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Letter from Mr. Canning to Mr. Ellis.'

'Downing Street, 13th July, 1797, or rather 14th, 2 A.M. 'MY DEAR GEORGE,-As usual I have kept you for the last, meaning to write you a very long letter, and to say to you whatever I had left unsaid to other people, and to say over again to you whatever I had said to them; and now I am so tired and exhausted that it is a wonder to me how much of these fine purposes I shall execute.

'I must tell you, because I have yet told nobody, not even "the Lion" himself, how much his despatch of yesterday is admired and approved, as well as the conduct which it describes. Nothing could be more able and judicious, the three points in Monday's conference would have staggered the most practised combatant. But "the Lion" seems to have received them all without flinching, and to have put them by as quietly as you see they have been put by in the despatch of today, where there is not a word said about them.

With regard to the title of King of France, I am inclined to agree with you, that if it is to be reasoned upon seriously we shall be beaten in the argument, and had best look out for the most fanciful and innocent renunciation. The chance in our favour is, I think, that this frivolous question may ultimately be overwhelmed in the greater considerations of the projet, and the commentary upon it, and that if a treaty is agreed upon, or nearly so, within a short space of time, you may, in the ardour of consummation, overleap all matters of form, and then tack on your old apologetical article at the end without much notice being taken. After all it is a grating thing-God knows, I feel it so; and which of us-that is, of "the Lion," you, and me, we might add Windham, but he is beyond us, we might add Jenksburg,3 I believe, and all told-which of us is there that does not feel it grating, to have to continue modes of concession, instead of enforcing the justice of demands? And were I writing to you on the 13th of last December instead of the present 13th of July, could I have thought with patience of renunciation and restitution, unaccompanied by cessions to balance and compensate them? But we cannot and must not disguise our situation from ourselves. If peace is to be had, we must have it; I firmly believe we must, and it is a belief which strengthens every day. When Windham says we must not, I ask him, "Can we have war?" It is out of the question, we have not the means-we have not, what is of all means the most essential, the mind. If we are not at peace, we shall be at nothing. It will be a rixa between us and our enemy, of pulsation on their side, and vapulation on ours. For my part, I adjourn my objects of honour and happiness for this country beyond the grave of our military and political consequence which you are now digging at Lisle. I believe in our resurrection, and find my only comfort in it.

1 Mr. Ellis continued to be attached to Lord Malmesbury's embassy.

2 The Lion' was a nickname by which his intimate friends called Lord Malmesbury, since some foreign newspaper had described him as resembling un lion blanc,' from his fine eyes and his profusion of white hair.

A nickname for Jenkinson, afterwards Lord Liverpool, and Prime Minister.

'But though I preach peace thus violently, do not imagine that I am ready to take any that you may offer. I think it clear, from the conferences that have yet passed, and from so much of the instructions of the French plenipotentiaries as has yet been made known to you, that there is no objection on their part to our stripping their allies, provided we do it with decency and moderation; and one of the characteristics is, that so as they get something, they care not much from whom. Give us, then, something to show as an acquisition-but remember (this is all that I intended by my shabby declamation two pages ago,) that what may be very splendid as an acquisition, would be very insufficient as a cause of quarrel. We can break off upon nothing but what will rouse us from sleep and stupidity into a new life and action— what "will create a soul under the ribs of death!" for we are now soulless and spiritless; and what would do this, except the defence of Portugal, (I believe that would,) or the preservation of our integrity, (our entireness, I would say,) I know not. All beyond this we shall like to have, but we never shall fight for it. I am persuaded, however, that we may yet have a good deal without fighting.

'I ought now to tell you something of what has been passing here since you left us. There is but one event, but that is an event for the world,-Burke is dead! How and when the will tell you. newspapers I know the details only from them. Mrs. Crewe, who was at Beaconsfield at the time, wrote only to say that she could not write to me; for he had among all his great qualities that-for which the world did not give him sufficient credit-of creating in those about him very strong attachments and affection, as well as the unbounded admiration which I, every day, am more and more convinced was his due. It is of a piece with the peddling sense of these days, that it should be determined to be imprudent for the House of Commons to vote him a monument. He is the man that will mark this age, marked as it is in itself, by events, to all time.

'But it grows very late, and I very tired—my hand, at least, though I have yet much to say, having in truth said nothing. Now for a few questions, and I have done.

"How is "the Lion's" health?

'What is your private life and conversation at Lisle? for I have heard nothing of it from nobody.

'Why does not Morpeth write, as well as the rest of you, in the despatches? Is he idle or is "the Lion" delicate ?-or is it chance?— or does he do something else for you that does not appear ?

'And now good night, dear George, and God bless you.-Ever yours,-G. C.'-Vol. iii. p. 399.

We may now proceed to the fourth volume, in which is contained a copious Diary, in which Lord Malmesbury, now an established political quidnunc, puts down whatever gossip came to his ears during the first few years of the present century.

1 Burke died July 8th, aged sixty-eight.

We think the experiment is far from successful, if it be designed to conduct to an accurate knowledge of past history; for the news of the day were so transitory, and the judgments passed upon them so uncertain and contradictory, that no page hardly of this Diary can be read by which the adjoining pages are not contradicted. We are led to prefer a narrative which has been formed on a general view of the event, to this series of contradictory conjectures. A well-known line describes the difficulty of making way through an encumbered country,

Πολλὰ δ ̓ ἄναντα, κάταντα, πάραυτά τε, δοχμιά τ ̓ ἦλθον.

One day Lord Malmesbury lauds Pitt to the skies; the next he is accused of meanness and party spirit; now Addington is supposed to be dealing fairly, next day his whole policy is sneaking and surreptitious. The other statesmen introduced are not much more fairly dealt with; their actions are not always stated rightly, and the notes of the Editor do not always set right what is erroneous. On the whole, however, we are impressed by the conviction that though Lord Malmesbury had learnt to estimate Pitt's talents better than when he went, sixteen years before, to the Hague, and though a strong personal regard had taken place of that dislike which was then excited by his reserved manner, yet that he was still far from appreciating the integrity of this high-souled man, and gave him credit for a wish to return to office in a somewhat underhand manner, of which Mr. Pitt was altogether incapable. This seems at the bottom of a most preposterous plot which was laid between Lord Malmesbury and Canning, (with the aid, we are told, of Lord Carlisle and Lord Granville Leveson, afterwards Lord Granville,) by which Addington was to be induced to resign by receiving an anonymous letter-'leaving his imagination to suppose signatures were more numerous and more tremendous than those you are sure of.'-Vol. iv. p. 104.

We will give one or two specimens of the political gossip of the day :

'Saturday, March 7, 1801. 10 P.M. 'From Pitt's letter, and from other circumstances and rumours, I now am confirmed in my ideas that Pitt wishes to remain at the head of administration; and that if he does, he will remain with less power, but with better and more sane judgment; and the acquiring the last, will, in my mind, amply balance the decrease of the first. He has discovered himself, from what has past, to have an overweening ambition, great and opinionative presumption, and perhaps not quite correct constitutional ideas with regard to the respect and attention due to the Crown. Possibly this is neither in his real character, nor even his real sentiments, but caused by listening to bad and silly advisers, and, above all, to an

uninterrupted course of political prosperity (as far as related to his personal administration), without a single check of adversity for nineteen years. But whatever may be the cause, he has lost much of his popularity, and of the public good opinion, from his conduct at this period; and if he retains office, he will find his followers much diminished, and by no means so inclined to vote implicitly with him as before.'—Vol. iv. p. 33.

All this is overturned in a letter from Canning, October 20, 1802. He says

'That Mr. Pitt told him that he went out not on the Catholic Question simply as a measure on which he was opposed, but from the manner in which he had been opposed, and to which, if he had assented, he would, as a minister, have been on a footing totally different from what he had ever before been in the Cabinet. This obliged him to resign; but as his sincere wish was, that his going out should neither distress the King nor the country, he had required no one to follow him. Those who did, did it voluntarily, regardless of his desire! . . . . It had been his anxious hope and endeavour to leave behind him such a ministry as would be most agreeable to his Majesty; who, in all great national points, would act as he had acted. It was to forward this, his favourite purpose, that he had pledged himself, but himself simply, to advise and support the present ministry.'

Then follow the notes of a personal conference.

'CANNING.-"Is not then the time arrived when you, Pitt, are called upon by the strongest and most paramount of all duties to come forward and resume your position?" PITT.-"I do not affect to deny it; I will not affect a childish modesty; but recollect what I have just said, I stand pledged: I make no scruple of owning that I am ambitious; but my ambition is character, not office.".... CANNING." I repeat, is it not your duty, after the sentiments which you have avowed, and the danger you admit the country to be in, to require this release from him (Addington)?" PITT.-"I cannot bring myself to do it. It is impossible to prevent its wearing the appearance of caballing and intriguing for power. I may be overfeeling about character." Vol. iv. pp. 75, 78.

Somewhat later we hear of the attempt made by Lord Melville to induce Mr. Pitt to engage as Addington's equal in the ministry; a story told with little variation in the Life of Wilberforce.

'Lord Melville came charged with a proposal from Addington for Pitt to resume office-Pitt and Addington to be the two Secretaries of State; Pitt to have the nomination to one Cabinet, and one Privy Councillor's office; an indifferent person to be First Lord of the Treasury. (It is thought Adddington had Lord Chatham in view for this, and had fixed particularly on him to embarrass Pitt). Lord Melville himself (probably) First Lord of the Admiralty.

'Pitt rejected this offer the moment it was made him: said, so far

from even listening to any plan in which the person who was to be the real and effective first minister was to be disguised or concealed, he thought it indispensable that it should at all times, and in every administration, be evident and manifest who this person was; and that he never would take part in any arrangement where this did not clearly appear. That this alone would have induced him to set aside the proposal he heard, but that it was inadmissible in every part, and not worth discussion."—Vol. iv. p. 177.

66

Wilberforce, speaking from Pitt's own account of the interview, as it appears, which Lord Malmesbury did not, adds,'Dundas saw it would not do, and stopped abruptly. Really," 'said Pitt, with a sly severity, and it was almost the only sharp thing I ever heard him say of any friend, "I had not the curiosity to ask what I was to be."'—Wilberforce's Life, vol. iii. p. 219.

'Lord Pelham acceded to all I said,-promised to mention it to Addington; but added, that whenever any one talked to him on subjects he did not understand, or was not used to, he always got rid of the subject, by telling some bon mot or dull joke of Halsell's, when he was Speaker. Vol. iv. p. 197.

Alas, for human reputation, that poor Hatsell's jokes should not only be voted dull, but that his Precedents should not suffice even to make his name known to the new race of statesmen !

Lord Malmesbury's early knowledge of Spain, from his official residence there, enabled him to detect some mistakes in our mode of supporting that country during its struggle with Napoleon.

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The character of the Spaniard is to let everything be done for him, if he finds any disposed to do it, and never to act till obliged to do so. This has appeared, and will appear in every event of the contest with France. Not foreseeing this, and placing an implicit confidence in the first two deputies who arrived from Gijon (in Asturias), we have, by wishing to do too much, injured the cause. I at once saw what they were. Materasa (a Viscount), a young, raw Asturian Hidalgo, and Don Diego de Vega, an Asturian attorney,-both, I dare say, well-meaning and well-thinking, but of no consequence. In fact, Asturias is a province that is of as little consequence with reference to the kingdom of Spain, as Glamorganshire is to England.'- Vol. iv. 407.

We cannot give the noble editor equal credit for 'seeing at once' the purport of another passage of his grandfather's journal, in which Spain is mentioned.

That Spain was completely subservient to France, and that Buonaparte should think the Spanish, by going to war with us, would be more useful for his purposes than the tribute he now received. This would happen.'-Vol. iv. p. 312.

We venture to amend, without professing that we have the

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