The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-29 00:00:00

,LITERATURE.

Lives of Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles
Stewart. From original papers. By Sir Archi-
bald Alison, Bart., author of " The History of
Europe," &c. 3 vols. Blackwood.
Few men have devoted more time and labour to
the study of the great struggle which desolated
Europe at the commencement of this century than
Sir Archibald Alison. To write the history of
Europe during the eventful years that intervened
between 1789 and 1815 was no easy task. It was a
record of men cast in a Titanic mould, of statesmen
and soldiers beside of whom the celebrities of re-
cent:date seem men of common stature—of incidents
which might make us fancy that the wand of Har-
lequin had passed over the pages of history and
transformed them into a chapter of chivalric ro-
mance. It is difficult for the reader of the present
day, when English supremacy is secure on land and
sea, and the only European wars he has known have
begun and ended in a single campaign, to realise
the desperate nature of that protracted struggle
which extended over 20 years, and cost' Europe
such an amount of blood and treasure that the most
moderate calculations appear almost fabulous. To
pourtray faithfully the events of such a time, to
draw accurately the leading spirits of that stormy
age, demands no common skill, and though it is an
often-told tale, it is one that will not lose its vivid
interest for many generations. Sir Archibald Ali-
son has invested his work with the character of a
history rather than a biography. He justly observes,
in his prefatory remarks, that the lives of such men
as the two eminent brothers who are his subjects
are inseparable from the great public events in
which they bore a part. Sir Archibald's merits as
an historian are well established, and therefore
there is little need to discuss the abilities he has
brought to so arduous an undertaking. As a bio-
grapher he is not altogether impartial, but he has,
perhaps, purposely assumed the character of a par-
tisan in order to counteract the prejudices which
depreciated the merits and capacities of one who,
whatever his errors, was certainly no common
statesman. It was Lord Castlereagh's misfortune,
in spite of enlarged views and some liberal tenden-
cies, to be continually ranged on the unpopular side.
His life, as his biographer confesses, was engaged
in the policy of repression. Much may be forgiven
even in these days of enlightenment to the Minister
in whose time the Irish rebels could gravely con-
template the murder of every Orangeman and the
establishment of an Hibernian Republic; who
formed one of the doomed Administration, whose
Cabinet dinner narrowly escaped becoming a Bor.
mecide feast by the discovery of Thistlewood's con-
spiracy; who lived in an epoch when, not the
national supremacy, but the national existence was
at stake, when treaties were not quite so quickly
arranged as at Villafranca, and when certainly
neither wars nor revolutions were made with rose-
water. Yet his historian asserts that such a policy
was foreign to his character. "So far," he says,
from having been the supporter of tyranny and the
friend of arbitrary government, he was throughout
life the strongest and most determined, as well as
successful opponent of both. He resisted oppression
with Equal vigour whether it appeared in the form
of a dominant Protestant oligarchy in Ireland, of
a tyrannical mob committee in England, of an
imperial despot in France, of an encroaching
Asiatic autocrat in Poland, or of a conclave of
arbitrary sovereigns at Lay bach. His ruling prin-
ciple was not the support of any one party, or the
steadfast resistance to another, but the prosecation
of what he deemed the public interest, irrespective
of the wishes of any man or body of men." It was
this inflexibility which, in his biographer's opinion,
explains his unpopularity. The parties whose
support' had, in his mind, been second to the gene-
ral welfare, became his bitter antagonists, and that
these were varied and numerous, the following ex-
tract will show :

LORD CASTLEREAGH'S ENEMIES

There were several causes which in a peculiar manner
exposed Lord Castlereagh to unpopularity, and weakened
the support which in general combats, and in tho end over-
comes it. From his independence of character and high
moral courage, be would submit to the dictation of no
party, how powerful soever, and was successively brought
into collision with all the factions who divided the Govern-
ment of the country, or aspired to Ps direction ; and they
never could forget the manner in which ho had discomfited
them. The Irish revolutionists could never forgive him
for having put down the rebellion in their country, and ex-
tinguished all hopes of a forcible separation of the Hiber-
nian isle from the crown of Great Britain. The Protestant
oligarchy there, who had so long farmed out its Govern-
ment for their own exclusive benefit, felt indignant at a
champion who had followed up that victory by the hated
measure of the union, and remained through life the steady
supporter of Catholic emancipation. The English Whigs
were of course opposed to a Tory politician who for ten
years led the House of Commons, and successively opposed
all their party moves and legislative measures. The Eng-
lish Tories, though they in public supported, in secret were
jealous of him ; he was an Irishman, and not one of them-
selves; he claimed descent from the magnates of neither of
the great parties which, since the Revolution, had alter-
nately ruled the State. The partisans of Napoleon and of
French domination, whether in this country or the Conti-
nent, were, of course, to the last degree exasperated at the
statesman who, beyond any other human being, had op-
posed their designs sad thwarted their ambition. The
Legitimists distrusted him because he had been willing to
treat with Napoleon at Chatillon, thwarted the ambition of
Russia at Vienna, and kept aloof from the Holy Alliance
at Troppau and Verona. Tho British Radicals were hardly
less infuriated against the Minister who had stood foremost
in the fight with domestic treason, and combated revolu-
tion with its own weapons, and the energy generally found
only in its own supporters. Thus he had, from the very
independence and patriotism of his career, been brought
into collision, at one time or another, with the chief parties
into which his country or Europe was divided, and incur-
red the real hostility of all without having secured, at the
moment at least, the cordial support of any—the usual fate
of those who are actuated by the love of their country
rather than zeal for a party, and pursue measures calcu-
lated for the general good, not those likely to support
the desires of a particular section of the community 1
It was not always, however, that this hos.
tility was manifested. During his lifetime,
however bitter the opposition he encountered,
he filled a prominent and commanding posi-
tion, and received many honours, He had the
satisfaction, while still very young, of winning a
peerage for his father, by his services in bringing
about the Irish Union ; he represented England at
the most momentous Congress that had assembled
for centuries ; and on his return to Parliament the
whole house rose to receive him, as a tribute to the
successful diplomacy which had just completed the
pacification of Europe. The chief responsibilities of
the Administration in those days rested upon the
Foreign Minister, and Lord Castlereagh was not
one to shrink from them. Public affairs seem to
have been his element, for we find him acquiring
distinction at an age when few men have succeeded
in becoming known from the ranks. His great gift
was in the art of swaying his fellow-men, whether
it was shown in smoothing away the obstacles to
the Union, and calming the savage temper of a
discontented people, or at the Congress of Vienna, in
quietly, yet successfully, opposing the cherished
projects of Emperors and Kings. His tenure of
office in Ireland was not of long duration, but it
sufficed to associate his name with the important
measure of the Union (carried, it must be owned, by
uo immaculate means, and to win for him the last-
ing hatred of the school of the Repealers. Few, we '
presume, except Mr. Fergus O'Connor and his
friends, would now be found to maintain the advan-
tages of independence to the sister country, but
in those days language could not be found suffi-
ciently fervid to denounce the Irishman who had
" sold his country." It is greatly to the credit of
Lord Castlereagh's sagacity that he consistently
advocated the removal of Catholic disabilities. His
memoir on the Catholic claims, addressed to the
Government in 1801, when he had just retired from
office on their account, is a sample of just and
weighty reasoning. There are others of his earlier
papers which show a degree of calm and sagacious
statesmanship very uncommon in so young a poli-
tician. His tenure of office as War Minister was
chiefly associated with the unfortunate Walcheren
expedition, the cause of whose disasters was, how-
ever, to be found rather in the inefficiency of the
general than in the indiscretion of the projector
of the movement. That Lord Castlereagh him-
self fully appreciated the importance of selecting
the right man for the right place is proved
by by the energy with which he recommended
command
appointment of Wellington to the
in the Peninsula in spite of
precedent and priority. He has
maintaining the Peninsular war, walthsgh7enc.th-howeefilicaacriseme,adshtitooenooeff.
necessary
.expendiittuirsehno-f
time very unpopular in ttl:hi,seonFcohouriednsiterhytefbfeafree,atbude
brilliant victories of Wellington had reconciled
Par-
liament or -people to the
decree of foresight and firm-
men and money. It was ati
of
his_
measures,
ever, that Lord Castlereag
his coutvemporaies. Assure
whatever may be thought
possible to deny him a _
eaty ofVienna are not those we
dly the
sraroct
athmeoln'gr
Hessterm
should have chosen at the present day, and the un-
qualified praise corded to it by Sir Archibald
Alison wilt probably find „nany dissentients. The
Venetians, we mislicet, Would not feel much in-
clined to subscribe to the ingenious theories which
have doomed them to forty y ears of miserable op-
pression, while the junction of Holland and Bel-
gium has long since proved a failure. Still there
was lunch to consider. A king in those d mys was
not always a constitutional sovereign, and allies
are, sometimes, as w c know, very exacting friends.
At the Congress of Chatillan, while the allies were
still endeavouring to negotiate with Napoleon,Lord
Castlereagh was embarrassed by the Prince Regent
expressing, in strong terms to the Russian Ambassa-
dor in Loudon his conviction of the impossibility of
making a durable peace with the French Emperor,
tend the expediency of enthroning the Bourbons in
his stead. Privately Lord Castlereagh shared this
conviction, but he would not own it, maintaining
that having begun negotiations with Napoleon good,

faith required they should not be broken off, and ex-
pressly disclaiming any wish on the part of the
British nation to force any dynasty on a reluctant
people. The chief mistake, says Sir Archibald
Alison, committed by Lord Castlereagh was his
concurrence in the monetary changes, which
produced so much suffering in 1819. This is the
more remarkable, as he had vigorously and success-
fully opposed the fatal proposition of the Bullion
Committee in 1810, recommending the compulsory
resumption of cash payments within two years.
The report was dated June 8, 1810, and the first
debate on it took place May 15, 1811. Had the re•
commendation of the committee, says the historian,
r been adopted on the first occasion, the
crash would have came in England when Welling-
ton was preparing to commence the Salamanca
campaign, and Napoleon's forces were converg-
ing towards the Niemen for the invasion:of Russia;
if, on the second, it would have come on the eve of the
triumphant march of the English general to Vit-
-1 toria, immediately after the battle of Lutzen, and
just before the armistice of Pleswitz. "We have
only," he goes on to say, "to figure the monetary
crises of 1825, 1838, 1847, and 1857 happening on
any of these occasions to form a conception of what
must have occurred if the recommendation of the
Bullion Committee had been carried into effect."
The author justly observes, in another place, that
by Lord Castlereagh's establishment of a paper
currency, guaranteed by the allied Powers in
1813, he provided the necessary funds for the
gigantic armaments then afoot, and had the same
wise and enlightened system been followed after
the peace under proper safeguards against undue
extension, there can be no doubt that the general
distress and discontent would have been averted.
We have not spoken of the memoir of Sir
Charles Stewart, afterwards the late lamented
Marquis of Londonderry. His public career
is closely associated with that of his brother,
and it is not often that two such near relatives
acquire contemporary distinction, the one in the
field, the other in the Cabinet. Sir Charles
Stewart's communications from the seat of war
were often of great value to his brother, for his
sagacity enabled him to make the most of his oppor-
tunities of observation. He was one of the first to
maintain that Elba would be no lasting resting
place for the ambition that had set the world on
fire. His descriptions were often so animated and
brilliant that their authorship was attributed to
others with more leisure, but their authenticity has
been proved by the discovery of the original letters.
He was mainly instrumental in forcing on the reluc-
tant Bernadotte and his Swedes—always two days
march behind the front rank of the allies. His
official career ended with his brother's melancholy
death ; but his sphere of utility was not closed, for
on his marriage with the heiress of Sir H.
Vane Tempest, her large estates came under
his spirited yet judicious control. Their biographer
draws an interesting comparison between the two
distinguished brothers.