAPOLEON. The oppor-
tunity was singularly felicitous, for, as the
reviewer states, " Shortly after Mr. Fox's ac-
" cession to office, the offer by a Frenchman
"to assassinate BONAPARTE caused him to
" communicate directly with the French Go-
" vernment, and the communication made pre-
" rented an opportunity for opening a nego-
" tion for the restoration of peace." Lord YAR-
MOUTH and Lord LAUDERDALE were the chosen
plenipotentiaries to try Mr. Fox's " system."
The result of their labours we will not describe
in our own terms, but in those of Mr. Fox
own Whig colleagues, who had to explain it to
the nation after Mr. Fox had followed Mr.
PITT to the tomb.

" His Majesty," said the Royal Commissioners,
in opening the Session of 1807, " has used his
" utmost endeavours to negotiate a peace com-
" patible with the honour and interests of his
" people and the general security of the world,
" but the ambition and injustice of the enemy
" have disappointed these endeavours." Such
were the results of the trial of Mr. Fox's sys-
tem, under his own guidance. Now, we have
no wish to retaliate on Mr. Fox, and to charge
him, as he charged Mr. Parr, with insincerity
and want of skill. "The enemy" only mani•
fested that same "ambition and injustice"
which he had before invariably displayed. Fox
is not to be blamed because he failed but Fox's
failure vindicated his rival's fame. Not long
after, the late Earl GREY, Mr. Fox's successor
in the Foreign-office, when recommending a
vigorous prosecution of the war, thus expressed
himself in the house of Lords :—" I am far, very
" far, from holding out to your Lordships con&
" dent anticipations of success. The event is in
" the hands of Him who giveth the victory;
" but one thing is certain, that our only hope is
" in resistance, so far as we can resist the obi-
" tious projects of the enemy."
Such was the public testimony given by
the great Whig Leaders to the necessity
of than war with NAPOLEON. It is strongly
corroborated by the reviewer. In speaking of the
negotiations at Paris, carried on under Mr. Fox's
instructions, he remarks : " The practical ex•
" perience of BONAPARTE'S policy, thus acquired,
" convinced Mr. Fox that peace with him was
" impossible, and that the active prosecution of
" the war was inevitable " (page 304). And in
the next page he adds :—" Almost Mr. Fox's last
" words to one of his most intimate friends and
" colleagues, enjoined on his survivors the
" vigorous prosecution of the war."
Thus are the views of the Whig Leaders, pub-
licly expressed at the time, confirmed by. the
existing records of their private opinions;
and yet, notwithstanding all this, which must
then, as now, have been perfectly well-knowon !o
Lord JOHN RUSSELL—a scion of a noble lg
house, and nurtured in the hotbed of Wqi.g•
gery—did that Noble Lord—a dramatist, a philo-
sopher, and, proh pudor !an historian—go oil
decrying his political opponents for having en-
larged the National Debt by carrying on an wine
cessary war, which he did not hesitate to insinuate
would never have occurred had Whig statesmo

rasped the helm of power.
But, as if it were not sufficient that. Lord
JOHN'S confutation should be found in
Ihe
-
writings of his friends, he has (we presume,
advertently) given to the world his confutation by

himself. After having, in his Life of Fox,
described BURKE'S policy of a crusade against
the Revolutionary Government of France, Lord
jos goes on to say :"Happily BURKE'S
..advice was disregarded. Mr. PITT took a totally
"different view of the nature and objects of the war.
"lie was ready to admit that we had nothing
"to do with the internal government of France,
"provided its rulers were disposed and able to
"maintain friendly relations with foreign Govern-
" ments. He sought to confine France within
"her ancient limits, to oblige her to respect
established treaties, and to renounce her con-
"quests. He sought by expeditions to the West
ladies an indemnity for the expense of the
"war. In short, he treated ROBESPIERRE and
"CAR-NOT as he would have treated any other
"French rulers, whose ambition was to be
"resisted, and whose interference in the affairs
"of other nations was to be checked and
"prevented."
Does not one blush for one's specie; when
contemplating such a commentary by the Noble
Lord, in his character of an historian, on the
calumnies and misrepresentations in which he
had indulged with regard to the conduct of his
Tory opponents, in his meaner character of a party
politician P
The war, as we all know, was brought to a
triumphant conclusion by the Tory Cabinet of
Lord LIVERPOOL. The victories of WELLINGTON
threw round the last stages of the conflict—a
conflict of unexampled magnitude—a halo of un-
exampled glory ' • and surely that nature is not to
be envied, which, in the glories of the Nile,
Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, equalled only by
those of Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo,
could find nothing better to chronicle in such
heartstirring events, but the enlargement of
our debt, and the increase of our taxation. Such
views are sordid; ill-befitting a public man who
has held, and is still aspiring to hold, the highest
post in the councils of his Sovereign. More
especially are they ill-befitting one who is too
apt to arrogate exclusively to himself, and to his
party, the attributes of enlightenment and
generosity; but strange, if these virtues can be
justly claimed, that thy should lead, in its pos-
sessors, to making it a matter of complaint
against the Tories, that they would not, whilst
in power, sacrifice to fiscal gain British honour
and British independence.
With a candour, highly to be praised, the
reviewer remarks that " the first and second over-
"throw of NAPOLEON threw a lustre over the
" Cabinet of Lord LIVERPOOL and over Lord
" CAsTLEREAort, as Foreign Secretary ; while
"the same events cast a certain discredit upon
"the Whigs, who had from the beginning con-
demned the policy of the war in Spain."
There are two other points in the article to
which we will briefly advert. The reviewer
quotes a passage from Lord SIDNIOUTII'S life, by
which it appears that Mr. Fox had determined to
respect the King's conscientious scruples on the
Roman Catholic question. For, that when he
was asked it he had no difficulty respecting that
question, his answer was, " None at all ; I am de-
termined not to annoy my Sovereign by
"briniing it forward." It appears, then, that
Mr. ox took precisely the same course which
Mr. CANNLNG adopted on this question—for
which the latter was assailed in PETER PLlntrx's
letters—and has since his death been condemned
by
Whig writers. Whether it was a right or
whether it was a wrong one, no Whig can cen-
sure Mr. CANNING without their great Whig idol,
Mr. Fox, coming in for his share of the censure.
The other point to which we would refer occurs
in.. a note in page 311, where Lord MALNIESBURY'S
diary is quoted, as follows :—" In Novembe.i
" (1806) Lord GRENVILLE made several attempts
"to disunite Prrr's friends. He offered splen-
didly to CANNING and to any three or four
"friends he would name. Lord WELLESLEY was
"the intermediary, and negotiated ably ; but
" CANNLNG remained steady, and from principle."
0n this extract the reviewer remarks :—" There
"Is no trace of this offer in the GRENVILLE c.or-
" respondence or in Lord HOLLAND'S memoirs.
It can scarcely have gone the length which
LOrd MALMESBURY describes." The inference
of the reviewer is erroneous. We hare seen docu-
ments, which are now in existence, which prove
beyond the possibility of doubt that this offer was
not only made, but, when refused, was again
p.bre.sised, and when refused again, pressed for a
time.