THE ANNUAL REGISTER, FOR THE YEAR 1830. HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. I. State of parties at the beginning of the year-Connection between the Ministry and the Whigs--Prosecutions for Libel-Opening of the Session of Parliament-Amendment on the Address moved in the House of Lords by Earl Stanhope-The Address moved in the Commons by Lord Darlington-Amendment moved by Sir Edward Knatchbull-Resolutions moved as an Amendment by the Marquis of Blandford-Motion of Earl Stanhope, in the House of Lords, for an Inquiry by a Committee of the whole House into the state of the nation-A similar Inquiry moved for in the House of Commons. T the opening of the Session of parliament in the present year, the government found itself in a new and unsafe position. By an unbounded use of its power, it had carried the great party question of Catholic Emancipation; but in so doing, it had lost the confidence of a large body of its most faithful and influential adherents, who, holding themselves to have been betrayed, had been converted into determined opponents. Ministers, on the other hand, had gained the seeming support of their VOL. LXXII. old enemies of the opposition; but the friendship was interested and luke-warm. The whigs were willing to lend the ministry such assistance as would save them from the necessity of seeking a reconciliation with the offended tories; but they were not willing that even this should be conceded, except as the means of gradually, at least, introducing themselves into an equal share of power. They assented to a coalition in parliament, but they expected, and their expectation was neither unnatural nor unrea [B] 2] ANNUAL ANNUAL REGISTER, 1830. sonable, that this should terminate in a coalition in office. They had no desire, therefore, to render the ministry independent: their policy was, to aid it with their countenance and their votes, so far as would be sufficient to keep it alive, but by no means to give it the robustness and vigour of perfect health-as the quack takes care that the infirmities of his patient shall continue, till he himself shall be received as an essential part of the family establishment. The duke of Wellington, again, was very willing to use them as supporters: without their help he could not stand a single week; but he was not disposed to receive them into an equal share of his power. He still would have preferred a reconciliation with his old friends, and every hope of that nature would have been annihilated by an official coalition with the whigs. He stood aloof, therefore, from a more intimate connection with the latter, that he might keep open the door of reconciliation with the former; and he flattered himself, that as each of the two divisions of his adversaries would be unwilling to drive him, for the preservation of his ministry, into the arms of the other, he might command the occasional assistance of both to an extent sufficient to enable him to govern without placing himself in the power of either. The tories, however, who had been disgusted by the conduct of ministers regarding the Catholic bill, shewed no inclination again to trust the men who had once betrayed them. They resisted Wellington, Peel, and their colleagues, not only as statesmen who had abused their power, and coalesced with their political antagonists, to force upon the country a measure contrary to its opinions, its interests, and its institutions, but as politicians who, to effect that purpose, had abandoned their tenets, betrayed and surprised their own confiding adherents, and introduced as a principle into the conduct of government, that every thing was to be granted, which was demanded by any portion of the community, with a sufficient quantity of clamour and threat. Between them and the whigs, the distance now was at least not greater than between them and the ministry; and the whigs had never betrayed them; and the unblushing disregard of the public voice of England and Scotland, which had been manifested in carrying through the Catholic bill, had made, even among the opponents of that bill, converts to the question of Parliamentary Reform-almost the only distinguishing legend that now remained visible on the banners of whiggery. His grace of Wellington, however, although he had himself carried one public measure only by an open coalition with his political adversaries, and a wreckless use of the power which that coalition gave him, seemed to reckon it not within the range of probability, that a similar coalition between these adversaries and his former friends might be formed to carry another public measure, viz. his expulsion from power. His own conduct had at once furnished the motive to such an union, and removed one irreconcileable point of difference between the parties whose union he had to fear. The party, of which Mr. Canning had been the leader, and which, after his death, had acknowledged Mr. Huskisson as its head, would have supplied him both with influence and with talent; but the expulsion of Mr. Huskisson from the cabinet had been too ignominious to leave any hope of his return, unless the duke should stoop to make submissions which neither his situaation nor the obstinacy of his character seemed to allow. Considered in itself, too, the ministry was altogether without the means of making any commanding figure in the house of Commons. With the exception of Mr. Secretary Peel, who tried to fill the post of leader in that House, there was no man fitted to fight their battles in debate with any tolerable degree of talent and vigour-no one that held any high place in public opinion, either for oratory or information. Every disposition was shewn, therefore, to form such an alliance with the whigs, as might, on all occasions, moderate their opposition, and on some, might bring over their voices to the side of ministers. The marquis of Cleveland, a great boroughproprietor of that party, under whose patronage Mr. Brougham had long sat, lent them his aid, and his son, lord Darlington, undertook to move the address. The duke of Devonshire was another influential personage on the same side; and Mr. James Abercromby long sat for one of his boroughs. The office of Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland having become vacant, by the resignation of sir Samuel Shephard, Mr. Abercromby, who had been once a member of the English Chancery Bar, but had never been in any considerable practice, and had for some years quitted his profession, was promoted to the empty seat. In the usual course of official preferment, this office should have been bestowed on the Lord Advocate of Scotland; but that course was violated, and all other claims were disregarded, because it was desirable to conciliate the duke of Devonshire. The security, however, thus obtained was imperfect and unstable; there was no amalgamation of the parties; it seemed rather to be matter of individual arrangement. The great body of the opposition were willing to try whether they could make the minister so sensible of, his dependence, as to compel him to admit them; but they were not prepared to be duped by his crude scheme of governing by dividing, or to weaken the peculiar sources of their noisy influence by sharing, as a party, the unpopu larity of his measures. While the Catholic bill was pending, the press had given birth to much vehement and angry discussion. The boldest among the opponents of the measure was a paper called the Morning Journal, edited by a Mr.Alexander, and conducted, however it might transgress the bounds of even allowable invective, with very considerable talent. The part which ministers had taken in regard to emancipation laid them most peculiarly open to attack, and the Morning Journal assailed them without mercy. The consequence was, that sir James Scarlett, the Attorney-general, resolved to crush the paper by ex officio informations. No fewer than three informations were filed, besides an indictment which was preferred by the duke of Wellington. The first application of Mr. Attorney was for an information at the instance of the Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, on account of an article which was alleged to mean, although he was not pointed out in it by name, title, or rank, that he had procured the office of Solicitor-general for Mr. Sugden in return for a loan of 30,000l. A rule having been granted, calling on Mr. Alexander, and the other proprietors of the paper, to show cause against the information, Mr. Alexander put in an affidavit, in which he denied that the Lord Chancellor was the person alluded to. Most people did not think favourably of this affidavit, and the Court granted the information; but the Attorney-general seemed to be more apprehensive of it, for, so soon as he had thus ascertained what was to be the defence of Mr. Alexander, the information at the instance of the Chancellor was abandoned, and an ex officio information was filed, charging that the libel applied to some member in his Majesty's government. By this substitution the prosecutor likewise gained the advantage of being entitled to reply. A second ex officio information was filed, for a libel on the king and his government, that is, on the duke of Wellington and his colleagues. The libellous matter was contained in an article which described his grace as an ambitious, unprincipled, and dangerous minister, keeping his majesty under degrading and unconstitutional control, and his majesty as a king who could be so controlled. A third information was filed for a libel "tending to degrade the king, and to bring his government into contempt, and to inflame the minds of his majesty's subjects against both Houses of Parliament." In so far as the king and his government was concerned, the libel consisted of the same kind of matter that formed the subject of the second information, and it was in truth a second prosecution for the same offence. In as far as parliament was con grossest treachery to his country, or else the most arrant cowardice, or treachery, cowardice, and artifice united." This libel had appeared as a letter addressed to the editor of the Journal, and was a genuine letter. So soon as it was known that it was to be prosecuted, the author, who was domestic chaplain to the duke of Cumberland, wrote to the duke of Wellington, avowing the letter. Yet the author was passed over, and the printer was selected for prosecution. All the cases were tried together. On the first information, the defendants were found guilty. On the second the verdict was "We find the defendants guilty of a libel on his Majesty, but not guilty of a libel on his Majesty's ministers. We also beg to state it is our opinion, that the article in question was written under feelings of very great excitation, occasioned by the unprecedented agitation of the time. We therefore most earnestly beg leave to recommend all the defendants to the merciful consi deration of the Court." Notwith- allies described it, had conducted standing this verdict, the third information was pressed, and a verdict of guilty obtained. On the indictment at the instance of the duke of Wellington, the verdict was likewise, guilty. The defendants were called up for judgment on the 4th of February, the day of the meeting of Parliament. The Attorney-general did not move for judgment on the second information; but he did move for it on the third, which, in so far as the king and his government were concerned, contained the very same matter. Mr. Gutch, one of the proprietors, was discharged on his own recognizance. Another was ordered to enter into his own recognizance to appear when called on, and to find sureties in 100l. each for his good behaviour for three years. A third proprietor, who was included only in the indictment, was fined in 100l., and ordered to be imprisoned till the fine was paid. Alexander, the editor, was punished with more severity. The sentence on him was, that, for each of the three libels, he should be imprisoned in Newgate for four calendar months -the second period of imprisonment to commence from the conclusion of the first, and the third from the expiration of the second; that, for each offence, he should pay to the king a fine of 100l.; and that he should give security for his good behaviour during three years, himself in 500l., and two sureties in 2501. each, and be imprisoned until such fines should be paid, and such security given. These prosecutions were received with universal dislike by all parties in the country; and the temper, in which the whig Attorney-general, under "a tory ministry governing on whig principles," as its new them, gave a severe blow to the public character of sir James Scarlett. We shall afterwards see the discussions to which they gave rise in parliament. Coinciding, as the last act of the performance did, with the opening of the session, it was set down as another great addition to the sins of ministers, who, making little or no allowance, for vehement discussion, which their own conduct had provoked, had employed all the terrors of accumulated state prosecutions against those who had spoken of them in language no doubt of immoderate severity, but which, nevertheless, a Jury had pronounced to be no libel. On the 4th of February the Session of Parliament was opened by Commission. The King's Speech was in the following terms: "My Lords and Gentlemen, "We are commanded by His Majesty to inform you, that his Majesty receives from all foreign Powers the strongest assurances of their desire to mantain and cultivate the most friendly relations with this country. "His Majesty has seen with satisfaction, that the war between Russia and the Ottoman Porte has been brought to a conclusion. The efforts of his Majesty to accomplish the main objects of the treaty of the 6th of July, 1827, have been unremitted. "His Majesty having recently concerted with his Allies measures for the pacification and final settlement of Greece, trusts that he shall be enabled, at an early period, to communicate to you the particulars of this arrangement, with such information as may explain the course which his Majesty has pursued throughout the progress of these important transactions, |