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

'Tis time now for Charlie, our king, to come home.

There was a like stir amongst the Progresistas, who were being hanged, banished and imprisoned by the score, on account of revolts and disturbances in which they had less share than the secret agents of their persecutors. Either from presumptuous confidence in their own strength, or because they deemed they had gone too far to recede, and that it was too late to adopt a conciliatory policy, the clever gentlemen in power at Madrid, not content with reviving, by their insane foreign policy, the hopes of two powerful and hostile parties, continued to increase the number of their domestic enemies by persevering in a system of tyranny and persecution. The consequence has been a coalition from which they have every thing to dread – a coalition which has been denied by those interested to place it in doubt, but whose existence each succeeding day renders more manifest.

It may be asked how it is possible for stanch absolutists, such as the Carlists have always been, to coalesce with men of such liberal principles as the Progresistas profess. This question is replied to in three words. When he accepted his father's renunciation in his favour of his claims upon the crown of Spain, Count Montemolin did not bind himself to adhere to his father's prejudices, or to the less tolerant part of his political creed. During nine years' detention and exile, the young prince, whose adherents claim for him the rights and title of Charles VI. of Spain, has doubtless become convinced of the impossibility of ever bringing back the country he aspires to reign over to the old system of irresponsible absolutism and priestly tyranny, – a system rendered especially odious by the weakness and vices of the two last monarchs who governed by it. The Progresistas, on their part, desire no exclusive favour, no monopoly of power: compelled to withdraw their support from her they once enthusiastically defended, they have no other candidate to put forward. Don Enrique, in whom they once were disposed to confide, basely sold and betrayed them; and as to Espartero, whose ambition has been the subject of such fierce diatribes on the part of the ignorant and the malicious, both in Spain and in England – the idea of his aspiring to regal power appears too ridiculous, to those acquainted with his simple tastes and unobtrusive worth, to be for an instant dwelt upon and seriously refuted. No; all the Progresistas ask is a free press, elections conducted without bribery or bayonets, security for persons and property. Do one of these things exist in Spain now? Let facts reply. We read the answer in the suppression or silence of every Opposition newspaper; in the packed benches of the Cortes; in the imprisonment, banishment, and confiscation, without stated accusation or form of trial, of hundreds of innocent persons. From this tyranny, than which none can be worse, the Count de Montemolin promises relief. The Progresistas accept his pledge, and rally round his standard.

The Madrid government, which, since the commencement of the present year, has constantly provoked petty disturbances, as pretexts for arbitrarily consigning to the dungeon or the colonies as many as possible of those they dislike or fear, now find themselves face to face with a real insurrection of most formidable aspect. They have cried wolf till the wolf has come, and they run considerable risk of being devoured. In vain they deny their peril, affect to bluster and talk big; their real alarm peeps through the flimsy cloak of bravado. A government confident of its strength, and of the support and sympathies of the governed, does not condescend to treat and tamper with rebels. If the insurgents be so contemptible in numbers and resources as the organs of Narvaez and the Queen-mother daily assert them to be, why not crush them at once, instead of attempting to buy over their chiefs, who, on their part, pocket the bribes and laugh at their seducers? If Cabrera, for weeks together, lay sick and bedridden in a Catalonian village, why was not a detachment, or, if necessary, a division, sent to apprehend him? Such flimsy impostures deceive no one. The truth is, that, with the exception of a few fortified places, the east of Spain is in the hands of the Carlists and Progresistas, who come up to the walls of the cities and levy contributions at the very gates. The north only waits the signal to burst into revolt; in the Castiles alarming demonstrations are daily made, and armed bands show themselves on various points; in the large commercial towns in the south, whose desire for a revision of the present absurd Spanish tariff renders them ardent liberals, discontent smoulders, and in an instant may burst into a flame. There are Andalusian cities where the appearance of Espartero, or of some other popular and influential Progresista, would at once raise the entire population. At present, however, the revolt is in its infancy, and can hardly be said to have begun. Its chiefs avoid encounters, and busy themselves with organisation – which proceeds rapidly, in spite of the marches and countermarches of Messrs Cordova, Pavia, Villalonga, and the other Christino generals, and of the glorious victories narrated in the columns of the Heraldo and other equally veracious journals. According to these, Cabrera has already been several times totally routed and driven over the frontier. We have strong grounds for believing that, up to this moment, – although his lieutenants have been engaged in small affrays, of little or no importance, but terminating, with scarcely an exception, in their favour – he himself has not smelt powder, burned in anger, since he left Spain in 1840. He waits the proper moment, when his arrangements shall be completed, to commence operations upon a large scale; and meanwhile he very judiciously avoids frittering away his strength in profitless skirmishes. By the last advices worthy of credit, he is at the head of six thousand men, well armed and uniformed, and nearly all old soldiers, in high spirits and thorough discipline. This force does not include the numerous detached and irregular bands spread over Catalonia and Valencia, or various bodies of Progresistas, who march under their own banner, but are on the best of terms with the Carlists, and will co-operate with them in the day of battle. Arms and ammunition are procured without difficulty from France and England. The French Republic has its hands too full to attend seriously to such trifles. Although General Cavaignac, to get rid of the importunities of that blatant knave Sotomayor, did order the arrest of a brace of unlucky Progresistas, there is little chance of his carrying out the preventive system to a rigorous extent, or of his depriving the starving French manufacturers of the crust they may obtain by fabricating arms and clothing for the Carlist troops. As to England, she is, of course, in no way called upon to prevent the export of Birmingham muskets and Hounslow cartridges, even should she suspect their destination to be different from that entered at the custom-house. Indeed, it is shrewdly suspected that Lord Palmerston would like nothing better than to see his quondam friends ejected from Spain, and to resume amicable relations with that country by accrediting an ambassador to the court of Charles VI.

It is worthy of remark that Cabrera, who made himself so notorious, during the last civil war in Spain, by his barbarous cruelties – provoked, but not justified, by his mother's murder – appears now to have adopted a totally different system, and to have exchanged his ferocity for moderation and humanity. We hear of no more cold-blooded shooting of prisoners, or wanton and unprovoked aggressions; Christino soldiers who have fallen into his hands, or into those of his subordinates, have been disarmed and set at liberty; good treatment has been shown to magistrates and other officials, carried off as hostages or held for ransom. The contributions levied on the country have been regularised, and are willingly paid; the peasantry receive the insurgents as liberators, instead of shunning them as spoilers. Furious at this state of things, which they can neither alter nor conceal, the Christinos know not how to show their wrath, or on whom to wreak it; and the means they resort to for the expression of their spite are perfectly suicidal. The unfortunate Constitucional of Barcelona, one of the few remaining papers in Spain which now and then venture to speak the truth, is arbitrarily suppressed for drawing a faithful picture of the state of the province; whilst the very next day one of the government generals confirms the truth of the sketch, and the disaffection of the peasants, by enforcing the premature gathering in of the fruits of the earth, to rot and perish in store, and by forbidding the labourer to carry to the field more than six ounces of food, lest he should sell or give it to the Carlists – annexing to these stringent enactments others equally onerous and tyrannical. All this time, at Madrid and in other cities, arrests continue; and every day fresh victims are consigned to Ceuta, the Philippines, or the prisons, their relatives and friends being thenceforward added to the host of the disaffected. Why, this is stark-staring madness! – the insanity, preceding perdition, with which God afflicts those he would destroy. To discomfiture and destruction, total and lasting, the party still dominant in Spain are to all appearance hastening. None will pity their fall. They will be condemned not only by all just men, but by the most reckless advocates of political expediency; for they have been blind to their own true interests, as well as unblushingly contemptuous of every principle of morality and good government.

CONSERVATIVE UNION

No private calamity which has occurred for years has so startled the mind of England as the withdrawal of Lord George Bentinck from the scene of his useful labours. In the prime of life, in the full possession of a vigorous and masculine intellect, at the head of a large and increasing political party, who revered him for his unsullied honour, and loved him for his undaunted courage, he has been taken from us by one of those mysterious visitations which are sent as a token that the destinies of the world are indeed in the hands of God. Short as was his public career, he had won for himself a name which will not lightly die away in the history of his country, and his memory will be cherished among us as that of a man who had the welfare of Britain thoroughly at heart; and who, in an age of degenerate and vacillating statesmanship, had the firmness to tear off the mask from the features of hypocrisy, and to expose the awful consequences of that culpable race for power which has effected the partial disorganisation of this great and once prosperous empire.

The loss of such a man at such a time is indeed far more a public than a private calamity. As such, it has been felt throughout the realm by thousands who understood the true position of Bentinck as the champion of native industry, and the utter uncompromising foe of that selfish and sordid system which seeks to aggrandise the few at the cost of the labouring many. A large proportion even of those who originally yielded to the deleterious doctrines of the free-traders, but who, through sad and wholesome experience, had become alive to the folly and iniquity of the modern scheme, were gathering confidence from his unremitting exertions, and preparing to rank themselves by his side. In him the British colonies have lost their firmest friend and advocate. The noble struggle which he made this year in behalf of the oppressed and defrauded West Indian planters, was, in the opinion of many who knew him well, the proximate cause of his death; for a similar amount of physical and intellectual labour has hardly ever been undertaken even by a professional man, and never without the imminent risk of shattering the constitution.

We should ill perform our duty to the public, and to the constitutional party whose cause we have undeviatingly supported, if we omitted to take this last sad opportunity of testifying our respect for the memory of so valuable a man. The tendency of the present age is to estimate merit by success, and to offer its sole homage to the winner of the desperate game. But those who look deeper into the secret springs of human action and impulse, can hardly fail to recognise in Bentinck a character invested with that rare chivalry and devotion which, by common consent, we accept as the attribute of our purest patriots and heroes. Chicanery, deceit, and falsehood were utterly abhorrent to his mind. He had no taste for those state tricks which have superseded the old manly English method, and no sympathy for those who used them. He went into the arena of politics as a soldier might go to battle, confident in the integrity and justice of the cause in which he was engaged, and determined to maintain it to the last against any weight of opposition. It was this resolute and undaunted spirit which at once raised him from comparative obscurity to the rank of a great parliamentary leader; for those who co-operated with him knew well that they were dealing with a man superior to all intrigue, and ready to lay down his life rather than infringe, in the slightest degree, on the pledge which he had offered to his country.

We have no hesitation in saying this, because we are certain that no one will question the sincerity of our conviction. During the last two years, and almost without intermission, we have been compelled to devote a large portion of our space to the consideration of public questions, and of the political difficulties of the time. On more than one point our views were seriously opposed to those entertained and advocated by Lord George Bentinck; nor have we concealed our opinion that his tactics, however bold, were not the best adapted for accomplishing the object which we have most warmly at heart, the reconstitution of the Conservative party upon such clear and defined principles as may rescue the country from its present perilous position.

We feel that the necessity of such a union is so plain and urgent – that the danger of allowing the affairs of Britain to be longer administered by a feeble but stubborn ministry has been so clearly demonstrated – that we cannot any longer afford to remain inactive, or to indulge in idle recrimination. The safety of the country peremptorily demands the adoption of a different policy, and the resumption of the reins of government by hands that are capable of holding them. It is for the gentlemen of England to decide whether they shall adopt such a course by uniting cordially hand and heart to retrieve us from our present embarrassments, or sit idly by as mere spectators of a fatal course of legislation. The present crisis is by far too serious to be viewed with indifference, or through the coloured glass of obsolete party interest. The welfare of the empire is at stake, and that is a subject with which none of us can dare to dally.

What are the differences which at present separate one section of the Conservatives from the other? They resolve themselves simply into the adhesion of a few talented, but we must say obstinate men, to a leader whose tortuous policy has been the main cause of our present unhappy position. We have no wish to say hard things even of Sir Robert Peel. We believe, and devoutly hope, that his reign of office is over, and that no combination of circumstances may occur to bring him back, even for the shortest period, into power; and, believing and hoping this, we are content to let him alone, and leave him to the judgment of that posterity which he is so peculiarly prone to invoke. But we ask those who have clung with such extreme tenacity to his cause, seriously to view the effect of the late legislative measures upon the community at large – to consider how far the result of the free-trade scheme has corresponded with the nature of its promise – and to reflect upon the present precarious state of our oldest and most valuable dependencies. We blame no one for having entertained an opinion conscientiously differing from our own. There may not be any disgrace in having, consented to an experiment which, when put into practice, has resulted in an absolute failure; but there is disgrace, ay, and infinite dishonour, in refusing to acknowledge an error when its consequences are made palpably manifest, and in persisting to gloss it over for the sake of an egotistical consistency. We do not believe that high-minded and honourable men will be guilty of such vain and frivolous conduct; and it is in that belief that we make our present most urgent appeal.

Look at the effect of our present free-trade laws, not only upon the revenue, but upon the internal industry of Britain. Is it not clear and utterly beyond dispute, that our exports, for which we have sacrificed every thing, are greatly on the decline, and that our imports are steadily increasing? Not even the merest tyro in political science, – not even the dullest dolt that clamoured at the meetings of the League, – will venture to affirm that this is a state of things which can continue without entailing ruin on the country; and yet the Whigs, with that insensibility and sottishness which is as much their characteristic as obstinacy, have announced for next session their intention of pushing the experiment further! For a year, we have had no budget, a circumstance entirely without a parallel in parliamentary history. The excess of the national expenditure above the revenue has been stated at the enormous sum of a million and a half, though we believe that in reality three millions would not cover the deficiency; and a considerable item even of that revenue is to be cut off from us, when the act repealing the corn law shall come into full operation. We cannot look for any improvement in trade whilst we leave our markets open to the produce of foreign labour, and allow the wealthy classes to be supplied with almost all their articles of consumption from an unremunerating source. We must again look to the customs as our main source of revenue, and more than that, as our absolute salvation from the anarchy which must ensue, if the hundred small non-exporting trades of the country are to be sacrificed for the monopoly of the few, and the millions engaged in these pursuits made beggars and driven to desperation.

And what is the state of the monopoly? How have the manufacturers gained? Let FOUR MILLIONS of diminished exports on the half year only, and the suppression of the Manchester return of the number of unemployed operatives in the very metropolis of the League, be the reply. Yes – it has come to this pass, that the free-traders DARE not publish to the world the results of their own madness. In the month of June last, there were within a fraction of EIGHT THOUSAND workmen without employment in Manchester alone, and the numbers were increasing so fast, that it was deemed expedient to discontinue the startling return. How can we be surprised that Chartism and disaffection are rankling in men's minds, when we take such deliberate pains to make them paupers?

We are told that the state of the Continent is such that our export market is impeded. Let us for the moment admit that such is the case, and let us see what sort of argument that furnishes for the continuance of the present system. Is it deliberately proposed that we are to remain with our ports open, until France and Germany, and Spain and Italy, are tranquillised? Are the prophets of peace still so sanguine of the speedy realisation of their visions? Are we to wait for years – with an increasing debt, a diminished revenue, and still further stagnation of employment – until our brethren on the other side of the Channel have reconciled their jarring theories of Red Republics and of unity, adjusted their boundaries, and again betaken themselves to the arts of peace? Our own constitution may well be shattered before that consummation can arrive! But the truth is, that, in many respects, the Continental disturbances are not unfavourable to our export trade. If, on the one hand, they have occasioned a less degree of consumption; on the other, they have paralysed industry and depreciated capital abroad. Belgium, it is true, is a formidable competitor for our staples in the foreign market; but, notwithstanding, we do not expect any serious diminution in this branch of our foreign trade. The evil of which we complain is chronic, and it has not been caused by any sudden or violent convulsions.

It is to our colonies that we must look for the cause of our diminished exports. It was our paramount duty and obligation to have fostered these, and to have made them, by a wise system of reciprocity, at once the best supporters of our power, and the most sure and steady consumers of our manufactured produce. We have done nothing of this. On the contrary, the course which we have thought proper to pursue towards those integral portions of the empire has been marked by tyranny and injustice. We have ruined the West Indies, and yet we wonder why they do not consume our cottons! Our weak and ridiculous legislation, without foresight and without principle, has not only retarded the progress of the colonies, but absolutely frightened them out of our market; and unless a very different system is speedily adopted, we may have bitter occasion to rue our folly, and to curse the selfishness of the men who, from mere lust of personal power, have sacrificed the best interests of the nation.

How, then, have the manufacturers gained by free trade? On the one hand, they have not been able, by inviting and giving every facility to imports, to increase the quantity of their export; on the other, they have closed up several of their surest markets. The full extent of our egregious folly has not yet become visible to the public. The manufacturers, by a sort of retributive justice, are the persons who are feeling it the most, and ere long they will be compelled to acknowledge it. It is seriously affecting the trade and commerce of our greatest cities. The number of vessels which have cleared out of the Clyde from the port of Glasgow during the last nine months, is in the proportion of 382 to 602 for the same period in the previous year! Glasgow, as every one knows, owed its rise and opulence to its connexion with the colonies, more especially the West Indies; and here is the heaviest blow which probably was ever heard of in the history of commerce, struck, through free trade, at the second city of Britain. It is good that we should know these things; better if, by revolving them, we can turn experience to advantage. Let the electors throughout the kingdom, more especially in the towns, meditate seriously before they are again called on to use their political franchise; let them reflect on their own diminished prosperity, and beware of that hollow liberalism combined with quackery which is the stain and the curse of the age.

To this position we have been brought by a bad commercial policy, originated by mean and mercenary men, and most unhappily adopted by a minister who became a convert towards the close of a long official life. We have seen and felt the system as it works; and the only question now for our consideration is, whether we are to suffer it to endure? If we do so, it is vain to deny that we are on the verge of general ruin. There is not a symptom of improvement. Day by day the cry of distress waxes louder, and yet we hesitate to take the necessary steps for effecting our own emancipation. There is hardly one man in the country – the bailie of Blairgowrie perhaps excepted – who can have, or feels, the slightest confidence in the abilities of Lord John Russell. Such a cabinet as this, in point of political decrepitude and imbecility, was never yet formed; and it could not live for an hour save for the unseemly dissensions in the Conservative camp. These cannot be permitted to last. There is no merit in personal devotion when pushed beyond its proper sphere; and the best service which Sir Robert Peel can render to his sovereign, is utterly to abjure all pretension of ever returning to power. Surely he can have no wish to head a reactionary movement, or expose himself to the obloquy of recanting the last edition of his views.

There is another reason why the Conservatives are imperatively called upon to unite. Recent disclosures of a very startling nature have forced upon us the conviction, that the Whigs are worse than weak, and that they cannot be depended on as steadfast guardians of the crown. There is more in the famous letter written by Mr Thomas Young, formerly private secretary to Lord Melbourne, than meets the eye. We attach no undue importance to this epistle – we shall not stoop so low as to examine the motives and intention of its author. His own attempted explanation is, if possible, more damning than the treasonable missive itself. We could only, were we to exhaust our whole powers of illustration, repeat what has been already stated in the masterly article of the Standard. It is as clear as day, that at the time of the passing of the Reform Bill, the underlings of the Whig administration were cognisant of a hideous project for a violent and bloody revolution, and that, to take the mildest point of view, they concealed that knowledge from their masters. Franks were obtained from the Home Office, for the purpose of suborning the loyalty of at least one officer, high in his Majesty's service, and proposing to him the odious part of a leader in a popular insurrection. Whether that letter, written as it probably was in the fullest confidence, ought or ought not to have seen the light, especially after the lapse of so many years, is a matter with which we have no concern. That is a question which is only personal to Mr Young and his correspondent; but we have the document, and the whole nation is entitled to inquire into its tenor. And never, upon any accusation of so grave a nature, was a more miserable defence preferred. In fact there can be, and there is, no escape from the legitimate conclusion. At that time a section of the Whigs were ready, for the sake of carrying their own scheme, not only to have connived at, but to have lent their whole influence to a popular outbreak and rising, which might, in all human probability, have been subversive of the constitution of the country. Lord Melbourne might not have known of that letter: we go farther, and state our positive opinion that he was utterly ignorant of its existence, because, however we may have differed from him in politics, he is a man whose personal honour and loyalty have always been free from a stain. We believe – and are glad in stating it – that he was utterly ignorant of the vile treason which was hatching in his own department; but we shall not extend the same shelter of belief to others of his unpatriotic party. That treason was meditated is plain; and very thankful shall we be if the higher order of the Whigs shall take the pains, by disavowing and repudiating the acts of their subordinates, and by withdrawing from those implicated the unmerited rewards of their sedition, to clear themselves from the heavy suspicion which this document undoubtedly affixes on their loyalty. It is a disclosure too grave to be met with a light explanation. The fact of meditated treason, known to Whig officials, has transpired, and we are entitled to know how far upwards the rank contagion had spread.

That letter, apart from its historical value, is important at the present moment, inasmuch as we think that no one can peruse it without feeling convinced that, in any struggle for power, the Whigs would have no scruple in sacrificing principle to their interest. They have done so already repeatedly, and their tactics have always been to retain or recover office by making large concessions to the demands of the Radical or the Irish party. We are not without apprehension that they are, even now, contemplating some move of a similar nature, to be made during the ensuing session of Parliament, for the purpose of retrieving some portion of their lost popularity. The Radical party have openly threatened to withdraw their support from the ministry unless some increase of the suffrage shall be granted; and an agitation to that effect would be particularly palatable to the free-traders, as it might tend, in some degree, to draw public attention from the utter failure of their schemes. Any movement, in such a direction, would be followed by the most disastrous consequences. A further infusion of the popular element into the House of Commons, would simply lead to greater encroachments on the constitution, more reckless experiments upon the stability of our trade and commerce, and more culpable bidding by ministries for popularity in every shape. Where is to be the end of such an agitation – unless, indeed, we were to follow the notable examples of France and Germany, and adopt universal suffrage – if, on each occasion when the country is suffering under the pressure of noxious laws, no mode of relief can be suggested, save through an extension of the Reform Bill? We should have thought that the success of the first experiment was not quite so conspicuous as to invite another of the same nature. The impudence of the Radical faction is really almost incredible. Mr Cobden and his confederates have got free trade, from the effects of which we are presently languishing; and they now propose to revive our spirits and replenish our purses by stocking the House of Commons with an additional importation of men of precisely the same caste and opinions as their own! We suspect that the funds would scarce be lively if the country were assured that forty Brights, instead of one, were seated in our National Assembly.

We therefore again implore the Conservatives to unite without loss of time, since in their hands alone can we have a thorough guarantee for the safety of the crown, the stability of the national churches, and for the integrity of the constitution. Let all lukewarmness, all promptings of personal ambition, all latent rancour, and all absurd and unreciprocated confidence, be given to the winds at once; and let us seriously and diligently apply ourselves to the task of recalling to Britain and her colonies that measure of prosperity which we possessed before evil counsels prevailed, and which, even now, is not beyond our power to recall. The industrious classes of the community, impoverished and straitened as they have been, have a right to this service from the high-minded gentlemen of England. The power and the ability are with us, if we only testify the disposition; and surely it is madness to remain at idle feud while the enemy are visible at the gate.

These remarks are not based upon mere speculation. We are well assured that, during the last few months, much progress has been made towards a thorough fusion of the two sections of the Conservative party, upon clear and common grounds. All difficulties would by this time probably have been removed, but for the scruples of two or three gentlemen who are supposed to possess the private confidence of Sir Robert Peel, and who have hitherto identified themselves with his fortunes. Now, as it must be perfectly apparent to any man of common reflection, that the bulk of the Conservatives never can, under any circumstances, consent to act under the leadership of Peel; as he himself has, over and over again, publicly stated that no motive or consideration would induce him to return to power – it is absolutely incomprehensible to us how such scruples can exist in the minds of the individuals to whom we allude, if they really believe in the sincerity of this last declaration of their leader. No one wants him to take office, and he says that he will not accept it. So far all are agreed. If we believed that any one of these distinguished and honourable men is convinced that the commercial policy of the last three years has been wise and sound, and that, with any amount of trial, it can terminate otherwise than fatally for the interests of the country, we should have no right to address them upon a subject so momentous as this, and certainly no desire for one moment to gain their co-operation. But we can very well distinguish betwixt a feeling of strong attachment to an individual whose talents they have been accustomed to respect, but whose views they have only partially penetrated, and a settled conviction in the soundness of the policy which it has been his destiny to originate. We believe that, hitherto, the former sentiment, and not the latter one, must be taken as the true explanation of their conduct – that they are unwilling to abandon the man, although they have lost their faith in the efficacy of his measures. Now, if this be the case, how can they justify themselves for opposing, upon such slender grounds, the reconstruction of the Conservative party? They must be well aware that Sir Robert Peel has forfeited for ever the confidence of a large majority of those who, a few years ago, were his most steadfast and faithful followers, and that far more through his own deliberate acknowledgment of double-dealing, than from a mere change of opinion upon any one point of commercial policy, however important it might appear. It may be the misfortune of Peel, rather than his fault, that he cannot estimate the proper value of plain manly confidence and unshrinking candour; that he has invariably declined the straight for the crooked path; and that an excess of ingenuity – a vast misfortune for a statesman – has tempted him to meddle, repeatedly and almost incessantly, with interests far too important to be approached except with extreme deliberation. These are the considerations which must preclude him from being restored to his former rank as leader of the great Conservative party; and we notice them now, not as matter of blame to him, but in explanation of the general feeling. And we go further than this. We say that, in order to render the Conservative union enduring, it will be absolutely necessary to reconstruct the party upon clear, avowed, solid, and proclaimed principles, so that no doubt whatever may be left as to the course which in future is to be pursued. Instead of that shifting and wavering policy which has paralysed our colonies, terrified our merchants, and depressed the money market, we must resolve upon a definite plan for the future, which shall restore confidence, and secure us, so far as may be, against the recurrence of similar disasters. We must also determine whether the present currency laws are to be maintained, or whether they shall undergo such alterations as shall prevent them from aggravating the pressure in circumstances of unforeseen difficulty. On all these points Sir Robert Peel stands strongly and unfortunately committed. Even since he has been in opposition, he has shown no symptoms of the slightest relaxation of his last adopted ideas; and it is quite impossible for us to forget that, through his influence, the Whigs were enabled to carry that bill which is universally acknowledged to be the death-warrant of our West Indian colonies. Under these circumstances, the devotion of his few adherents is not only an act of Quixotry, but a serious injury to the party which has a right to expect their services and their aid; and, however much we may respect the talents of the gentlemen to whom we have alluded, we must tell them that the period for a definite selection has arrived, and that, by standing in the way of Conservative reconciliation and union, they are not performing their proper duty either to their country or their Queen.

With such financiers as Goulburn and Herries in the Commons, – with such eminent statesmen as Lords Stanley, Lyndhurst, and Aberdeen in the House of Peers, – there can be no doubt of the strength and the success of the Conservative party if once more thoroughly united. We have always regarded the unfortunate division as one of the most serious disasters that ever befell the country, not only because it destroyed the cohesion and severed the councils of a body which, under any circumstances, would have been strong enough to keep both the Whigs and the Radicals in check, but also because it engendered much apathy and some disgust amongst men who were the most valuable supporters of Conservative principles, and who, in consequence, ceased for a time to take any active interest in public affairs. The unseemly election contests which repeatedly took place in England, between parties mutually designating themselves Protectionists and Peelites, – sometimes terminating in the defeat of both, or in the triumph, through their idle rivalry, of a liberal candidate, who otherwise never could have succeeded – did a great deal to widen the breach, and to lessen the mass of the opposition; and we revert with considerable pride and satisfaction to the fact, that in Scotland no such unnatural dissension was exhibited, but that men belonging to every shade of Conservatism were eager to act in concert, whenever a candidate appeared. We can make allowance for some exasperation on both sides, under such very peculiar and novel circumstances; but we hope that we have seen the last of these discreditable and weakening contests.

Let, then, the short period which is left between the present time and the reassembling of Parliament be employed by all the friends of the old Conservative cause for the promotion of union, and the establishment of a thoroughly good understanding amongst ourselves. Let all former causes of offence be cordially forgiven: let us consider what we are to do, and whom we are to follow; and, these dispositions made, let them be adhered to with integrity and honour. The Whig faction is utterly effete and incapable of maintaining its ground. The free-traders stand before the nation as detected charlatans and impostors. There is no enemy to fear, if we only go on boldly and do our duty. But if we hesitate and hang back at the present crisis, and decline to assume a position which might soon enable us to apply an effectual remedy to the most pressing disorders of the country, can we be surprised if the masses, irritated and provoked, seeing no one great party in the state ready to come to their assistance, should begin to clamour for organic changes; or if the colonies, weary of their suffering, and despairing of sympathy, should question the worth of the bonds which bind them to the mother country?

Thus far we have thought it our duty to speak in all sincerity and plainness. We know well that these sentiments are far from being confined to ourselves. We feel assured that many of the wisest and best men who ever adorned her Majesty's councils, or those of her royal predecessors, are deeply desirous that the present anomalous state of party should be corrected, and unwholesome separation be superseded by cordial union. This, we firmly believe, could be effected without any sacrifice of principle, and the sooner it is accomplished the better.

There is but one topic more to which we would fain allude before concluding the present article. The late rebellious outbreaks in Ireland seem, in certain quarters, to have revived the notion of the expediency of a state endowment of the Roman Catholic priesthood. We place very little faith in the sincerity of an announcement which some time ago was put forth, on hierarchical authority, in the public prints, to the effect that, even were such an endowment to be offered, it would be peremptorily and indignantly refused. But, sincere or not, that statement may serve as an answer to the writer in the last Number of the Quarterly Review, who supports the endowment scheme with an unction which we were certainly not prepared to expect. His argument, from first to last, implies the same unhappy yielding to agitation and terrorism, which, when applied to civil matters, has ended in open rebellion, and which, if applied to ecclesiastical affairs, would infallibly result in the total overthrow and annihilation of the Protestant Church in Ireland. Does he really believe that – to assume no argument of a graver nature – the people of Great Britain will be ready, in the present desperate state of their finances, to submit to additional taxation for the purpose of establishing, in permanent comfort, the true instigators of the disturbances which have caused us so much anxiety and pain? Why, if such endowment can be vindicated upon any intelligible principle, is it to be confined to the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland alone, and not extended to the dissenting denominations throughout the width and breadth of the land? On what plea could the Free and Episcopal churches in Scotland, or the Wesleyan Methodists of England, be excluded, if such a proposition were for a moment to be seriously maintained? The reviewer professes to reject, in toto, any idea of the confiscation of existing church property, and therefore he must fall back, as his sole resource, upon government endowment, which means simply a new tax on the people of Great Britain, for the benefit of Ireland – a country which is already exempted from her share of our heaviest burdens, and annually receiving eleemosynary aid to an amount which has grievously contributed to increase our late monetary pressure. It may be that some such project is in contemplation, for we never have been able to comprehend, without some such motive as this, the extraordinary anxiety exhibited by the present Whig government in carrying through their bill for the establishment of Diplomatic relations with Rome, at the very moment when the last fragment of temporal power was passing from the hands of the Pope. But whether this be so or not – whether this is a mere private crotchet, or a prepared scheme, to come forth in due season – we are perfectly satisfied that it will be met throughout the country with a righteous storm of indignation. The Protestantism of Britain has been its strength and its glory; and it was only when called upon to choose between that sacred principle and the hardly less revered one of loyalty, that our forefathers thought themselves justified in summoning an alien to the British throne. What cost us then both tears and blood is an operating principle now; and if, through the grace of God, we have seen order maintained and rebellion crushed at home, at a period when half of Europe is plunged in the horrors of anarchy, we do not fear the charge of bigotry, if we attribute our preservation as much to the religious establishments of the land, as to the free institutions which Protestantism has enabled us to maintain. Loyalty is not a thing to be bought: it is a spontaneous feeling, unpurchaseable at any price; and if the Irish Catholic clergy have it not now, the most liberal endowment will work no change in their political feelings.

One of the arguments most commonly urged by those who advocate this system of endowment, is, we think, both erroneous in its assumption and weak in its application. They maintain that the Catholic clergy, if in the pay of the state, would have less power over the peasantry of Ireland than at present. Is that altogether a state of matters which it would be desirable to bring about? Would it be well to sap the influence of this moral police? There is not a Roman Catholic priest in Ireland at this moment who does not know, that were he to give open countenance to rebellion, he would not only be amenable to the laws of his country, but, under a firm executive government, would be selected as the earliest example. The situation of Ireland is such, that we can never calculate upon the loyalty of a large portion of its population. Centuries have rolled by, and still the Celtic race persist in being aliens from our own. We cannot tame them, cannot cultivate them, cannot win their hearts by any imaginable sacrifice. They persist in their cry of Ireland for the Irish, and will not see that the thing is as impossible as the re-establishment of the Saxon heptarchy, and, were it possible, would be tantamount to delivering them over to the horrors of a barbarian war. It is no use disguising the fact – we must deal with men as they are; and who can doubt that there does exist a great amount of rooted disaffection among the peasantry of Ireland? And now it is seriously proposed to cure that disaffection, by taking means calculated to weaken the influence of the priesthood over the peasantry! In other words, to give up the only hostages we hold, and leave the most turbulent and uneducated population of Europe, freed even from religious control, to be worked up to frenzy by the first lay demagogue who has the art to make them believe that treason is a synonymous term with patriotism. Even worldly wisdom would repudiate such a surrender, and the argument is so weak, that it bears with it its own refutation.

We have gained nothing whatever by tampering with Roman Catholicism in Ireland. Neither the moral nor the social condition of the people has been improved thereby; on the contrary, each successive step towards conciliation has been met by augmented turbulence. We cannot afford to push the experiment farther; and surely it would be a strange thing, if, while the Romish clergy themselves distinctly repudiate such an arrangement, and refuse to become the stipendiaries of the British government, any body of men who may be called to the responsible situation of her Majesty's advisers, should persist in tendering the obnoxious and repugnant boon: least of all do we expect that any such proposal can emanate from the Conservatives. We know that upon this point various opinions have been expressed, and that Lord George Bentinck was at one time supposed to be not unfavourable to such a scheme. No man, we firmly believe, ever had the good of Ireland more thoroughly at heart; and, had his plan for ameliorating the Irish distress been adopted last year, and the money which was uselessly squandered, been applied to the construction of permanent works eminently calculated to open up and develop the resources of the country, we might ere this time have seen the foundation laid of a new era of social and industrial prosperity. But the Whig Cabinet, perverse to the last, could not bring themselves to acknowledge that the political sagacity of an opponent was greater than their own; and, therefore the money which we gave with so lavish a hand, has disappeared without leaving the smallest trace of its employment. But, in ecclesiastical matters, Lord George Bentinck professed a latitudinarianism which was not responded to by the great bulk of his party. They were not disposed to unchristianise the high assembly of Britain by the introduction of men who openly avowed their denial of the faith of the Saviour; nor would they consent to put forth their hands against the ark of the national churches. And therefore it was that, upon more than one occasion, the Protestant party, while cheerfully acknowledging the great public services of the late departed nobleman, did not attempt to conceal that, upon points so serious as these, there could be no sympathy of opinion between him and them.

The single arrow may be easily splintered, but, to use the memorable words of Genghis-Khan, "So long as the sheaf is bound together in three places – in love, honesty, and good accord – no man can have power to grieve us; but, if we be divided from these three places, that one of us help not the other, we shall be destroyed and brought to nothing." We recommend the moral contained in the apologue of the old Asiatic chief to the serious consideration of all men belonging to the Conservative party; for this they may rely upon, that, not only is prolonged discord an act of egregious folly, but that any one who refuses, in the present troublous times, to lend a hand to the reknitting of the severed tie, cannot, in the estimation of good men, be considered a friend to his country. And if this be so, what faith can we repose in him who cut the cords asunder?

notes

1

England under the House of Hanover; its History and Condition during the reigns of the three Georges, illustrated from the Caricatures and Satires of the day. By Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A.F.S.A. &c. With numerous illustrations, executed by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A. In two volumes. London: 1848.

2

The word fandango, in New Mexico, is not applied to the peculiar dance known in Spain by that name, but designates a ball or dancing meeting.

3

Nickname for the idle fellows hanging about a Mexican town, translated into "Greasers" by the Americans.

4

Cask-shaped gourds.

5

The knives used by the hunters and trappers are manufactured at the "Green River" works, and have that name stamped upon the blade. Hence the mountain term for doing any thing effectually is "up to Green River."

6

Always alluding to Mexicans, who are invariably called Spaniards by the Western Americans.

7

In accordance with this suggestion, the name was changed to Brand. The mountaineers, it seems, are more sensitive to type than to tomahawks; and poor Ruxton, who always contemplated another expedition among them, would sometimes jestingly speculate upon his reception, should they learn that he had shown them up in print.

8

Sketches of the Last Naval War; from the French of Captain Gravière. By the Hon. Captain Plunket. 2 vols. Longman.

9

Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, (second Marquis of Londonderry.) Edited by his brother, Charles Vane, Marquis of Londonderry. 2 vols. London: Colburn.