Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 397, November 1848

Lord Edward Fitzgerald had escaped, and a reward of £1000 was put upon his head. On the 19th of May, only four days before the outbreak, he was arrested in an obscure lodging in Dublin, stabbed one of his captors in the struggle, was himself wounded, and died in prison of his wound.

During this most anxious period, the life of every leading member of government was in imminent peril. Plots were notoriously formed for the assassination of the commander-in-chief, and the chancellor; but Lord Castlereagh was obviously the especial mark for the conspirators. In scorn of this danger, he gallantly persevered; and, on the 22d of May, the very night before the commencement of the insurrection, he brought down to the House the following message from the Lord-lieutenant: —

"That his excellency had received information, that the disaffected had been daring enough to form a plan, for the purpose of possessing themselves, in the course of the present week, of the metropolis; of seizing the seat of government, and those in authority within the city. That, in consequence of that information, he had directed every military precaution to be taken which seemed expedient; that he had made full communication to the magistrates, for the direction of their efforts; and that he had not a doubt, by the measures which would be pursued, that the designs of the rebellious would be effectually and entirely crushed."

To this message the House of Commons voted an immediate answer, – "That the intelligence thus communicated filled them with horror and indignation, while it raised in them a spirit of resolution and energy." And, for the purpose of publicly showing their confidence and their determination, the whole of the Commons, preceded by the speaker and the officers of the House, went on foot, two by two, in procession through the streets, to the castle, to carry up their address to the Viceroy.

Lord Castlereagh, during this most anxious period, was in constant activity, keeping up the correspondence of his government with the British Cabinet and the generals commanding in Ireland. But, the correspondence preserved in the Memoirs is limited to directions to the military officers – among whom were the brave and good Abercromby, and Lake, Moore, and others who, like them, were yet to gain their laurels in nobler fields.

The rebellion, after raging for six weeks in the south, and exhibiting the rude daring of the peasantry, in several desperate attacks on the principal towns garrisoned by the army, was at length subdued by Lord Cornwallis; who, at once issuing an amnesty, and acting at the head of a powerful force, restored the public tranquillity. This promptitude was fortunate; for in August a debarkation was made by General Humbert in the west, at the head of eleven hundred French troops, as the advanced guard of an army. This force, though absurdly inferior to its task, yet, by the rapidity of its marches, and the daring of its commander, revived the spirit of insurrection, and was joined by many of the peasantry. But the whole were soon compelled to lay down their arms to the troops of the Viceroy. Scarcely had they been sent to an English prison, when a French squadron, consisting of a ship of the line and eight frigates, with 5000 troops on board, appeared off the northern coast. They were not left long to dream of invasion. On the very next day, the squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren was seen entering the French anchorage. The enemy were instantly attacked. The line-of-battle ship, the Hoche, with six of the frigates, was captured after a sharp cannonade; and among the prisoners was found the original incendiary of the rebellion, Wolfe Tone, bearing the commission of a French adjutant-general. On his trial and sentence by a court-martial in Dublin, he solicited to be shot as a soldier, not hanged as a felon. But there was too much blood on his head to alter the forms of law for a villain who had returned for the express purpose of adding the blood of thousands to the past. To escape being hanged, he died by his own hand, deplorably, but suitably, closing a life which honesty and industry might have made happy and honourable, by the last and only crime which he could have added to the long list of his treasons.

The administration of Lord Castlereagh was now to be distinguished by another national service of the highest order. The British government had been awakened, by the rebellion, to the necessity of a union. The object of the rebels was to separate the two islands by violence: the danger pointed out the remedy, and the object of government was to join them indissolubly by law. The measure had been proposed nearly a century before, by the peerage of Ireland themselves, then shrinking from a repetition of the war of James II., and the sweeping confiscations of the popish parliament. The measure was twice proposed to the British cabinet, in 1703 and 1707. But the restless intrigues of party in the reign of Anne occupied all the anxieties of a tottering government; and the men who found it difficult to float upon the surge, thought themselves fortunate to escape the additional gusts, which might come ruffling the waters from Ireland. The Volunteer armament, with the example of America, if not actually inflaming Ireland to revolution, yet kindling a beacon to every eye which sought the way to republicanism, again awoke the cabinet to the necessity of a union. The regency question, in which the Irish parliament attempted to divide, not only the countries, but the crown – placing one half on the head of the Prince of Wales, and the other half on the head of the King – again startled the cabinet. But, as the peril abated, the means of protection were thrown by. The hurricane of France then came, and dashed against every throne of Europe, sinking some, shattering others, and throwing clouds, still pregnant with storm and flame, over the horizon of the civilised world. But the vices of France suddenly extinguished the European perils of Revolution. The democracy which, proclaiming universal peace and freedom, had summoned all nations to be present at the erection of a government of philosophy, was seen exulting in the naked display of cruelty and crime. In place of a demigod, Europe saw a fiend, and shrank from the altar on which nothing was to be accepted but the spoil and agonies of man.

Those facts are alluded to, simply to extinguish the gross and common charge, that the British cabinet fostered the rebellion, only to compel the country to take refuge in the Union. It is unquestionable, that the wisdom of its policy had been a maxim for a hundred years; that the plan was to be found in the portfolio of every cabinet; that all administrative foresight acknowledged that the time must come when it would be inevitable, yet put off the hour of action; that it haunted successive cabinets like a ghost, in every hour of national darkness, and that they all rejoiced at its disappearance at the return of day. But when rebellion broke out in Ireland itself – when it was no longer the reflection from the glare of American democracy, nor the echo from the howl of France; when the demand of separation was made by the subjects of the British crown, in the sight of England – the necessity was irresistible. There was no longer any alternative between binding in fetters, and binding in law. Then the resolve of Pitt was made, and its performance was committed to the hands of a fearless and faithful man. Ireland was relieved from the burden of a riotous and impoverished independence, and England was relieved from the contemptible policy of acting by party, which she despised, and paying a parliament to protect a constitution.

But we must hasten to other things. There was, of course, an infinite outcry among all the tribes who lived upon popular corruption. In closing the gates of the Irish parliament, they had been shut out from the mart where they had flocked night and day to sell their influence, their artifices, and themselves. The voluntary slave-trade was broken up; and the great dealers in political conscience regarded themselves as robbed of a right of nature. The kings of Benin and Congo could not be more indignant at the sight of a British cruiser blockading one of their rivers. The calamity was universal; the whole body of parliamentary pauperism was compelled to work or starve. The barrister was forced to learn law; the merchant to turn to his ledger; the country gentleman, who had so long consoled himself for his weedy fallows, by the reflection that, if they grew nothing else, they could at least grow forty-shilling voters, found "Othello's occupation gone." The whole flight of carrion-crows, whom the most distant scent of corruption brought upon the wing; all the locust race, which never alighted, but to strip the soil; the whole army of sinecurism, the countless generation of laziness and license, who, as in the monkish days, looked to receiving their daily meal at the doors of the treasury, felt the sudden sentence of starvation.

But this, too, passed away. Jobbery, a more than equivalent for the exemption of the land from the viper, became no longer a trade; faction itself, of all existing things the most tenacious of life, gradually dropped off; the natural vitality of the land, no longer drained away by its blood-suckers, began to show itself in the vigour of the public mind; peace did its office in the renewal of public wealth, and perhaps the happiest years of Ireland were those which immediately followed the Union. If Ireland was afterwards overshadowed, the cause was to be found in that sullen influence which had thrown Europe into darkness for a thousand years.

Lord Castlereagh was now advanced an important step in public life. Mr Pelham, who from ill health had long been an absentee, resigned his office. The services of his manly and intelligent substitute had been too prominent to be overlooked. A not less trying scene of ministerial courage and ability was about to open, in the proposal of the Union; and no man could compete with him who had extinguished the rebellion.

A letter from his friend Lord Camden (November 1798) thus announced the appointment: – "Dear Castlereagh, – I am extremely happy to be informed by Mr Pitt that the wish of the Lord-lieutenant that you should succeed Mr Pelham (since he has relinquished the situation of secretary) has been acceded to by the King and his ministers; and that the consent of the English government has been communicated to Lord Cornwallis."

On the 22d of January, a message to the English House of Commons was brought down, recommending the Union, on the ground of "the unremitting industry with which the enemies of the country persevered in their avowed design of separating Ireland from England." On the 31st, Pitt moved eight resolutions as the basis of the measure. Sheridan moved an amendment, which was negatived by one hundred and forty to fifteen votes. In the Lords, the address in answer to the message was carried without a division. It was clear that the question in England was decided.

In Ireland the discussion was more vehement, and more protracted; but the decision was ultimately the same. Parliament went the way of all criminals. It must be allowed, that its scaffold was surrounded with popular clamour, to an extraordinary extent. It faced its fate with national haughtiness, and vigorously proclaimed its own virtues to the last. But, when the confusion of the scene was over, and the scaffold was moved away, none lingered near the spot to wring their hands over the grave.

The unquestionable fact is, that there was a national sense of the unfitness of separate legislatures for two countries, whose closeness of connexion was essential to the existence of both. The Protestant felt that, by the fatal folly of conceding votes to the popish peasantry – votes amounting to universal suffrage – parliament must, in a few years, become popish in all but the name. The landlords felt that, the constant operation of party on the peasantry must rapidly overthrow all property. The still more enlightened portion of society felt that every hour exposed the country more perilously to civil commotion. And even the narrowest capacity of judging must have seen, in the smoking harvest, ruined mansions, and slaughtered population of the revolted counties, the hazard of trusting to a native parliament; which, though it might punish, could not protect; and which, in the hour of danger, could not stir hand or foot but by the help of their mighty neighbour and fast friend.

If, in the rebellion, a wall of iron had been drawn round Ireland, and her constitution had been left to the defence furnished by her parliament alone, that constitution would have been but a cobweb; parliament would have been torn down like a condemned building; and out of the ruins would have been instantly compiled some grim and yet grotesque fabric of popular power – some fearful and uncouth mixture of legislation and vengeance: a republic erected on the principles of a despotism; a temple to anarchy, with the passions of the rabble for its priesthood, and the fallen heads of all the noble, brave, and intellectual in the land, for the decorations of the shrine.

The cry of Repeal has revived the recollection of the parliament; but the country has refused to recognise that cry as national, and even the echo has perished. It was notoriously adopted, not for its chance of success, but for its certainty of failure. It was meant to give faction a perpetual pretext for mendicancy. But the mendicant and the pretext are now gone together. A few childish people, forgetting its uselessness and its errors, alone continue to whine over it – as a weak parent laments the loss of a son whose life was a burden to him, and whose death was a relief. The Union was one of the highest services of Lord Castlereagh.

In corroboration of those sentiments, if they could require any, it is observable how rapidly the loudest opponents of the measure lowered their voices, and adopted the tone of government. Plunket, the ablest rhetorician of the party – who had made his opposition conspicuous by the ultra-poetic extravagance, of pledging himself to swear his sons at the altar, as Hamilcar swore Hannibal to Roman hostility – took the first opportunity of reconciling his wrath to office, and settled down into a chancellor. Foster, the speaker, who had led the opposition, received his salary for life without a pang, and filled the office of chancellor of the Irish exchequer. Bushe, the Cicero of the house, glowing with oratorical indignation, condescended to be chief-justice. All the leaders, when the battle was over, quietly slipped off their armour, hung up sword and shield on their walls, put on the peace costume of handsome salary, and subsided into title and pension.

No one blamed them then, nor need blame them now. They had all been actors– and who shall reproach the actor, when the lamps are put out and the audience gone, for thinking of his domestic meal, and dropping into his bed? Nature, like truth, is powerful, and the instinct of the lawyer must prevail.

One man alone "refused to be comforted." Grattan, the Demosthenes of Ireland, for years kept, without swearing it, the Carthaginian oath, which had slipped out of the mind of Plunket. He talked of the past with the rapt anguish of a visionary, and eschewed human occupation with the rigid inutility of a member of La Trappe. Grattan long continued to linger in Ireland, until he was hissed out of his patriotic romance, and laughed into England. There, he found, that he had lost the better part of his life in dreams, and that the world demanded evidence that he had not lived in vain. Fortunately for his own fame, he listened to the demand; forgot his sorrows over the dead in the claims of the living; threw in his share to the general contribution of the national heart against the tyranny of Napoleon; and by some noble speeches vindicated the character of his national eloquence, and left an honourable recollection of himself in that greatest temple of fame and free minds which the world has ever seen – the parliament of England.

Lord Castlereagh, on the final dissolution of the Irish legislature, transferred his residence to London, where (in July 1802) he took office under the Addington ministry as President of the Board of Control – an appointment which, on the return of Pitt, he retained, until (in 1805) he was placed by the great minister in the office of secretary for the war and colonial department.

The death of Pitt (1806) surrendered the cabinet to the Whigs, and Lord Castlereagh retired with his colleagues. The death of Fox soon shook the new administration, and their own imprudence broke it up, (1807.) The Grey and Grenville party were superseded by Perceval; and Lord Castlereagh returned to the secretaryship at war, which he held until 1809, when his duel with Canning caused the retirement of both.

In the Memoir, the circumstances of this painful transaction are scarcely more than referred to; but the reply to a letter from Lord Castlereagh to the King, distinctly shows the sense of his conduct entertained in the highest quarter.

"The King has no hesitation in assuring Lord Castlereagh that he has, at all times, been satisfied with the zeal and assiduity with which he has discharged the duties of the various situations which he has filled, and with the exertions which, under every difficulty, he has made for the support of his Majesty's and the country's interest.

"His Majesty must ever approve of the principle which shall secure the support and protection of government to officers exposing their reputation, as well as their lives, in his service; when their characters and conduct are attacked, and aspersed on loose and insufficient grounds, without adverting to embarrassments and local difficulties, of which those on the spot alone can form an adequate judgment." This, of course, settled the royal opinion; and the ministerial confidence shortly after reposed in Lord Castlereagh, in the most conspicuous manner, fully clears his reputation from every stain.

But the letter confirms one fact, hitherto not much known, yet which would alone entitle him to the lasting gratitude of the empire. In allusion to the campaign of Portugal under Moore, and the appointment of a successor, it adds, – "It was also this impression which prompted the King to acquiesce in the appointment of so young a lieutenant-general as Lord Wellington to the command of the troops in Portugal." Thus, it is to Lord Castlereagh's sense of talent, and to his public zeal, that we ministerially owe the liberation of the Peninsula. His selection of the great duke, in defiance of the claims of seniority, and probably of parliamentary connexion, gave England seven years of victory, and finally gave Europe the crowning triumph of Waterloo.

But a still more extensive field of statesmanship was now opened to him. Canning had left the Foreign Office vacant; before the close of the year it was given to Lord Castlereagh. Another distinction followed. The unhappy assassination of Perceval left the premiership vacant; and Lord Castlereagh, though nominally under Lord Liverpool, virtually became, by his position in the House of Commons, prime minister.

There never was a moment of European history, when higher interests were suspended on the intrepidity, the firmness, and the wisdom of British council. The Spanish war, difficult, though glorious, was at all risks to be sustained; Austria had taken up arms, (in 1809,) was defeated, and was forced to make the bitter peace that follows disaster. Napoleon, at Erfurth, sat on a throne which looked over Europe, and saw none but vassals. At home, Opposition flung its old predictions of evil in the face of the minister, and incessantly charged him with their realisation. An infirm minister in England at that crisis would have humiliated her by a treaty; that treaty would have been but a truce, and that truce would have been followed by an invasion. But the Secretary never swerved, and his confidence in the courage of England was rewarded by the restoration of liberty to Europe.

The fortunes of Napoleon were at length on the wane. France had been stripped of her veterans by the retreat from Moscow, and the Russian and German armies had hunted the wreck of the French across the Rhine. But, in sight of final victory, the councils of the Allies became divided, and it was of the first importance to reunite them. An interesting letter of the late Lord Harrowby, to the present Marquis of Londonderry, gives the narrative of this diplomatic mission.

"I cannot recollect dates, but it was at the time when you, Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Cathcart, were accredited to the three sovereigns. It was mooted in Cabinet, I think, by Lord Castlereagh, whether it would not be desirable, in order to carry the full weight of the British Government to bear upon the counsels of the assembled sovereigns, that some one person should be appointed who might speak in its name to them all.

"The notion was approved of; and after the Cabinet was over, Castlereagh called me into his private room, and proposed the mission to me. I was, of course, highly flattered by such a proposal from such a person; but I had not a moment's hesitation in telling him, that I had tried my hand unsuccessfully on a somewhat similar mission to Berlin, where I had also been accredited to the two Emperors; that I had found myself quite incompetent to the task, which had half-killed me; that I thought the measure highly advisable, but that there was one person only who could execute it, and that person was himself. He started at first. How could he, as Secretary of State, undertake it? The thing was unheard of. I then told him, that it was not strictly true that it had never been done: that Lord Bolingbroke went to Paris in a diplomatic capacity when Secretary of State; and that, though in that case the precedent was not a good one, it was still a precedent, and I believed there were more. The conclusion to which this conversation led was, that 'he would talk it over with Liverpool;' and the consequence was that, the next day, or the day after, his mission was decided."

A letter, not less interesting, from Lord Ripon, gives some striking particulars of this mission. Lord Ripon had accompanied him to the Congress. "I allude to his first mission to the Continent, at the close of 1813. I travelled with him from the Hague to Bâle, where he first came in contact with any of the ministers of the Allied powers; and thence we proceeded to Langres, where the headquarters of the Grand Army were established, and where the allied sovereigns, the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia, with their respective ministers, were assembled."

The letter proceeds to state the views of the mission, much of whose success it attributes to the combined suavity and firmness of Lord Castlereagh's conduct. But, an instance of his prompt and sagacious decision suddenly occurred. Blucher's impetuous advance had been checked, with serious loss, by a desperate assault of Napoleon, who, availing himself of this success, had fallen upon all the advanced forces of the Allies. There was wavering at headquarters, and there were even proposals of retiring beyond the Rhine. It was essential to reinforce Blucher, but there were no troops at hand. Lord Castlereagh demanded, "Where were any to be found?" He was answered, that there were two strong corps of Russians and Prussians under the command of Bernadotte; but that he was "very tenacious of his command," and they could not be withdrawn without a tedious negotiation, – in other words, we presume, without fear of giving that clever but tardy commander a pretext for abandoning the alliance altogether. The difficulty was, by a high authority, pronounced insurmountable. Lord Castlereagh, who was present at the council, simply demanded, "whether the reinforcement was necessary;" and, on being answered in the affirmative, declared that the order must be given; that England had a right to expect that her allies should not be deterred from a decisive course by any such difficulties; and that he would take upon himself all the responsibility that might arise, regarding the Crown-Prince of Sweden.

The order was issued: Blucher was reinforced; Napoleon was beaten at Laon; and the campaign rapidly approached its close. Still, formidable difficulties arose. Napoleon, though he had at last found that he could not face the army of the Allies, conceived the daring manœuvre of throwing himself in their rear – thus alarming them for their communications, and forcing them to follow him back through France. The consequences of a desultory war might have been the revival of French resistance, and the ruin of the campaign. The manœuvre became the subject of extreme anxiety in the Allied camp, and some of the chief authorities were of opinion, that he ought to be pursued. It is said (though the Memoir has not yet reached that part of the subject,) that the decision of leaving him behind, and marching direct on Paris, was chiefly owing to Lord Castlereagh; who pointed out the weakness of taking counsel from an enemy, the advantage of finding the road to Paris open at last, and the measureless political importance of having the capital in their possession.

This advice prevailed: a few thousand cavalry were sent in the track of Napoleon, to entrap him into the idea that he was followed by the Grand Army, while Schwartzenberg marched in the opposite direction; and the first intelligence which reached the French army was in the thunderclap which announced the fall of the Empire!

Lord Harrowby's letter, in referring to a subsequent period, gives a curious instance of the chances on which the highest events may turn.

"Now for my other service in the dark. After the attempt to assassinate the Duke of Wellington at Paris, the Government was naturally most anxious to get him away. But how? Under whatever pretext it might be veiled, he would still call it running away, to which he was not partial. But, when Castlereagh was obliged to leave Vienna, in order to attend his duty in parliament, I was fortunate enough to suggest that the Duke should be sent to replace him; and that would be a command which he could not refuse to obey.

"When I mentioned this to the Duke, just after I left you – for I was then quite full of the memory of my little exploits – he quite agreed that, if he had been at Paris, on the return of Buonaparte to France, it would have been highly probable that they would have seized him.

"Small events are great to little men; and it is not nothing, to have contributed in the smallest degree to the success of the Congress at Vienna, (nor was it then so called,) and of the subsequent campaign, and to the saving of the Duke for Waterloo!"

After this triumphant course of political life, with every gift of fortune around him, and perhaps the still higher consciousness of having achieved a historic name, how can we account for the closing of such a career in suicide?

The only probable cause was the intolerable burden of public business, by his having in charge the chief weight of the home department as well as the foreign. His leadership of the House of Commons was enough to have worn him out. Canning once said – "that no vigour of mind or body can stand the wear and tear of a minister, above ten years." Castlereagh had been immersed in indefatigable toil since 1794. He had stood "the wear and tear" for thirty years. His life was wholly devoted to business. During the summer he rose at five, in winter at seven, and frequently laboured for twelve or fourteen hours in succession.

In person he was tall, with a mild and very handsome countenance in early life, of which we must regret that the portrait in the first volume of the Memoir gives but an unfavourable resemblance. The most faithful likeness is that by Sir Thomas Lawrence, in the Windsor Gallery of Statesmen, though it has the effeminate air which that admirable painter had the unlucky habit of giving to his men.

The death of Lord Castlereagh seems to have been justly attributed to mental exhaustion, with the addition of a fit of the gout, for which he had taken some depressing medicines. The state of his spirits was marked by the King, on his Majesty's departure for Scotland. At the Cabinet Council, he had been observed to remain helplessly silent, and his signature to public papers had become suddenly almost illegible. On those symptoms, he was expressly put into the hands of his physician, and sent to Foot's Cray, his villa in Kent. The physician attended him until the Monday following. Early on that day he was hastily summoned, and found his Lordship dead in his dressing-room.

A letter from the Duke of Wellington conveyed the lamentable intelligence to the present Marquis, who was then at Vienna. After some prefatory remarks, the Duke says – "You will have seen, that I witnessed the melancholy state of mind which was the cause of the catastrophe. I saw him after he had been with the King on the 9th instant, to whom he had likewise exposed it. But, fearing that he would not send for his physician, I considered it my duty to go to him; and not finding him, to write to him, which, considering what has since happened, was a fortunate circumstance.

"You will readily believe what a consternation this deplorable event has occasioned here. The funeral was attended by every person in London of any mark or distinction, of all parties; and the crowd in the streets behaved respectfully and creditably."

The Duke's remarks on "the fortunate circumstance" of applying to the physician, we presume to have meant, the vindication of the Marquis's character from the guilt of conscious suicide. For the same reason, we have given the details. They relieve the mind of the Christian and the Englishman from the conception, that the most accomplished intellect, and the highest sense of duty, may not be protective against the mingled crime and folly of self-murder.

We have now given a general glance at the matériel of those volumes. They contain a great variety of public documents, valuable to the future historian, though too official for the general reader. One, however, is too curious to be altogether passed by: it is from Lord Brougham, (dated 1812,) offering himself for employment in American affairs: —

"My Lord, – I am confident that the step which I am now taking cannot be misconstrued by your lordship. Under the present circumstances, I beg to make a tender of my services to his Majesty's government in the conduct of the negotiation with the United States, wheresoever the same may be carried on.

"I am induced to think that I might be of use as a negotiator in this affair. I trust it is unnecessary to add, that I can have no motive of a private or personal nature in making this offer. Should it be accepted, I must necessarily sustain a considerable injury in my professional pursuits," &c.

We think that, in giving these volumes to the country, the present Marquis of Londonderry has not merely fulfilled an honourable fraternal duty, but has rendered a service to public character. Faction had calumniated Lord Castlereagh throughout a large portion of his career. The man who breaks down a fierce rebellion, and who extinguishes a worthless legislature, must be prepared to encounter the hostility of all whose crimes he has punished, or whose traffic he has put to shame. The felon naturally hates the hand which holds the scales of justice, and, if he cannot strike, is sure to malign. The contemptuous dignity with which Lord Castlereagh looked down upon his libellers, and his equally contemptuous disregard of defence, of course only rendered libel more inveterate; and every low artifice of falsehood was exerted against the administration of a man who was an honour to Ireland.