the produce of taxes was continually | it had been adhered to, the whole debt rising, prices of every sort quickly rose, might have been extinguished with ease interest was high, profits still higher, before the year 1845; that is, in nearly and all who made their livelihood by as short a time as it was created. Great productive industry, or by buying and as were the burdens of the war, thereselling, found themselves in a state of ex- fore, he had established the means of traordinary and increasing prosperity. | rendering them only temporary; durThat these favourable appearances able as the results of its successes have were to a certain extent delusive; that proved, the price at which they were the flood of prosperity thus let in upon purchased admitted, according to his the state was occasioned by exhausting, plan, of a rapid liquidation. It is the in a great degree, the reservoirs of subsequent abandonment of the sinkwealth for future emergencies; and ing-fund, in consequence of the unthat a long period of languor and de- necessary and imprudent remission of pression was to follow this feverish and so large a proportion of the indirect unnatural period of excitement, is in- taxes on which it depended, which is deed certain. But still the effect at the real evil that has undone the the moment was the same; and in the mighty structure of former wisdom; activity, enterprise, and opulence thus and for a slight and questionable precreated, were to be found the most sent advantage, rendered the debt, powerful resources for carrying on the when undergoing a rapid and successcontest. How beneficial soever to the ful process of liquidation, a lasting and finances of the state in future times it hopeless burden on the state. The might have been, to have raised the magnitude of this change is too great whole supplies by taxation within the to be accounted for by the weakness or year, it was impossible that from such errors of individuals; the misfortune a prudent and parsimonious system thus inflicted upon the country too there could have arisen the extraordi- irreparable to be ascribed alone to the nary vigour and progressive creation improvidence or shortsighted policy of of wealth which resulted from the subsequent governments. Without lavish expenditure of the national capi- exculpating the members of the adtal in maintaining the conflict; and ministrations who did not manfully but for the profuse outlay, which has resist, and, if they could not prevent, been felt as so burdensome in subse- at least denounce the growing delusion, quent times, the nation might have it may safely be affirmed, that the sunk beneath its enemies, and Eng- great weight of the responsibility must land, with all its glories, been swept be borne by the nation itself. If the for ever from the book of existence. people of Great Britain have now a debt of seven hundred and seventy millions, with hardly any fund for its redemption, they have to blame, not Mr Pitt, who was compelled to contract it in the course of a desperate struggle for the national independence, and left them the means of its rapid and certain liquidation, but the blind democratic spirit which first, from its excesses in a neighbouring state, made its expenditure unavoidable, and then, from its impatience of present sacrifice at home, destroyed the means of its discharge. 70. Had Mr Pitt's system, attended as it was, however, with this vast expenditure of capital instead of income on the current expenses, made no provision for the ultimate redemption of the debt thus contracted, it would, notwithstanding the prodigious and triumphant results with which it was attended, have been liable to very severe reprehension. But every view of his financial policy must be imperfect and erroneous, if the sinking-fund, which constituted so essential a part of the system, is not taken into consideration. Its great results have now been completely demonstrated by experience: and there can be no question that, if VOL. VI. 71. "All nations," says M. Tocque ville, in his profound work on American democracy, "which have made a N great and lasting impression on human | the currency which took place in conaffairs, from the Romans to the Eng- sequence of the act compelling the lish, have been governed by aristocratic Bank of England to resume cash paybodies the instability and impatience ments in 1819. Whoever will cast his of the democratic spirit render the eye over the instructive table given in states in which it is the ruling power the Appendix to the last volume of incapable of durable achievements." this work, will at once perceive that The abandonment of a system fraught this fatal measure, which, at the very with such incalculable future advan- time that the annual supply of the tages as the sinking-fund, but requir- precious metals for the globe had been ing a present sacrifice for its mainten- reduced a half by the effects of the ance, affords decisive evidence that the South American revolutions, curtailed balance of the constitution had become the paper circulation of the British overloaded in reality, before it was so Islands by another half, had the effect in form, on the popular side, and that of lowering prices for the next thirty the period had arrived when an "igno- years by fully fifty per cent.* The rant impatience of taxation" was to remuneration of industry in every debring about that disregard of every-partment being so greatly reduced, thing but present objects, which is the invariable characteristic of the majority of mankind. During nearly thirty years of aristocratic rule in England, that noble monument of national foresight and resolution progressively prospered with its decline, the efficiency of the great engine of redemption was continually impaired under the increasing influence of the unthinking multi-prices which the contraction of the tude; and at length, upon the subversion of that aristocratic predominance by the great change of 1832, it was finally to all practical purposes destroyed. Irretrievable ultimate ruin has thus been brought upon the state; for not only is the burden now fixed upon its resources inconsistent with the permanent maintenance of the national independence, but the steady rule has been terminated, under which alone its liquidation could have been expected. : 72. In truth, the abandonment of the sinking-fund, in consequence of the weak and vacillating conduct of the successive administrations in yielding to partial clamours, raised by interested parties for a reduction of taxation affecting themselves, was so enormous an error, and is fraught with such evidently disastrous effects to the future independence and existence of the country, that it would be wholly unaccountable, in an age of intelligence and political activity, were it not explained by the dreadful effects of the sudden and prodigious contraction of while money engagements of all sorts, public and private, underwent no diminution, the payment of most of the indirect taxes became impossible. It was an easy matter for the masters engaged in the principal branches of manufacture in the kingdom to prove to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, under the forcible reduction of currency had produced, they could not Dis 73. But this only removes the difficulty a step further back. How did it happen that government could ever * See Appendix, Chap. xcv. 74. But if the sun of British greatness is from these causes setting in the Old, it is from the same cause rising in renovated lustre in the New World. The impatience of the democratic spirit, both in the British Isles and on the shores of the Atlantic-the energy it develops, the desires it creates, the burdens which it perpetuates, the convulsions which it induces, all conspire to impel the ceaseless wave of emigration to the west; and the very distresses consequent on an advanced stage of existence force the power and vigour of civilisation into the primeval have been induced to give their consent | sought to make as dear as possible. to a measure fraught with such ruinous Ultimate ruin will be brought upon consequences as this contraction of the the British as it was on the Roman currency has proved to be? It affected empire, from the same cause, and in the exchequer at least as much as the the same way. And thus the entire general industry of the country; it at success of the measures of protection once stopped the liquidation of the and a sufficient currency, which formed public debt, starved down the military the leading features of Mr Pitt's doand naval establishments of the empire mestic policy, was the immediate cause to a scale inconsistent with its lasting of their abandonment by the next gendefence, and has kept the treasury eration, because they reared up a ever since in almost ceaseless embar- wealthy monied class whose interests rassments. The solution of this enigma were at variance with those of industry, is to be found in the weight acquired but whose influence was beyond its in the country by a body previously control. little regarded, but which has now become paramount to all others, in consequence of the success of the war,the monied interest. So vast had been the accumulation of capital during the contest, so immense the numbers, and powerful the influence, of the trading and commercial classes who had risen to affluence while it continued, that they had now come to overshadow all the other classes of the state put together. The classes had become all-powerful whose interest was to buy cheap and sell dear. The consumers were enabled to set the producers at defiance. The Reform Act, produced by the wide-recesses of the forest. Two hundred spread and universal suffering occasioned by this important change, gave the monied interest a permanent sway in the state; for it bestowed two-thirds of the seats in the House of Commons on the members for burghs, and two-thirds of the votes in every burgh on the trading or monied classes, or the persons whom they could influence. Thence the entire deviation of British legislation since that time from all the principles which formerly regulated it. Thence the abandonment of the sinking-fund to cheapen government, of the corn-laws to cheapen labour, of colonial protection to cheapen sugar and wood, of the navigation laws to cheapen freights. England, like imperial Rome, had fallen under the rule of a body of monied patricians, whose interests were adverse to that of all the industrious classes in the state, but whose influence outweighed them all put together. They desired to cheapen everything except money, and that they thousand of the Anglo-Saxons or Celtic race are now annually impelled, by necessity, ambition, or restlessness, from the British Islands to the shores of the New World.* In two centuries the name of England may be extinct, or survive only under the shadow of ancient renown; but a hundred and fifty millions of men in North America will be speaking its language, reading its authors, glorying in its descent. Nations, like individuals, were not destined for immortality; in their virtues equally as their vices, their grandeur as their weakness, they bear in their bosoms the seeds of mortality. But in the passions which elevate them to greatness, equally as in those which hasten their decay, is to be discerned the unceasing opera *In the year 1848, 258,000 emigrants sailed from the British Islands, of whom 244,000 were destined for the United States or Canada, and in 1849 the number was still greater. tion of those principles at once of corruption and regeneration which are combined in humanity; and which, universal in communities as in single men, compensate the necessary decline of nations by the vital fire which has given an undecaying youth to the human race. CHAPTER XLII. FROM THE PEACE OF PRESSBURG TO THE RENEWAL OF THE CONTINENTAL WAR. JANUARY-OCTOBER 1806. 1. THE peace of Pressburg seemed to have finally subjected the Continent to the empire of France. The greatest and most formidable coalition which had ever been arrayed against its fortunes was dissolved. The military strength of Austria had received, to all appearance, an irreparable wound; Prussia, though irritated, was overawed, and had let the favourable moment for striking a decisive blow elapse without venturing to draw the sword; and even the might of Russia, hitherto held in undefined dread by the states of southern Europe, had succumbed in the conflict, and the northern autocrat was indebted to the generosity of the victor for the means of escaping from the theatre of his overthrow. When such results had been gained with the great military monarchies, it was of little moment what was the disposition of the lesser powers; but they, too, had been terrified into submission, or retired from a contest in which success could no longer be hoped for. Sweden, in indignant silence, had withdrawn to the shores of Gothland; Naples was overrun; Switzerland was mute; and Spain consented to yield its fleets and its treasures to the conqueror of northern Europe. England, it is true, with unconquerable resolution and unconquered arms, still continued the contest; but after the prostration of the Continental armies, and the destruction of the French marine, it appeared no longer to have an intelligible object; while the death of the great statesman who had ever been the uncompromising foe of the Revolution, and the soul of all the confederacies against it, led to a well-founded expectation that a more pacific system of government might be anticipated on the part of his successors. 2. The hopes entertained by Napoleon of such a temporary accommodation with England as might leave him at liberty, by fostering his naval power, to prepare the means of its final subjugation, were soon to all appearance likely to be realised. The death of Mr Pitt dissolved the administration of which he was the head. His towering genius could ill bear a partner in power or rival in renown. Equals he had none-friends few; and with the exception of Lord Melville, whom the pending accusation had compelled to retire from government, perhaps no statesman had ever possessed his unreserved confidence. There were many men of ability and resolution in his cabinet, but none of weight sufficient to take the helm when it dropped from his hands; and when he sank into the grave, the ministry, which was supported by his single arm, fell to the earth. The King, indeed, who was aware of the danger of introducing a change of policy in the midst of a desperate conflict, and still retained a keen recollection of the humiliation to which he had been subjected in consequence of the India bill introduced by the Whigs in 1784, made an attempt to | and vehemence of declamation; and the continue the government in the hands vote against Lord Melville in the House of the same party, and immediately of Commons had shaken the opinion after Mr Pitt's death commissioned of numbers in the integrity of governLord Hawkesbury to form a new ad- ment, in that point where Mr Pitt's administration on the same basis. But ministration had hitherto been regarded that experienced and cautious states- as most pure. The Tories, it was said, man soon perceived that the attempt, are exhausted by perpetual service for at that period at least, was impossible, twenty years; the hopes of the state and the only use he made of his short- are to be found in the ranks of the lived power was the dubious one of Whigs; or, at all events, the time has accepting the wardenship of the Cinque now arrived when those absurd party Ports, which had been held by Mr distinctions should cease, and all true Pitt, and was the most lucrative sine- friends to their country, on whichever cure in the gift of the crown. This side of politics, must unite for the foroffice was pressed upon him by the mation of a liberal and extended adKing, and had undoubtedly been well ministration, on so broad a basis as to deserved by his faithful services, for bring its whole capacity to bear on the which he had hitherto declined any fortunes of the state during the perilous remuneration; but, being the sole act times which are evidently approaching. of a shortlived power, it was much A general wish, accordingly, was felt commented on, and gave rise to keen for the formation of a government and acrimonious discussions in both which should unite "all the talents" of houses of parliament under the suc- the nation, without regard to party disceeding administration. tinction-a natural wish at all times, and frequently indulged by the British people, but which has never led to any good result in the history of England. It never can do so, except in such a crisis of national danger as would have led the Romans to appoint a dictator, and as calls for the suspension of all difference in foreign or domestic policy for the warding off immediate danger, by which all are equally threatened. 3. Independently of the acknowledged weakness of the ministry after Mr Pitt ceased to sustain its fortunes, the state of public opinion rendered it extremely doubtful whether any new administration could command general support which was not founded on a coalition of parties, and a union of all the principal statesmen of the time, to uphold the fortunes of the state. The defeat of Austerlitz, and the consequent 4. Yielding, at length, though unexposure of Great Britain to the neces- willingly, and with sinister presentisity of maintaining the war single- ments, to the inclinations of the people handed against the forces of combined and the necessity of his situation, the Europe, had made a deep impression King, on the 26th January, sent a on the public mind. Many believed message to Lord Grenville, so long the some change of system to be necessary; firm supporter of Mr Pitt's foreign and the opinion was sensibly gaining administration, requesting his attendground, that, having unsuccessfully ance at Buckingham House, to confer made so many attempts to overthrow with his Majesty on the formation of the power of revolutionary France by a government. Lord Grenville sughostility, the time had now arrived gested Mr Fox as the person he should when it was not only expedient, but consult on the subject. The King, necessary, to try whether its forces though personally verse to that statesmight not be more effectually disarmed man, instantly saw the necessity of by pacific relations. Complaints against making his private feelings give way the abuses of government-some real, to the public good. "I thought so, some imaginary-during the conduct and I meant it so," replied the King: of so long and costly a war, had multi- and immediately the formation of an plied to a great degree. The Opposi- administration was intrusted to these tion journals had increased in number | two illustrious men. No time was lost |