Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845

It can be no dishonour to the memory of the first of statesmen, to acknowledge that he had not the gift of prophecy. Europe had never before seen a war of the people. The burning passions, rude vigour, and remorseless daring of the multitude, were phenomena of which man knows no more than he knows of the materials of destruction which lie hid in the central caverns of the globe, and which some new era may be suffered to develope, for the new havoc of posterity. Even to this hour, I think that the true source of revolutionary triumph has been mistaken. It was not in the furious energy of its factions, nor in the wild revenge of the people, nor even in the dazzling view of national conquest. These were but gusts of the popular tempest, currents of the great popular tide. But the mighty mover of all was the sudden change from the disgusts and depressions of serfdom, into a sense that all the world of possession lay before the bold heart and the ruthless hand. Every form of wealth and enjoyment was offered to the man who had begun life in the condition of one chained to the ground, and who could never have hoped to change his toil but for the grave. But the barrier was now cast down, and all were free to rush in. The treasury of national honours was suddenly flung open, and all might share the spoil. This was the true secret of the astonishing power of the Revolution. The man who was nothing to-day, might be everything to-morrow. The conscript might be a captain, a colonel, a general, before the Austrian or Prussian soldier could be a corporal. Who can wonder at the march of France, or the flight of her enemies?

Although every night now produced a debate, and the demand on the activity and vigilance of ministers was incessant and exhausting, the real debates in both Houses were few in comparison with those of later times. In those pitched battles of the great parties, their whole strength was mustered from every quarter; the question was long announced; and its decision was regarded as giving the most complete measure of the strength of the Cabinet and Opposition. One of these nights came, unfortunately for ministers, on the very day in which the bulletin arrived, announcing the signature of the first Austrian armistice. The passage of the Tyrol had stripped Austria of its mountain barrier. Terror had done the rest; and the armistice was signed within three marches of Vienna! The courier who had been sent to the Austrian ambassador, and had been permitted to pass through France, reported the whole nation to be in a frenzy of triumph. He had every where seen civic processions, military displays, and illuminations in the cities. The exultation of the people had risen to the utmost height of national enthusiasm; and Europe was pronounced, by every Frenchman, from the Directory to the postilion, to be at their feet.

This intelligence was all but fatal. If a shower of cannon-balls had been poured in upon the ministerial benches, it could scarcely have produced a more sweeping effect. It was clear that the sagacity of the "independent members"—only another name for the most flexible portion of the House—was fully awake to the contingency; the "waiters upon Providence," as they were called, with no very reverent allusion, were evidently on the point of deciding for themselves; and the "King's friends"—a party unknown to the constitution, but perfectly knowing, and known by, the treasury—began to move away by small sections; and, crowded as the clubs were during the day, I never saw the minister rise with so few of his customary troops behind him. But the Opposition bench was crowded to repletion; and their leader sat looking round with good-humoured astonishment, and sometimes with equally good-humoured burlesque, on the sudden increase of his recruits. The motion was in answer to a royal message on continental subsidies. Nothing could have been more difficult than the topic at that juncture. But I never listened to Pitt with more genuine admiration. Fox, in his declamatory bursts, was superior to every speaker whom I have ever heard. His appearance of feeling was irresistible. It seemed that, if one could have stripped his heart, it could scarcely have shown its pulsations more vividly to the eye, than they transpired from his fluent and most eloquent tongue. But if Fox was the most powerful of declaimers, Pitt was the mightiest master of the language of national council. He, too, could be occasionally glowing and imaginative. He could even launch the lighter weapons of sarcasm with singular dexterity; but his true rank was as the ruler of Empire, and his true talent was never developed but when he spoke for the interests of Empire.

On this night he was more earnest and more impressive than ever; the true description would have been, more imperial. He spoke, less like a debater, than like one who held the sceptre in his hand; and one who also felt that he was transmitting his wisdom as a parting legacy to a great people.

A portion of that speech, which ought never to be forgotten by the leaders of public affairs in England, was singularly full and powerful. Referring to the calumniated Revolution of 1688—"We now stand," said he, "almost in the same position with respect to France and Europe, in which the government of William III. stood a century ago. We have only to substitute the democracy of France for the monarchy; and Europe enfeebled by the shocks of war, as it is now, for Europe untouched and intrepid, awake to the ambition of the French king, and determined to meet him sword in hand. But the King of England was even then the guiding mind of Europe. I now demand, what was the redeeming policy of that pre-eminent sovereign? It was, never to despair of the triumph of principle; never to doubt of the ultimate fortunes of good in a contest with evil; and never to hesitate in calling upon a great and free people for the defence of that constitution which had made them great and free."

Those high-toned sentiments were received with loud cheers. Even Opposition felt the natural force of the appeal, and the cheering was universal; party was forgotten for the time, and the name of England, and the revived glory of those illustrious days, bowed the whole House at the will of the great orator. In the midst of their enthusiasm, he took from the table a volume of the records, and read the final address of William to his Parliament; the bequest of a dying king to the people whom he had rescued from slavery. This royal speech had evidently formed his manual of government, and, certainly, a nobler declaration never came from the throne.

"My Lords and Gentlemen—I promise myself that you are met together with that just sense of the common danger of Europe, and that resentment of the late proceedings of the French king, which have been so fully and universally expressed in the loyal and seasonable addresses of my people." In allusion to the French plan of universal monarchy in the reign of Louis XIV., the speech pronounced that the alliance of Spain was the commencement of a system for subjugating Europe. "It is fit," said the King, "that I should tell you that the eyes of all Europe are upon this Parliament—all matters are at a stand until your resolutions are known; and therefore no time ought to be lost.

"You have yet an opportunity, by God's blessing, to secure to yourselves and your posterity the quiet enjoyment of your religion and liberties, if you are not wanting to yourselves, but will exert the utmost vigour of the English nation. But I tell you plainly, that if you do not lay hold of this occasion, you have no reason to hope for another." One of the measures proposed was, for the maintenance of the public good faith. "I cannot but press upon you," said the King, "to take care of the public credit, which cannot be preserved but by keeping sacred the maxim, that they shall never be losers who trust to parliamentary security.

"Let me conjure you to disappoint the only hopes of your enemies by your unanimity. I have shown, and will always show, how desirous I am to be the common father of all my people: do you, in like manner, lay aside parties and divisions; let there be no other distinction heard of amongst us, but of those who are for the Protestant religion and the present establishment; and of those who mean a Popish prince and a French government.

"I shall only add this; that if you do, in good earnest, desire to see England hold the balance of Europe, and to be indeed at the head of the Protestant interest, it will appear by the present opportunity."

Daylight shone on the windows of St Stephen's before the debate closed. The minister had retired immediately after his exhausting speech, and left his friends to sustain the combat. It was long and fierce; but Opposition was again baffled, and the division gave us a lingering majority. It was now too late, or too early, to go to rest; and I had returned to my official apartments, to look over some returns required for the next council, when, my friend the secretary tapped at my door. His countenance looked care-worn; and for a few moments after he had sat down, he remained in total silence, with his forehead resting on his hands. This was so unlike the cheerful spirit of former times—times in which he had seemed to defy, or almost to enjoy, the struggles of public life—that I began to express alarm for his health. But he interrupted me by a look of the deepest distress, and the words "Pitt is dying." No words could be fuller of ill omen, and my anxiety was equal to his own. "My meaning," said he, "is not, that he must die to-day, or to-morrow, nor in six months, nor perhaps in a year, but that the statesman is dead. He must speak no more, act no more, and even think no more, or he must go to his grave. This night has finished the long supremacy of the noblest mind that ever ruled the councils of this country. William Pitt may live, but the minister has finished his days."

"Yet," I remarked, "I never heard him more animated or more impressive than on this night. He absolutely broke down all resistance. His mind seemed richer than ever, and his combination of facts and reasoning appeared to me unequalled by even his greatest previous efforts. I should have almost pronounced him to be inspired by the increased difficulties of the time."

"True—yet I conveyed him from the House, fainting;—I have sate, along with his physician, at his bedside ever since, applying restoratives to him, with scarcely a hope of recovery. It is plain that another night of such effort would be too much for his frame; and the question on which I have now come to summon an immediate meeting of our friends, turns on the means of calming public opinion until he shall be able to appear in his place once more. His career is unquestionably at an end, but his name is powerful still; and though another trial of his powers in Parliament would cost him his life, still, as the head of the cabinet, he might effect, for a while, all the principal purposes of an administration."

I doubted the possibility of encountering the present strength of Opposition, reinforced, as it was, by calamity abroad, and asked, "Whether any expedient was contemplated, to restore the public fortunes on the Continent?"

"Every point of that kind has been long since considered," was the answer. "Our alliances have all failed; and we are now reproached, not simply with the folly of paying for inefficient help, but with the cruelty of dragging the states of Europe into a contest, where to be crushed was inevitable."

I still urged an enquiry into the strength of states which had never been sharers in the war. "If the minor German powers have been absorbed; if Prussia has abandoned the cause; if Austria has fought in vain—is the world included in Germany?" I threw the map of Europe on the table. "See what a narrow circle comprehends the whole space to which we have hitherto limited the defence of society against the enemy of all social order. Our cause is broader than Austria and Prussia; it is broader than Europe; it is the cause of civilization itself; and why not summon all civilization to its defence? Russia alone has an army of half a million, yet she has never fired a shot." Still, I found it difficult to convince my fellow minister.

"Russia—jealous, ambitious, and Asiatic; Russia, with the Eastern world for her natural field—what object can she have in relieving the broken powers of the Continent? Must she not rather rejoice in the defeats and convulsions which leave them at her mercy?" I still continued to urge him.

"Rely upon it; it is in the North that we must look for the reinforcement. If the councils of Catharine were crafty, the councils of her successor may be sincere. Catharine thought only of the seizure of Turkey; Paul may think only of the profits of commerce. Yet, is it altogether justifiable to suppose that monarchs may not feel the same sympathies, the same principles of honour—nay, the same abhorrence of a sanguinary republicanism—which a private individual might feel in any other instance of oppression?"

"Still, Marston, I am at a loss to know by what influence a British government could urge a Russian despotism into a contest, a thousand miles from its frontier; in which it can gain no accession of territory, and but little accession of military fame; and all this, while it is itself perfectly secure from all aggression."

"All true; but remember the striking commencement of Voltaire's Memoir of Peter—'Who could have pretended to say, in the year 1700, that a magnificent and polished court would be formed at the extremity of the Gulf of Finland; that the inhabitants of Cazan and the banks of the Wolga would be ranked among disciplined warriors, and, after beating the Turk and the Swede, gain victories in Germany? That a desert of two thousand leagues in length, should, in the space of fifty years, extend its influence to all the European courts; and that, in 1759, the most zealous patron of literature in Europe should be a Russian sovereign? The man who had said this would have been regarded as the most chimerical mortal on earth.' But all this has been done, and the career is not closed. More will be done still. It may even be our most essential policy to bring Russia into full collision with France. She is now the only rival: and I shall scarcely regret the fall of the German sovereignties, if it clears the field, to bring face to face the two great powers which hold at their sword's point the fate of the Continent."

A month passed, of perpetual difficulty in the cabinet, of ill news from abroad, and of violent discontents among the people. A deficient harvest had come, to increase the national murmurs; a season of peculiar inclemency had added its share to the public vexations; and I fully experienced the insufficiency of office, and of the showy honours of courts, to constitute happiness. But a new scene was reserved for me. Casual as my conversation with the secretary of state had been, it was not forgotten: it had been related to the minister; and it had so far coincided with the conceptions of a mind, which seemed to comprehend every chance of human things, that I was shortly sent for, to enter into the necessary explanations. The result was, the offer of a mission to St Petersburg. The proposal was so unexpected, that I required time for my answer. I must abandon high employment at home for a temporary distinction abroad; my knowledge of Russia was slight; the character of the Czar was eccentric; and the success of an embassy, dependent on the most capricious of mankind, was so uncertain, that the result might strip me of whatever credit I already possessed.

But, there was one authority, to which I always appealed. I placed the proposal in the hands of Clotilde; and she settled all my doubts at once, by declaring, "that it was the appointment which, if she had been suffered to choose, she would have selected, in preference to all others, for its honour and its services." I had no power to resist such pleadings—seconded as they were by the rosiest smiles, and the most beaming eyes. But Clotilde was still the woman, and I only valued her the more for it.—Her sincerity had not a thought to hide; and she acknowledged her delight at the prospect of once more treading on the soil of the Continent; at gazing even on the borders of her native land, excluded as she might be from its entrance; at the enjoyment of seeing continental life in the brilliant animation of its greatest court; and at mingling with the scene in a rank which entitled her to its first distinctions.

"But, Clotilde, how will you reconcile your tastes to the wild habits of Russia, and even to the solemn formalities of a northern court?"

"They both present themselves to me," was her answer, "with the charm at once of novelty and recollection. From my nursery days, the names of Peter, Catharine, and their marvellous city, rang in the ears of all Paris. Romance had taken refuge at the pole; Voltaire, Buffon, D'Alembert—all the wit, and all the philosophy of France—satirized the French court under the disguise of Russian panegyric; and St Petersburg was to us the modern Babylon—a something compounded of the wildness of a Scythian desert, and the lustre of a Turkish tale."

The ministerial note had been headed "most secret and confidential," and as such I had regarded it. But I soon saw the difficulty of keeping "a state secret." I had scarcely sent in my acceptance of the appointment, when I found a letter on my table from my old Israelite friend, Mordecai, congratulating me on "my decision." It was in his usual abrupt style:—

"I was aware of the minister's offer to you within twelve hours after it was made. I should have written to you, urging its acceptance; but I preferred leaving your own judgment to settle the question. Still, I can give you some personal knowledge on the subject of Russia. I have been there for the last six months. My daughter—for what purpose I have never been able to ascertain—took a sudden whim of hating Switzerland, and loving the snows and deserts of the North. But I have known the sex too long, ever to think of combating their wills by argument.—The only chance of success is to give way to them. Mariamne, sick of hills and valleys, and unable to breathe in the purest air of the globe, determined to try the exhalations from the marshes of the Neva. But, she is my child, after all—the only being for whom I live—and I was peculiarly grateful that she had not fixed on Siberia, or taken a resolution to live and die at Pekin. I do not regret my journey. It has thrown a new light on me. I must acknowledge to you, that I was astonished at Russia. I had known it in early life, and thought that I knew it well. But it is singularly changed. The spirit of the people—the country—the throne itself—have undergone the most remarkable of silent revolutions, and the most effective of all. Russia is now Russia no longer; she is Greece, Germany, France—and she will yet be England. Her politics and her faculties, alike, embrace the civilized world. She is Greece in her subtlety, Germany in her intelligence, and France in her ambition. St Petersburg is less the capital of her empire, though of all capitals the most magnificent, than an emblem of her mind. I often stood on the banks of the Neva, and, looking round me on their mass of palaces, involuntarily asked myself—Could all this have been the work of a single mind? Other capitals have been the work of necessity, of chance, of national defence, of the mere happiness of location. But this was founded in ambition alone—founded by the sovereign will of one who felt, that in it he was erecting an empire of conquest; and that from this spot, in after ages, was to pour forth the force that was to absorb every other dominion of the world. Peter fixed on the site of his city to tell this to the world. I see in its framer, and in its site, the living words—'I fix my future capital in a wilderness—in a swamp—in a region of tempests—on the shores of an inhospitable sea—in a climate of nine months' winter—to show that I am able to conquer all the obstacles of nature. I might have fixed it on the shores of the Euxine—in the most fertile regions of Asia—in the superb plains of central Russia—or on the banks of the Danube; but I preferred fixing it in the extremity of the North, to show that the mind and power of Russia dreaded no impediments, of either man or nature.'